I feel a heightened sense of anxiety when he talks this way, but I also know that there is nothing I can do to dissuade him, because we have had these conversations many, many times. I will not aid him but I cannot stop him – that is not my right, nor is it an option he gives me. I count it a privilege that he feels he can talk to me and I will not interfere, just allow him to rehearse his rhetoric, testing how comfortable and reasonable it sounds, to both himself and others.
