My boyfriend keeps using my belongings without permission

[kimbea39]

I have been letting my boyfriend use my lawn mower and yard tools for 2 summers now. His lawn mower broke in 2009. After that he started using my lawn mower to cut his yard. During 2010 he continued using my lawn mower to cut his yard. Now it is a new year and he is still using my lawn mower to cut his yard.

He just recently became employed again after being unemployed for 1 1/2 years. Now that he can afford to fix his own lawn mower, I asked him if he would fix it. He ignores my wishes and continues to use my lawn mower.

Most of the time he has been cutting my yard with my lawn mower in exchange for a bottle of liquor or a 6 pack of beer. Each time he has cut my grass, he has always volunteered to cut it. Then he tells me he wants me to buy him either beer or liquor. I have never asked him to cut my grass. It is his way to get beer or liquor without him buying it.

Just 2 weeks ago I bought a new lawn mower. Now he is using it. I asked him to fix his own lawn mower. He told his parents about it and him and his parents feel that I am wrong by not letting him use my lawn mower whenever he wants to use it if he is cutting my grass for me. He said that they understand that I am buying him beer or liquor, but they still feel that I should let him use my lawn mower for free.

Am I being selfish by not wanting him to use my lawn mower?

Should he fix his own?

What is a fair deal if he volunteers to cut my yard in exchange for beer or liquor?

I don't mind letting him use it sometimes, but not all the time for 2 years and more.

Kim

[heartofagopi]

If you want Ketchup on your fries and the fast food drive thru guy does not give you Ketchup....what do you do?

If you leave your house and every morning of every day your neighbor is sitting on your front steps reading her newspaper....what do you say?

If a man is kissing you good night and then starts to touch parts of your body that you do not feel comfortable to have him touch.....how do you respond?

YOUR response is instinctual...its a feeling. You feel the feeling

1) I like kechup and I want it. I don't want these fries plain.

2)I want to decide who I invite on my steps. Its my property.

3) I don't feel good when this man touches me. I want him to stop NOW.

After the feeling from your healthy boundary signals you with a few words to help you understand the feeling.....then you have words like: I want...I need...please Stop....and NO!

If you Don't react to those feelings again and again....then...you break down the coordination between instinct and action.

Ultimately....you are then not safe....you have compromised your boundary too many times and no longer can feel or articulate what you really want. People, like your boyfriends parents, then see a boundary hole and enmesh themselves in your boundary. They invade and take over and try to tell you what you "should" think!

Sooner or later...if thinks get irritable enough....you get angry and you find words in a jiffy...but those words, though they be truth, may be cruel versus the more polite way you could have managed the situation in the earlier days.

Being passive about this lawn mower issue has nothing to do with lawn mowers. Find the truthful feeling you feel and speak it out! You CAN and do have a right to speak what you feel and you CAN do it without anger.

Dr Pauls course ' The Mind OS program" would be ideal for you!!

Heart