Choice Thief behaviours in terms of parts types and language.

Choice Thief - a Manager or a Firefighter?

Here's a breakdown of the Choice Thief behaviours into Manager and Firefighter categories. This distinction often relates to a person's approach to problem-solving and decision-making within a dynamic, or stressful, environment.

Manager Behaviors

Manager behaviours are typically proactive, strategic, and focused on control and long-term planning. A person exhibiting these behaviours seeks to maintain order and structure, often viewing things from a top-down perspective.

• Making unilateral decisions after a mutual agreement: This behaviour is about asserting control and authority, overriding a previously agreed-upon process to get a desired outcome. The person acts as the sole decision-maker.

• Dominating the narrative of what’s “reasonable” or “normal”: This is an attempt to control the social and emotional norms of a relationship. By defining what is "reasonable," the person maintains control over the emotional landscape.

• Flipping the script when called out: This behaviour is a strategic deflection. Instead of addressing the issue, the person changes the focus to the other person's actions, re-establishing their position of control.

• Nit-picking details, justifying the boundary breach, or appealing to logic to override emotional boundaries: This is a calculated, logical approach to dismiss emotional concerns. By focusing on technicalities, the person attempts to manage the situation by controlling the facts and the definition of a problem.

• Changing the rules after the fact and pretending it was always this way: This is a form of revisionist management. The person changes the rules to suit their current needs and then attempts to enforce them as if they were always in place, maintaining an illusion of control.

• Using spirituality, therapy language, or inner work to justify selfish behaviour: This is a sophisticated form of control. The person uses elevated, seemingly "expert" language to justify their choices, positioning themselves as a higher authority on what's right for the relationship.

• Withholding key information that impacts the other person’s choices: This is a power play. By controlling access to information, the person controls the other person's ability to make informed decisions, essentially managing their reality.

Firefighter Behaviors

Firefighter behaviours are reactive, impulsive, and focused on extinguishing immediate threats or discomfort. A person exhibiting these behaviours is often driven by a need to avoid pain, conflict, or negative emotions in the moment, regardless of the long-term consequences.

• Pulling DARVO, going silent, disappearing, or withdrawing when accountability is requested: These are immediate, reactive actions to avoid a perceived threat—in this case, accountability. The person is trying to "escape the fire" of confrontation. DARVO is Denying Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.

  
  

• Shaming or mocking someone for needing clarity, boundaries, or consistency: This behavior is a quick strike against a perceived threat (the other person's boundaries). The person reacts by shaming to immediately shut down the conversation and the other person's needs.

  
  

• Repeatedly violating boundaries and apologizing without changing the choice thief behavior: The apology here is an immediate "fix" to a problem. It's a quick and easy way to de-escalate the conflict without doing the real work, which would be to change the behavior itself.

  
  

• Using overwhelm or stress as an excuse to bypass agreements: This is a direct reaction to a perceived high-stress situation. The person "breaks the glass" of their agreements to deal with the immediate pressure, rather than managing the situation in a planned way.

  
  

• Dismissing the impact of the choice thief behavior: This is a reactive minimization tactic. The person's immediate need is to reduce their own guilt or responsibility, so they downplay the other person's feelings and the impact of their actions.

  
  

• Playing dumb or helpless to avoid responsibility: This is a quick and simple way to dodge accountability. By acting incompetently, the person avoids the immediate discomfort of admitting fault and facing consequences.

  
  

• Using performative apology or expressions of vulnerability, while still justifying the betraying choice: This is an attempt to have it both ways. The person performs a show of vulnerability to diffuse the immediate tension while still protecting their ego and avoiding genuine ownership.

  
  

• Treating someone’s “yes” as permanent rather than conditional or revocable: This is a form of short-sighted thinking that prioritises the immediate comfort of a previous agreement over the current reality. It avoids the need to check in and have a potentially difficult conversation about consent.

If you recognise these behaviours in yourself or others, remember they are Protector behaviours, used to guard against emotions. If you are in a relationship where these are showing up, you or your partner is in pain. Also know that their parts' actions may highly activate your parts' behaviour.

Imagine being with your parts and your partner being with theirs. Each of you is speaking for your part, not being run by your part's activation.

It takes courage to try something new, so I suggest a few individual sessions first.

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