Yes - sometimes dealing with people is just like banging your head up against the wall. It doesn't matter how compassionate or composed you are, it's not going to stop them whinging about something or everything. I think some people just love misery. In which case, I try not to engage with them. You could turn it into a reward system - I ignore you when you're whinging or saying negative things. When you say positive things, I engage with you (though you don't say this of course ). I used to always disagree with my brothers first wife - we could see eye-to-eye on nothing and it did my head in. In the end, I just talked about the weather or innocuous stuff like that and disengaged everytime it got into something I had issues with. If someone wants to behave like a victim, it doesn't mean I have to behave like an abuser. That's their life path to walk down and i wish them luck with it. Put it down to a cultural differences and let it go, if you can.

What's that saying Dr Phil has? "And how does that work for you?" classic

Sorry if that didn't make sense - bit vague today