he really seems to get his needs met by provoking me and looking for a reaction

[Think About It...]

so incrediably hard not to react as the provocations come at unexpected times and catch me off guard. when he provokes and i respond with saying something mean. he uses what i say as a reason why i am unsage and he cant be near me.. he forgets he started it. i rarely if ever would say a think to him if he didnt provoke me in a very mean way. its almost as if i am being tested. whats this about? similiar to a kid who misbehaves to see if mommy still likes him? because when i respond as an adult with disapproval it really sets him off. then he withdrwals for very very long periods of time. just trying to understand it. and is it BPD ish?

[sometimesnow]

so incrediably hard not to react as the provocations come at unexpected times and catch me off guard. when he provokes and i respond with saying something mean. he uses what i say as a reason why i am unsage and he cant be near me.. he forgets he started it. i rarely if ever would say a think to him if he didnt provoke me in a very mean way. its almost as if i am being tested. whats this about? similiar to a kid who misbehaves to see if mommy still likes him? because when i respond as an adult with disapproval it really sets him off. then he withdrwals for very very long periods of time. just trying to understand it. and is it BPD ish?

[LoveNotWar]

Oh yes...that's total BPDish. And you are right, if you respond by defending yourself or attacking him it will only escalate his BPDish behavior. 

Maybe it's that push/pull stuff I've seen on these boards. He picks an argument to push you away when the intimacy gets uncomfortable? ...I don't know really, I'm still trying to figure it out.   

But I do know the tools work. I love the strategy about not justifying, attacking, defending or explaining (JADE). When I hear myself attacking or defending I try to stop, sometimes in mid syllable, and if I can I validate instead.

If I can't validate I take a time out.

I'll admit sometimes I blow it, it is HARD to be constantly mindful, but the results are worth it if I can pull it off.   

[committed]

My daughters do this to each other as well...nothing serious, just normal kid stuff trying to provoke the other one. When one of them comes to me, I keep trying to get them to understand the concept of the person just wanting a reaction, and if you don't give it them, they will stop. I use this example:

Remember how we used to blow in our dog's face when playing with him because it was funny to watch him shake his head and bark at us. If we blew in the dog's face and he didn't react and just sat there and looked at us like we were idiots, we'd probably quit blowing in his face because it's no longer fun. That seemed to help my youngest one understand the concept a little better.

It really applies to us too...if we can just let them make their comments and let it roll off our backs, it will keep things from escalating. Hard to do...I know...

And, no I'm not an animal abuser...don't call PETA on me...please! 

[CodependentHusband]

Yes... It is hard to turn the other cheek. The thing is though, that as nons, we are capable of doing it, and the pwBPD truly is disabled. With that said, they can be conditioned to pick fights less often, but it takes persistence and consistency on the part of the non. My wife still tries to do it, but it's a lot less often now. I know it's hard!

[JustSaying]

when he provokes and i respond with saying something mean

In lots of dv cases, the one party will say they only hit the other party because they made them mad. So it's the other party's fault. My X did this in court. L asked why she left vile notes around the house and she said, "Because he made me mad."

That's no excuse. You could stop this dead in its tracks. No matter what he says, there's no reason to respond with meanness. Doing so continues the cycle of dysfunction.

With any personal therapy you're doing, or with the Al-Anon meetings, perhaps explore other, healthy reactions you could have instead of meanness when he provokes. My own reaction was to shut up and play rope-a-dope awhile (let her vent), and then turn heel and walk away without saying anything. No eye rolls, no huffiness, no hitting anything, no attitude...just walk away and do something else. Put a bubble around myself and decided that a disordered person didn't have the power to make me feel bad about myself.

But under no condition can you use his provoking comments as an excuse for your own acts of meanness. Take responsibility for what comes from your mouth.

[isilme]

The actual timing and order of comments does not matter usually to a pwBPD.

If he is angry and wants a fight, he will 'reverse-engineer' one to get his feelings out.  I have been on the receiving end of fights that my BF wants to have with his boss, but since he can't he picks a fight with me, later, and then ends up accusing me of everything he's mad about with her. 

So if he picks at me, and I end up snapping back, he then tells me he was in a great mood until I was b!tchy to him, and then tells me I'd been that way for days (but can't tell me how or in what way).  So my snapping at him, in his mind, justifies his original anger, even though HE started it.  His feelings  =  facts.  So if he's mad, and it can't be his own fault he's mad, it MUST be MY fault.  So he will make it my fault however he can, no matter the timeline of actual events.

This is one reason we're told to do our best not to engage, and to take breaks before things get ugly.  It keeps us from having to exert constant emotional control to NOT snap back, and if we are out, the pwBPD has to find another way to deal with his/her emotions without using us as a venting tool. 

[artman.1]

WOW!  This one hit me in the Face.  My UBPDW is frequently using a method to attempt to provoke me.  I have stopped allowing this to work using several different methods.  She will accuse me of thinking something is funny that results in her being a victim.  Rather than denying that I feel it is funny, I usually just ignore it.  A few times she does this in front of others and I fein no recollection, and ask her to explain when and where I thought this was funny.  That usually catches her off gard and she stops.  She was just baiting me for a rage, and I am able to not internalize this as I wish.  Who cares anyway. 
     I have thought about saying, "WOW!  That is funny."    I think that would be a very bad Idea, and have not done that answer.  (I just had to throw a little humer in!)

     Art

[momtario]

My uNPDh did this for a really long time- it's the one place where I can honestly say I have been successful at getting up and leaving the room, every single time.

He mostly would do things to try to bait any male friends into daring to "come to my rescue" because obviously if they thought he should be respecting me, I was having an affair with them. 

It is difficult not to respond when anyone, especially a disordered person, does this kind of baiting with you, but it's a great place to start practising protecting your values with boundaries. Just walk away, as soon as it starts, and think in your head "I'm not playing, because the only way to 'win' is not to play the game."

It does work.

[moonunit]

i usually get the projected anger when someone ticks off my SO and she cannot respond to them directly. Quite often her brother drops by her house and throws a few zingers at her, she will not respond to him directly. She will call me all pissed off and then nitpick some little thing and then direct all that anger she has towards her brother  to me. I see this happening with her kids/friends/anyone, she usually internalizes her anger then releases it towards me and tries to blame me for doing something wrong, quite often she will bring up old wounds during this time, which in her mind now justifys her putting the blame on me.
I am trying to move the blame/anger back to her, not that easy for me to do as i am enmeshed and co-dependant, those traits of mine make what seems to be a straight forward solution a bit more difficult.
Will keep on trying though.     

[yeeter]

A long time ago my wife made a comment to me about what men want, that I now realize was pure reflection.

Her comment was that men just wanted attention.  And that they didnt care whether it was good, or bad, or whatever... as long as they were getting attention (at the time I thought... huh?  men generally dont like the drama).

Now I have decided that it was mostly reflection.  My wife likes attention.  And she will create some drama to get it (bait is a good term).  Hence, just stir things up to get emotional reactions and suck others into channeling their energy to her.

Im getting better at not playing. 

[moonunit]

yeeter, i think the attention piece is very revelant to my SO, she does things or says things to draw attention to her, good or bad, it doesn't seem to matter, any attention is better than none at all. My SO is very beautiful and gets compliments on her looks all the time and no-one would suspect she is so insecure, she puts up a good front.
She acts as though every encounter is a competition for her attention, even with her daughter, a few yrs ago when her d was 3 she would say to me, why do you pay more attention to her and not more to me, your a freak. All in way for me to pay less attention to her daughter and focus more on her, didn't understand it then, makes sense to me now though. Very odd indeed.   

[lastwave]

 Hi! Moonunit

i think the attention piece is very revelant to my SO, she does things or says things to draw attention to her, good or bad, it doesn't seem to matter, any attention is better than none at all

I completely agree that gaining attention is the biggest piece motivating the BPD/NPD's behavior. Right now my Friend BPD/NPD's is trying to pull me into an argument because she is interested in a new source of attention..if we argue then she can gain more attention from him and even feel good about the negative attention she would get from me if I let her engage me in this argument.
Both the BPD/NPD's crave attention---the BPD will run fast and far when the attention gets too smothering or the attention giver makes demands for intimacy. The NPD will soak all the attention available and when that attention begins to slide just a little then the NPD will begin looking for a new source of attention supply.  Both the BPD/NPD's will recycle old attention givers eventually.

[RKV]

Ditto with pretty much every post here. Honestly what's most disturbing to me is when I realize that is that I'm having a disagreement/argument with a pwBPD but they're having the argument with someone else.

I made a thread a few months ago about a blowup fight I had with my sister and now I'm certain that she was taking out frustration from her on again off again ex (who himself is like the DSM-incarnate) on me. And if her negative pleas for attention or baiting for a negative reaction from me doesn't work...then I get the constant invitations for pity parties over things I'm pretty sure a fabricated or embellished.

This ex of hers I mentioned earlier has apparently jut threatened to kill her. Honestly...yeah that's something he would say, because he's psychotic. But she made a point to warn me about phonecalls from weird numbers or to watch out for a particular type of car and that if we get a call that asks for her I'm supposed to say she isn't here.
The thing is...he lives 2 hours away from her current address, has no knowledge of her current home address or phone number and we have an answering machine that 95% of phonecalls get filtered through anyways. My response was just "how about I don't answer the phone from weird numbers period? We have an answering machine" So why tell me any of this? He's always the one that ends up initiating the breakups and has a rotating cast of women with low-self esteem to call up any time. You could say "Well that's still something to take seriously" and yes that's true except she doesn't. A few days earlier she mentioned something about "if you see a [model/color] car tell the person I'm not here." Not something like hey my ex threatened to murder me. But she just wanted me to get concerned/scared and ask why and when I didn't and just said a flat "ok" there was no more elaboration.

sorry, that got ranty.

[real lady]

What an interesting and helpful thread.

My BPDh seems to bait me, unknowingly, into "questioning him"; the "reverse engineering" that isilme said seems to fit with me also.

I am to the point of NOT sharing any opinions.
NOT asking questions that clarify what he is saying.
NOT taking part in provoked or requested "help" in an issue.
NOT starting a conversation that brings in any 3rd party.
NOT engaging in his "stories" (and he has many) like the one he brought home last night about a family issue, etc. I had NO comment on it and the "funny" thing is, I don't think he WANTS any comment from me.

Sometimes I think that they "want to be heard" because they were discounted so much by FOO that "just sitting and listening" is validating and affirming to him. Adding "me" into the mix only muddles up and I think, overwhelms him...

Yes, I agree with the OP...I think he HAS tried to provoke a "fight"...many times he says "Oh, you are trying to start a fight"...and then I tell him, I am "not talking about this anymore" and I STOP talking. Funny thing is, he continues to "argue with himself" and even "speaks for me" I just look and him and say NOTHING. I call a time out when I see that he is escalating.

We need to take good care of ourselves as Non-PDs; our BPDs don't know how to take care of themselves and CANNNOT (be trusted) take care of us.    

[JustSaying]

"just sitting and listening" is validating and affirming to him

One time I ran a little experiment. X came to my in-house office and started ranting about something. Since she wasn't yelling, it wasn't blaming me, I let her talk. I intentionally showed no reaction, said nothing, asked nothing, didn't nod or emote in any way. I could have been paralyzed.

After forty min of continuous talking, she stopped, sincerely said "thank you for the nice talk," and left. I still hadn't moved.

That's what adult conversation was to her, and I clearly understood in that moment where I fit into the equation and how/whether this would ever meet my needs.

But the point isn't how they treat us. We can regale ourselves with stories till the end of time. We can always find another time and another way they've wronged us. The point is...what will we do about it? What skills will we learn, what lessons will we try, what insight into ourselves will we gain that will move our lives in a healthier direction?

So what he provokes. Maybe that's who he is and will always be. How you've reacted in that past hasn't stopped this. What will you do about it in the future?

[yeeter]

One time I ran a little experiment. X came to my in-house office and started ranting about something. Since she wasn't yelling, it wasn't blaming me, I let her talk. I intentionally showed no reaction, said nothing, asked nothing, didn't nod or emote in any way. I could have been paralyzed.

After forty min of continuous talking, she stopped, sincerely said "thank you for the nice talk," and left. I still hadn't moved.

That's what adult conversation was to her, and I clearly understood in that moment where I fit into the equation and how/whether this would ever meet my needs.

Have had this experience many times.  (read the NPD link in the other thread, its right on)

Acceptance that this is what the relationship 'is'...