We Live What We Tolerate

In looking back at my life, I can see now I tolerated way too much poor and even abusive behavior. From my own mother (sadly) to my ex husband (was married 25 years).I now am very aware of what I won't tolerate and have pretty clear boundries in my relationships today with family, friends, co workers. We do live what we tolerate and there are things we should never tolerate in any relationship.
I can't agree with you more. The older I get, the more I realize that I do NOT have to accept certain behaviors or personalities in my life that have affected me negatively in the past. I have been made to feel crazy by being disregarded when identifying patterns of behavior in others such as "I have learned from the past and it isnt happening now so why are you upset?" The past was yesterday (litterally, not figuratively) and it's not happening now because there hasn't been a chance since yesterday! Ugh.

I've learned not engage any more. I see the patterns. I know what is coming and I wont tolerate it again. I've spoken my peace and have made my boundaries clear. But the biggest part is I follow thru on my actions when my boundaries have been violated. They know that now. And it has brought me some peace.
Absolutely correct.

It's not enabling but not making break or tolerating bad behavior will help validate it. So if the abuser doesn't get any feedback they'll assume they're doing nothing wrong or you don't care. I've seen a parent do that and their adult child ran all over them for decades including showing up drunk anytime they felt like it, living like a slop in their house and stick the parent for 10s of thousands of dollars in loans among other things.
Our son doesn't speak to us because we won't give him money for frivolous adventures such as buying and towing junk RV's to fix up and resell. We did this once and got stuck for $2800 by UHaul because he towed an RV that was overweight and damaged their equipment.

He blames us for his way in life and everything is always someone else's fault--he never takes responsibility! We don't enable him anymore but fell like he is beyond changing! At this point as elderly parents (he is 47) we have let go and let God. Sad ending because we have 5 others that have been successful in their lives and I think he knows he can't achieve or change at this late stage in his life! Even if he were to want to change his health is not good and his teeth are gone and he is depressed. He used to be a model for Harley Davidson and a prominent cologne company.

We had to separate from his toxic life in order to save ours.

Lori
I had a therapist one time tell me "sometimes you have to let people sit in their own dirty diaper".