The Rosie and Roula Show

227: What To Do When the People You Trust Weaponise Your Vulnerability

• Roula Abou Haidar and Rosie Burrows

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What do you do when someone you trust uses your vulnerability against you?

In this episode, Roula opens up a deeply relatable conversation about what happens when personal things you’ve shared in confidence get thrown back at you during arguments. Not out of cruelty, but in the heat of the moment. Rosie and Roula explore the tension between wanting to maintain an important relationship and needing to protect yourself from being hurt again.

They talk about the grief that comes with changing how much you share, the difference between values and approaches, and why some topics are better left untouched when fundamental beliefs clash. The conversation moves into boundaries, repair versus blame, and how taking responsibility for your own part doesn’t mean excusing harmful behaviour.

This episode is about clarity, emotional safety, and learning how to keep people in your life without sacrificing yourself in the process.

Have you ever stopped sharing parts of yourself to protect a relationship, and did it help or change things for the better?

Topics Covered:

  • When trust is used as a weapon
  •  Confiding in people who throw it back at you
  •  The grief of changing a close relationship
  •  Boundaries versus cutting people off
  •  Heat-of-the-moment behaviour and accountability
  •  Fundamental value clashes
  •  Protecting yourself without burning bridges

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Rosie (00:00)
Roula we ended the last episode. I brought something up and you went, no Rosie, that's my topic for the next episode. So are you ready?

Roula (00:07)
indeed, you mentioned in the previous episode when someone does something good and then one day you have an argument and they bring it back like, I do this for you and you're ungrateful while you didn't ask for this thing, these things, but you still. My topic is this idea, but also another idea or another experience that I have with, with specifically one person.

Rosie (00:19)
Mm.

huh.

Roula (00:33)
Not with everybody. Someone I confide, I'm supposed to trust because I, this person I know in my life, it's part of me and I confide in this person and tell personal things or brainstorm on problem resolutions. ⁓ and then when there is an argument or disagreement, they use the things I confide in them.

Rosie (00:40)
huh.

Roula (01:03)
against me. And then they, for example, tell me how badly I approached the situation and how awful I acted. And I should look at my behavior first because I did this and this and that and remember when. And then I think, why did I trust this person? I know that this person will use this thing against me, but somehow in our relationship, the trust

Rosie (01:13)
Gosh.

Mmm.

Roula (01:32)
feel like it's it's un how do you say it in English like you cannot run away from it you cannot not trust this person

and this have two faces, the one when you confide and it's the same person that behave the same way. If I confide, they turn it against me. And if they do something good for me that I didn't ask for, they also turn it against me. And I'm not saying I'm not making this episode about me, I'm making it in general and you know, but it's my experience, of course, bringing it here today.

Rosie (02:11)
UGH!

You sure about that?

Roula (02:21)
The topic that I, the subject that I want to talk about today is what happens or how should we react when you are in a supposedly safe relationship with someone who use things against you because they are in the heat of the moment, not because they're bad, not because they have the intention to hurt you, just because they are in the heat of the moment.

Rosie (02:48)
⁓ well, yeah, if, if you're going to continue to keep this person in your life, I feel like that's something that has to be discussed. Like you need to stop doing this. It's just so hurtful. Whether you're in the heat of the moment or not, you need to take a good hard look at yourself because that really hurt me. I confided in you. I was vulnerable and you have now decided to.

Yeah, use that against me. Like that's horrible. And you just said, you know, they're not a bad person, but the behavior that's, that is yuck. That's, that's awful.

Roula (03:24)
Hmm.

Rosie (03:24)
So

they must do enough good things for you to go, okay, I still want them.

Roula (03:31)
Yes, of course, because when they're not doing anything good, yeah, boundaries and stepping out of the relationship is the best decision. But when they do a lot of good, they're important person in your life. But just on that level, they're so stuck in wanting to hurt you back.

Rosie (03:31)
Still want them.

Mm.

Yeah. Yeah. So why do you choose

to keep, I know we said we're not talking about you, but we kind of are. Why do you choose to keep confiding in this person if they keep doing this and it hurts you and upsets you?

Roula (04:07)
I think that the point that I'm now bringing this up in an episode is giving me also clarity is because I'm having clarity in my mind is that I should practice to maintain this relationship without having to confide in them on anything.

Rosie (04:18)
Yeah.

Right. Right, yeah.

Roula (04:32)
I don't confide also on anything, on everything, because I know what are the things I can talk about and not, because I know this person one day they will come and use it against me. But I can't keep calculating everything because sometimes I do need to share this information with that person. And now I feel the clarity that even this information, I don't need to share it.

Rosie (04:42)
Hmm

Yeah.

Mmm.

Yeah, so it's like a moment of reflection of, well, how's this relationship going to look moving forward? Because that's not sustainable, is it? Them bringing these up against you, that's, yeah. And then it could turn into a really horrible argument because you just reach your limit and go, fuck this, see you later, I don't want you in my life. When actually you've said this person's really important to you, it's just this particular thing they do that is not okay.

Roula (05:06)
No.

It's not.

Absolutely. Absolutely. It's going to be a lot of regret if I say I don't want to see this person in my life. as much as, ⁓ how can I say it, as much as I feel that confiding should stop, I do think this will change the relationship drastically because I feel that I have less and less things to share in our conversation with that person.

Rosie (05:30)
Mmm.

And there must be a bit of sadness around that too. It's like grieving the relationship maybe that you wanted. If you're no longer going to confide those things, it looks very different.

Roula (05:55)
You know what I mean?

In this specific situation, ⁓ yes, definitely I'll be grieving, even though I know that what I learned from this is sometimes when two persons are very different, it gives a great perspective to talk about stuff because we're two different persons, we have different approaches, et cetera. But when the two persons are different on very principle topics,

Rosie (06:19)
Mm-hmm

Yes, yes.

Roula (06:37)
that form your personality, then this perspective, there is no perspective anymore, there is a conflict.

Rosie (06:46)
It's almost like those underlying values. There needs to be some common ground,

Roula (06:50)
Shh.

maybe also the values are the same. The approach is different. The beliefs are different. We have the same values. We want the same end result. But everything in between is contradictory.

Rosie (07:03)
Yes. So different.

⁓ it's so hard. Okay.

Roula (07:10)
And that makes

it difficult to get rid of such a relationship.

Rosie (07:16)
Yeah. Okay. So for those of us, okay, there's probably heaps of people who, who can relate to this. So what is your advice after your week of reflection? How then do we move forward? We keep this person in our life, but we surely something has to change so that you don't keep getting hurt, which is going to jeopardize the relationship. So what's the advice ruler?

Roula (07:43)
What I'm going to do, and that could be an insight, I'm taking my time to think of what I want to say to this person, because I don't want to have another argument. And at the same time, I don't want to start the conversation with what's hurting me. I want to think and reflect, how did I hurt them?

Rosie (07:46)
This could be what others do. Okay, yeah.

Mmm.

Roula (08:13)
so that they can beck at me this way.

Because I have said something that they were not ready to hear. And I did not ask, do you want to hear my opinion? And I also didn't want to say, so now I'm taking responsibility for what I did. I didn't say, you sharing to vent or do you want my opinion? What I did, because the fundamental actions are so contradictory between us,

Rosie (08:26)
Ha

Mmm.

Roula (08:48)
I, my pain or my trauma or whatever hit on that topic so hard that I gave my opinion without being asked for. And I think this triggered this person to throw those things back at me.

Rosie (09:04)
So you are focusing on what you can do to, I guess, control or mitigate that situation happening again.

Roula (09:10)
To repair! I want

to repair!

Rosie (09:14)
And so do you expect anything of them or are you taking all the accountability?

Roula (09:17)
No,

no, no, I'm not taking all the accountability. No, I am. I want to make a repair, but I want also to make clear these fundamentals. I'm going to name them the fundamental contradictory actions we have between us. These fundamental things are so big that we better not talk about them or open any topic that involves them.

Rosie (09:45)
Yeah. Wow.

Roula (09:47)
because I

will not change my mind and they will not change their mind. It's a very fundamental thing that we're arguing about. You know, for example, I to give to give an example in raising children. I strongly believe that we need to let them go when they turn 20, 22, 23 from on, we need to let them go, even if they made a mistake, even if they're broke.

Rosie (09:54)
Mmm, mmm.

Roula (10:16)
They need to learn. They need to be responsible for that. So as a parent, it will break my heart, but I should not fix it or save them. While the other person want to save and fix so that they avoid the grown-up children to be in trouble. This fundamental thing is.

Rosie (10:21)
Mm.

Yeah. Yeah,

that's a big difference, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, big time.

Roula (10:39)
Yeah. And

when things are this big, and I gave this example because it's good to imagine what kind of fundamental disagreements are these. helps. And so, for example, let's take this as the topic. I don't want anymore to know how that person is saving their grown-up children. Their adult children.

Rosie (10:48)
Yet helps that example helps. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Roula (11:05)
because

I don't believe a parent should continue saving their adult children.

Rosie (11:08)
Right. It triggers you and

then if you respond to what they're saying, it triggers them and then disaster. What a mature way to deal with it. Can I just say?

Roula (11:13)
That's the thing. Yes.

Excuse me, can you repeat?

Rosie (11:21)
I said, what a mature way to deal with the situation. Like you've just given an answer that's not emotional. It's like, well, I did this. I know that we're just always, always going to believe differently about parenting styles. So actually let's just not talk about that. We know what's going to end in an argument and people getting hurt. So let's not do that. I think that's it.

Roula (11:42)
Yes,

true. And I hope that different kinds of conversations will come up. Nicer ones, different types of conversations. And if they don't, then that's okay too.

Rosie (11:50)
Yeah, nicer ones. Yeah.

And it probably depends on who this person is, that your relationship with them. Like if this is your spouse, that's a problem if you can't talk about parenting, right? But if it's, yeah, right? So yeah, it depends who this person is in your life and okay, is this a deal breaker or can we maintain the relationship and just change what it looks like?

Roula (12:06)
Oh, that's a divorce.

Yes, absolutely. Like having a babysitter at home who does not use the same parenting method as you do.

Rosie (12:28)
⁓ yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Roula (12:31)
then no matter how sweet and kind and trustworthy this person, you can't continue the relationship with this babysitter, the work relationship, because they have different values on raising kids than you do. And that's okay too.

Rosie (12:45)
Wow, yeah,

that's a hard stance, yeah. I think a lot of people, God, this conversation is going in so many directions, but I think a lot of parents, if they have a relationship with the, what am I saying? The grandparents, right? If you take your kids to your parents to look after the kids, there's often differences and clashes in parenting styles and what they believe. But in that situation, you're not firing your parents.

Well, most of the time not. Some people, yes, it gets to that point.

Roula (13:18)
But there is tension and there is arguments between the grandparents and the parents we all want to raise our kids like we think we want to raise them. And that's OK. Until we discover it wasn't the right way. Years of therapy helped me on this. But the thing is, what the example you gave is so good. ⁓

Rosie (13:20)
Yeah.

And our way is the right way. Yeah.

Hahaha!

Roula (13:43)
I think also, just like I'm going to have this conversation with that person, parents and grandparents, before the grandparents start babysitting or looking after the kids, we should have these conversations. My daughter and I know exactly what are the things she absolutely doesn't want me to do with her kids. And I already know the things that I absolutely tell her, I will take the kids from you if you do this and that. So we talk.

Rosie (13:52)
Mm.

Mmm.

Wow, you've already had these conversations

and she doesn't have kids. Yeah. Wow.

Roula (14:13)
Yes, yes,

and she doesn't have to. And I decided for myself, if this differences are going to be very big once she has children, I'm going to move and live somewhere else. I don't have to look after the children. I see them, you know, but I don't have to be the grandma who's every once a week looking after the kids. And I don't want to be this. I want to be their grandmother and the one the safe place they come to when they need. I don't want to be looking after them and raising them.

Rosie (14:25)
Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Roula (14:43)
No, I leave this to the parents and the daycare to the professionals.

Rosie (14:49)
It's It's clear. Yeah. I mean, that's what it comes down to, isn't it? Clear boundaries. I think that underlies this whole conversation.

Roula (14:57)
Yes, we take grandparents for granted too. We say, yeah, it's only natural grandparents. They love to spend time with the kids. It keeps them young. It keeps them healthy. It has a lot of benefits of looking after our grandchildren. But we forget that this is also their valuable time, that they're doing it for free. And yes, they're your parents and they love you, or their parents and they love me. But we're taking them for granted.

Rosie (14:58)
Mm.

Right.

Roula (15:25)
Because they could be doing something else on this free day. They choose.

Rosie (15:28)
Yeah,

they might not want to look after your kids. They just spent how many years raising you? Yeah.

Roula (15:33)
Yeah. And even if

they want to, there is a taboo on this because grandparents cannot say no, then you're seen as a bad grandparents. That's another topic, Rosie. We're not going to go into this today.

Rosie (15:43)
you

There's so many bloody topics. Holy Dooley. Wow.

Well, let us know listeners. Do you have someone in your life who you confide in and they bring these things up to use them against you in the heat of the moment?

Roula (16:03)
How do you feel when they do this?

Rosie (16:05)
Yes, yes, and how have you dealt with it in the past or how are you dealing with it at the moment?

Roula (16:12)
Yes, we're with you, we support you and we can brainstorm with you on approaches. Love you. Hold on, this is a terrible heart. This is a better heart. Look at your young hands and my older hands. That's so funny. Bye.

Rosie (16:13)
Hmm

We're doing love hearts, there we go, the millennial heart.