Thank you for the answer, Miss L Dutchess 🙂 Now I know, LOL

Well, seems to me that you did a good job confronting him. Problem is a whole lot of people, when confronted, become defensive and retaliate when confronted, no matter how wrong their initial behavior has been.

So, part of confronting a person is to do so in a calm way, using as neutral language as possible (while still delivering the message you have in mind) and then expect some defensiveness, expecting the confronted person to reject your message or get upset with you, or sadly, become somewhat punitive like your mother.

Talking about mothers, mine was punitive as well and I too- as an adult- feared confronting people. So, I kept things inside, angry, and sometimes I would over confront. And I found out that other people in my life were not even close to how punitive my mother has been, so my fear was more than what reality proved to be with other people.

Does any of this resonate?