I agree. It is my advice to people in similar situations that at the point a relationship with a coworker sours, move to a medium that allows lots of documentat

I agree. It is my advice to people in similar situations that at the point a relationship with a coworker sours, move to a medium that allows lots of documentation and stay extra civil. Try to invite a third party to all your meetings and move as much communication as possible to messaging or email. At a previous job I had a product manager that was trying to get me fired because I was refusing to work on some "high priority" projects where we were being dictated the scope and timeline. My team, for some reason, was absolutely craven. They just let me take the heat and then in private conversations thank me for speaking up. Our PM was new and it was easier to put pressure on us than tell some VP their pet project wasn't getting done. The relationship between both of us went extremely south. When my PM complained, both of our bosses got sucked into a meeting about me. I was able to respond with plenty of documentation as well as coworker testimony that cleared me of doing anything wrong. Even though I had actual resentment of this person, it was never displayed. It's clear to me that my PM looked bad by badmouthing me to coworkers, and communicating to me in emotionally aggressive ways. I think OP is making a political mistake by showing emotional outbursts. It makes it too easy to discredit the substance of their argument as simply being a personal issue.