BPDFamily.com

Not sure whether this thread will gain any traction, but I feel there are some things I've got to get off my chest.

One of them is the many times when a reasonable view of things was twisted in an argument and used as a weapon, or portrayed as ludicrous or downright objectionable. Please do share your own.

An admirer of my work wanted to meet up at my workplace to discuss a related project of his. My uBPDex forbade me from meeting up. At the same time he saw nothing wrong with him meeting a former female friend with whom he'd been sexually involved in the past.

Me: "I'm only meeting this stranger for half an hour at work, you can't be serious! And you think this is worse than you meeting someone you've been naked with?"
Him: "I'd be meeting with someone whose history is in the past. You're meeting someone with whom you might have potential in the future."

Just... what

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Him: "I'm going to phone/pick you up later than planned, my mother made a good breakfast/lunch/dinner which I don't want to pass up."
I let it go. When I later, in a calm moment, told him I felt that by saying/doing such things I felt that my time wasn't appreciated, he started yelling at me that I was "controlling" him and that I never "allowed" him any happiness.

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Or our first real fight. We had spent a great night together and were having breakfast. He was complaining about having to go to work, while I was free to set my own schedule, being self-employed. I asked him whether he wanted to set up a business, too? That he had savings and that it wouldn't be a problem to take a year off work to gather ideas and start his own thing, if that's what he wanted.

A second before he went out the door, he suddenly started berating me for "undermining" him and his job. I was flabbergasted. He kept scolding me aggressively that I shouldn't be telling him what to do. I felt patronised and hurt and started crying, because how could he possibly interpret my words in this malevolent manner? He then started accusing me of being overly sensitive and "creating drama". He left and sent me a long string of texts. When I apologised (something I never should have done in hindsight), he was cold. Later he wanted credit that he had taken five minutes out of his lunch break to talk it over on the phone, about what a great boyfriend he was to take time to solve "my" problems during his break.

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Him working 30 hours a week, yet never having time (all he did was play videogames in his spare time). Me working 50-60 hours and making time for him was explained away by my "not having a real job" (we made a similar salary).

Maybe not necessarily a view, but I think this falls into the right category:

Evasive answering.  Lying by omission.  Whatever you want to call it.  After several days of painting the kitchen, she goes on to paint something that has to be sanded before recoating (and we have covered the process over-and-over, it's not rocket science):  “Did you sand it first?” “I wiped it off with a towel.”  “I didn’t ask you if you wiped it off with a towel, I asked you if you sanded it.  Did you sand it?”  “I wiped it.”  “Answer my question.  That’s not answering my question.  Did you sand it?”  “I wiped it off with a towel.”  “Wiping something off with a towel is not sanding something and you know that.”  “Well, wiping with a towel could be sanding.”  (That's the part I really disliked and is almost scary when she starts that stuff because it has no limit in its absurdity.)  “No, it’s not and you know that it’s not.  You just don’t want to answer in the affirmative because sanding is not something you want to do and you think you’re going to be able to gloss over it without answering my question.”  All this exhausting immature nonsense that could have been answered with a simple, “No.” because she knew it had to be sanded and didn’t want to sand it.  Likewise, she could have said, "I don't enjoy the sanding part of the job.  Would you mind helping with that?".

This was a couple of years ago.  These days I would just ask her a second time and if she still refused to answer, turn and walk away.

Your patience is admirable. I think I would have thrown a fit myself after the third evasive answer. Walking away, as you're doing now, is probably the better option for your own sanity.

The template rings so familiar. It's amazing the amount of bull :cursing: the brains of pwBPD can come up with in order to avoid admitting a mistake or shortcoming.

Ex, after I've been cooking for him at least twice a day for six weeks straight: "You never cook for me."
I tell him I've been cooking for him for six weeks, barring two exceptions when he made dinner. He proceeds to badger me for a good half hour to list the dishes I've "allegedly" cooked for him. I initially refuse because it's a ridiculous request, but he keeps insisting so I finally give in and list most of them.
Ex: "I really can't remember such and such."
Me: "Such and such was on that night when we did this and that", times five. He suddenly remembers.
Ex: "Well, everything you listed wasn't cooking -- it was merely preparing food."

(Hot home-cooked meals, no less.)

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I was having a really rough time, remembering all my loved ones who've passed away, crying for two days straight. Ex has been claiming for months that I can lean on him "any time", but doesn't live up to it once again.

His answer when I ask him why he couldn't even send me a text to ask how I was: "You're not an employee, you don't know what it's like."
-- "You're currently working a part-time job from home. You mean to tell me that during the entire past 48 hours, you didn't have the five seconds it takes to ask the person you love "how are you"?"
Ex: "Exactly. As I said, you don't know what it's like."
(NB. I've been employed full-time and do know what it's like.)
Ex: "Also, I don't appreciate your accusations. How you can even call into question that I love you!" (Huge fight ensues.)

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We're debating a technical issue from my professional area of expertise (for which he paid me for two years, no less, before we started dating). It is clear that he simply lacks the technical facts and is in the wrong. We argue for an hour, he patronises me for my "lack of knowledge", until I'm fed up and google for academic papers that prove him wrong. He sees he's wrong in black and white.
Ex: "Well, that's not what you said."
-- "That's exactly what I said."
Ex: "But you phrased it differently. Had you said it in these exact words, I would have agreed immediately."
(I had used the exact same terms, and briefly wondered whether I was going mad.)

If you know where I could find more patience I'd be interested in hearing about it.  Actually, I think now my patience is less because the instant I recognize what is going on I go find something more interesting to do.




Oh, those are my favorite!  My wife doesn't have any experience doing what I do, nor has she ever shown an interest in learning.  Back when I'd attempt a casual conversation about whatever and mention diagnosing a problem I was working on she would immediately call into question my solution for it.  She would either suggest a solution of her own that was completely irrelevant to the issue at-hand or she would simply tell me that the solution I found wouldn't work.  In a case where I had already put that solution to the test and it did work, it was still, "You can't know that".  Eventually, I finally figured out that this is probably her talking about herself again.  Even in cases where I have told her, "This is what I am paid to do, I have done it before, and I have spent all of my adult working life doing this -- you explain to me how this works if you have the qualifications to say that I am wrong" and even after she can't she will still discredit my answer.  Crazy-making!

It is not clear to me if this is a BPD thing or something separate, but look up Dunning-Kruger Effect and see if it relates to your situation.  Sorry to say it, but I found that term a while ago by searching something like, "So stupid that she doesn't know she's stupid".

Also, it doesn't just happen with me.  It sort of goes along with the willingness to believe conspiracy theories.  Doctors don't know what they are talking about (yet she has zero medical training), lawyers don't know what they are talking about (yet she has zero legal training), but anyone that comes along selling a sack of magic beans -- they are an expert.

  

  

She'd been unemployed for nearly a decade, but, "That's OK as I'm not expensive."

Dunning-Kruger definitely plays a huge role in those specific matters. It's probably also the narcissistic facet of the disorder trying to preserve a self-image of perfection and/or superiority over others, in order to retain control. When this is called into question, the pwBPD panics and tries to "rationalise" it away with whatever means necessary.

Crazy-making, no doubt.

Just remembered another instance. I like explorative hobbies, such as painting, reading, casually learning languages.

Ex: "I don't know if this will work out. You always spend your time doing something with some sort of ulterior motive, like learning something or making something. I'd rather just relax, watch films, play video games, play board games, or do nothing. I don't know whether you're able to do that, and whether I'd be able to do that with you."
[Cue my reassuring him that I am well able to relax and am happy to do nothing with him; in hindsight, I should have just told him to beat it.]

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I have friends from both ends of the political spectrum. I don't necessarily agree with their views (I'd rather pick and choose based on topic), but I'm friends with these people because I know their characters are intact and I admire their human qualities.
Ex: "How can you be friends with such people, of whom I think very little? Are you a communist/Nazi yourself?"
[NB. Of the above-mentioned friends, only one is a former communist and none are Nazis.]

Over the span of several months, continuous jabs at these people. At some point I calmly told him I wasn't going to tolerate him bad-mouthing my friends anymore, especially since he had refused to meet them and didn't even know them.
Ex: "I don't know why you're over-reacting and creating drama again! Why do you always do that?" etc.

It sharply went downhill from there.

tl;dr: Ex didn't respect any healthy boundaries.

SO: you never spend any time with me.
Me: just yesterday we watched a movie.
SO: you weren't really paying attention. You left halfway through.
Me: I was only gone 5 min.
SO. No it was at least a half hour
Me. No, it was just to start the dishwasher.  ( This always would deteriorate to bean counting)
SO. Well you left at 9:10 and by the second commercial break you weren't back yet.
Me. Well what about the previous weekend we spent together?
SO. That was only one day.
Me. It was fri- sun.
SO. Well it was only one full day. And part of it you were texting the kids. You can't even spend one whole day with me without something else being more important.



I don't understand why it was so hard for me to just not argue.  I'd say to him, say your piece but you don't have to exaggerate so much to make your point.

But I guess I know why. The very last argument we had, I decided not to argue back and just looked at him silently the whole time. He went on about how I ignored him at that dinner, then it became I had ignored him for hours, then how mean I was and how badly I treat him and he was not going to take it.  He then stormed out, me still not defending myself or saying a word. And he hasn't contacted me since. I think underneath I always suspected that could happen so I argued those points so desperately.

@syndee, haha so relatable.

He was giving me the cold shoulder and of course he wouldn't tell me what I had done. He was away and I had barely talked to him. We went back and forth with email, which he said that, what I wrote was mean. He eventually told me what I said, (which I didn't). I wrote back and said that if I had known that was what it was about, I wouldn't have wasted time , writing the email. He writes back and says, "so I am a waste of time." I said that the emails were a waste of time, because they weren't about what I thought he was mad about. So did that mean he wanted the email that he said was mean?

Not quite an argument, but still twisted.  Every other day uBPDw has been taking the kids out somewhere and again today they got ice cream.  I teased them that for all the cones they are getting when out they could have afforded to buy a 55-gallon drum of ice cream to keep at home and she sort of nonchalantly interjected, "I kept trying to tell them that" as if she was placing blame on them and I said, "You're the adult.  If you don't want to spend the money that way, you make the decision" and then the switch flipped: "BUT I WANTED ICE CREAM". 

I pretty much don't talk to her at all anymore unless absolutely necessary, which is really a shame because I like to collaborate about stuff, and several times a day I catch myself starting to say something and then stop myself knowing it will get turned on its head.  For as much as I can, I pretty much go-it-alone.  In this case I started out bantering with my kids and it shifted in the blink of an eye.  I guess that's another thing I like doing that I'll have to keep to a minimum except for when she's not around.

 

These people are so self-loathing and so self-absorbed that it probably just means he wanted anything that would allow him to punch the next box on his "victim card".

We've been married for almost 11 years and you've seen my family twice (they live in Virginia and we've lived in Hawaii and California). 

No, I've actually seen them 11 times these past 11 years. 

Oh!  And you think that's enough!

A fight from a few weeks ago, after we decided to separate:

Our electric bill had not been paid for two months. PwBPD had the account login information and got the email notices but was supposed to set up autopay with my credit card (because she was unemployed, and her account is always in the red).

I SHOULD have followed up - I can't trust her to follow through on anything - but I had been forgetting things with the amount of stress she was putting on me.

I pretty much insisted she take 30 seconds to give me the login information so I could pay the bill, change the password, and just start managing it myself. She said, "I'm having a panic attack" and left the room, then she came back fixating about someone blocking her on Twitter. So I brushed past her "panic attack" claim and went into the living room to log into the account on her laptop.

I got everything sorted while she disappeared into her room because "I have to take care of me first." Then I get these texts.

"Ok. After this morning, I can't see myself with either of you anymore. It was too raw and visceral, and even though I was telling you I was having a problem, you wanted to push it."

"I see now that it has been detracting to my mental health to live here, and by how much. I could never once get you guys to be strong, for me. If I had a problem, I had a problem. If I told you about it, I had two problems."

Soo ... I was out of line and insensitive for wanting to get the damn electric bill paid. Later, she told me to "let me know in advance when you're having mental health issues, so I can protect myself."


This has been a pattern. Any attempts to address her dysregulations have been twisted to suggest that I'm the one with mental health problems who needs to better control my emotions.

LOL I do this with my pwBPD now, and it's pretty effective. At most, I offer a small amount of sympathy, i.e. "It sucks you feel that way."

No discard yet, but it does get her to walk away when she realizes I'm not going to carry her emotional load.

I haven’t followed this post for a few days. As sad as it is, I find the stories comforting. I don’t feel so alone. If it wasn’t so abusive and disheartening, it would be laughable. They live in such a distorted world.

Couper, I think you hit the nail on the head.

B53

My personal favorite:

My BPDw had spent over a year primarily in bed due to physical health issues.  Thanks to Covid, I was able to work full time from home, while raising our twin toddlers.  Since she didn't ever want the same meal as the twins I was effectively cooking six meals a day, and doing all the housework too.  Since she gets lonely, what free time I had was spent with her.

Her:  I don't know why you don't do the maintenance around the house.  My father always kept everything around the house in shape.  I don't know why I should even have a husband if you're not going to get things done.

Me (in my head):  Wait, what?

That is next level. WHAT indeed!

My ex would do that, too, focus on the one thing that wasn't done instead of the bazillion things that I did do. When I was pregnant with my fourth child, I spent every day taking care of the three kids, making meals, running errands, making all the appointments, helping with homework, literally all the housework...and the house was clean,  every day. I exhausted myself cleaning and cleaning so he could not say anything wasn't done.

And one day he pointed out my failings as a wife because the top of the refrigerator had not been cleaned :(

That is downright abusive. My foster father used to wipe down the tops of doors with his finger and make me clean the room again if it was dusty. It makes you realise that those people don't want you to do well. They don't even want you to do most things. They just want control.

On a lighter-hearted note, in reverse this reminds me of an old joke:

A married couple is driving along a tree-lined road. The wife is driving, and crashes the car into a tree. The man is aggravated and berates her for it. Her response: "This is typical of you -- criticising me for the one tree I hit, without seeing all the others I drove by successfully!"

(On a less light-hearted note, I felt this is how discussions went with my uBPD ex whenever I made the faintest complaint...)

Boy, IAR... do I EVER get that!

My exH with NPD/BPD never and I mean NEVER lifted a finger to help in that beautiful country home we owned.

I’d spend hours cleaning that place, including those huge windows and wooden blinds, listening to music when he wasn’t there and it was heaven to me.  I loved it!  And then he’d come home from whatever play date he was on and berate me barking “what have YOU been doing with yourself all day?”

Or if we were hosting yet another gathering of his huge extended family (yes, I stupidly did all the cooking and cleaning for that, too) he’d follow me around “WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO DO THIS?  WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO FINISH THAT?  THEY’RE COMING AT 5, YOU KNOW!”  I was always ready...  I’m an idiot.  And he was immensely helpful... he put the drinks in a cooler.

But then to those people, he’d brag about my cooking.  Berate me, torture me and then boast about me.

It’s been over 9 years since our divorce.  There’s nothing I miss about him... I just miss my former life.
And I’m getting there with my NPD/BPD EXBf.  There never really was much of a life with this guy.  Gut punch.

Gems

Yes Sappho, it was definitely abusive. He was extremely emotionally and physically abusive to me. I'm sadly not the only one,  either.

Gems, my husband literally thought he should not have to do anything but go to work and come home. Given his spotty employment history,  I guess he thought he was really doing something special to simply work his shift like he was supposed to.

Sometimes he would get in moods where he would cook or clean on the weekends,  but he would just throw it in my face: "this isn't hard, I don't know why you think you have it so rough". He just used it to fuel his argument that being a stay at home mom was an easy life and thanks to him, I was living it.

It was actually hell. He never had to try to take care of all the kids while cleaning or cooking or worrying about someone coming home and criticizing because there was a stray toy in the living room and nobody vacuumed that day.

Every response to me opening my mouth was “no”.
 I talked in Fragments of a word.
 Wh.. bu.. th..wh….
Hahaha. 
Comical in retrospect. 

Here is the weirdest fight we ever had. I posted in another thread but it's better suited to this thread.

Me: *crying on the couch, missing my grandma and my father, who died within a year and a half of each other

BPD ex: "I have this strange feeling...I can see this white light...Your grandparents are here and they want to give you a message..."

Me: I think it's really hurtful that you would say that to me.

Ex: You don't believe me? Your grandparents are here. They're trying to get through to you through me and they're sad you don't believe! They're coming through me because you are too skeptical.

Me: Please. Can we not do this? I'm upset enough and I find this really hurtful.

Ex: This is the cruelest thing you've EVER done to me! I'm discovering my psychic gifts and you don't even care how scary this is for me! I will never forgive you for this. *storms out*

Me:

I recall coming home from work and there was some shaman or whack job or whomever in the house with some weird little basket of smoldering tea leaves “exorcizing” the house of evil spirits. I went out back with the dogs and listened to the Phillies game. Went in for bed and all the mirrors had been scribbled on with sharpies with a bunch of incoherent ramblings.
   And that seemed like just another day.
?
And I just know I may waste more time pineing over the relationship haha.
  Oh the human condition.  It’s a curse and a blessing. 

Never a straight answer.
The land of what  aboutism.
  Tonight I feel liberated.

My ex did stuff like this. Claimed he could see shadow people. Talk to the dead. He also claimed his grandmother could, too. For all the information his mom gave me about grandma, she likely had BPD, too.

I think it's a way of turning the attention towards the BPD in a situation where the attention would normally be on the person grieving.

Also something about being out of touch with reality and needing to feel special. You were supposed to validate the specialness. Instead, you were grieving as anyone would.

Sorry this happened to you.

Thank you, I AM REDEEMED.

I am so sorry you went through that. It is so validating to know that thinking they can contact the dead is a common thing with BPD people. I felt so alone.

GOOSEY- the 'shaman'. Yikes. I so relate though. After the initial "channeling" of my dead relatives, my BPD tried to convince me (and did a damn good job) that our apartment was haunted by my grandmother. Every time the lights flickered, she'd say, "Nana's here."

And it's like, do you think my dead grandma would be contacting you? It was like this competitive thing, like she was trying to take ownership over my grandma and her memory because she was "channelling her." Now I realize how sick that was.

I can't believe my BPD ex convinced me that there was something wrong with me for not believing. She managed to convince me that I was emotionally abusing her by not believing. And we had just moved to a city where we knew just 2 people. Those 2 people bought into the "psychic gifts" and all 3 of them shamed me for an entire year for "that time when you didn't believe." They all thought it was the meanest thing I could have done to a medium discovering her "gifts."

In retrospect, those people also thought they were psychics. One of them tried to tell me she'd predicted my dad's death in a dream the night before. In retrospect, she might also be BPD.

Also, every time I disagreed or put up a boundary, I was "emotionally abusive."

The what aboutism! It was so exhausting!

Did your ex latch onto a time from the past where you were wrong, and bring it up every single time you had a disagreement?

For example,

ME: "Hey, when you called me those names just now, you hurt my feelings."

HER: "Well, what about that time 5 years ago? Do you remember what you said to me?"

ME: "Can we stay in the moment here? I'm trying to tell you that you hurt me."

HER: "I was so upset 5 years ago! That was the meanest thing you've ever said! Everybody thinks so! How could you do that?"

Around and around we go.

Of course we can relate Shop Girl.
  And the next step of detaching. Which I am soundly on the way. When they move to the next relationship. That initial pang of hurt. I had it. I had anger and I did leave a nasty email which I’m sure gave her great satisfaction. Now a year or so later I  87.33 percent know I don’t care anymore.
  And not looking for sympathy just stating the facts.
We are not perfect.
But these relationships are pure abuse.
Mental.
Physical.
Emotional.
Financial. 
  Good riddance.
No turning back.
That’s the only advice that I have earned to convey.
Get out. Get away.
Watch your back.

Solid, sound advice.

I had dental surgery a few weeks ago, was feeling vulnerable, and missed my ex.

Then I remembered the psychic incident. It went away.

I'll still have my moments of missing the good times, but the bad times far outweigh the good.

I’ve walked home thru Jersey corn once just to escape her rants.
Miles of rows of it. (Yes we still have some farms haha.)
Lot of time back then to think but I wasn’t.
I was in the zone of anger and denial and panic and my own self doubt and self loathing and exhausted from trying to defend myself but still trying.
  No more of that nonsense.
Off that cycle.
Just a “oh well” is my new mantra.
Seems to work!

You stopped too soon -- it really gets good when you say, "Fine, and five years ago you did {insert hurtful thing here} to me" and then they shoot back, "You can't hold something against me from five years ago, that's totally unfair".

... and no, you don't need to be psychic to know how that one is going to play out!

Couper, the best is when you say, "What about that thing you said to me 20 minutes ago?"

BPD: "That was 20 minutes ago! How can you still hold that against me? What you said 5 years ago was way worse!"

Oh God, these arguments...

My ex would forbid me from meeting new people. "I'm meeting men and women in a group setting and it's entirely platonic. You on the other hand want the right to stay close friends with your ex and with that fling you once had!"

Ex: "Don't you understand, those are people from my PAST, while in your case it's people from the FUTURE! That's much more threatening to a relationship!"

(In hindsight, there's probably a lot of narcissistic logic in that: "But my exes are depleted supply! You're meeting up with fresh meat!")

Absolutely.  It's an endless cycle and will last for as long as we're willing to feed it.  In my case, that's why I have simply stopped talking.  Not just when the situation develops (they still sneak in on occasion) but even in advance of that because just about anything as innocent as, "where do you think I should relocate this plant" will lead to what has been described above.

On another note, I think here and in other places, text exchanges keep getting mentioned.  While I am not a geezer, I can still remember a world before text.  Not just in my present situation, but in everyday life, I had created a policy from the beginning that I do not have arguments through text.  I'll wait to see the person or, if time or distance is a problem, I will pick up the phone and call, but I do not entertain confrontational text exchanges.  I equate it to someone hiding behind a wall and shooting spitballs at me.  Most people that initiate text wars are cowards.  One mistake with autocorrect or a poorly worded phrase and then they have the ammo they need to advance their cause.

I had an employee that was chronically late and, on yet another morning, he screwed up my schedule by rolling in at his leisure.  When he finally showed up I told him it was time he grew up and got his act together.  He got very aggressive, broke out into a pity party about how hard life is (he was living five minutes away very comfortably with his parents and had most of his expenses taken care of) then he said, "We'll pick this up next week!", kicked the door open, and stomped out.  Five minutes later (after he got home) he starts blowing up my phone with a barrage of texts.  School is hard, girlfriends are hard, I'm not fair and should show him more grace.  I just ignored it.  He had my attention when he was standing in front of me.  He wasn't entitled to more of my time to, once again, do things at his leisure.  Now not only was my schedule screwed up, my workload was screwed up because he wasn't there doing the work I had laid out for him.  

He said we'd pick it up next week, right?  He never came back.  I must not have owed him any money because I don't remember him coming back for his check and I wouldn't have wasted the stamp on him because he's coming back next week...  I would have said, "It's here, come pick it up."  That was the end of him and his father worked next door to me for a few more years and he would come up to visit him, but never walked across the lot to close the loop.

Right before all of that, he had a piece of used equipment he wanted to sell me and left behind.  Something in the hundreds, not thousands.  He could come reclaim it if he wanted.  I just waited and some weeks later he emailed a price.  It was fair enough.  Knowing it was really his parent's and not his, I sent a check to his address on file (his parent's house)... in his mother's name.    

ShopGirl, this is kind of blowing my mind. My pwBPD thinks she can see the future. I am a naturally skeptical person, so I have privately chalked it up to basic intuition combined with confirmation bias. (She remembers when she anticipated something correctly but doesn't remember the times she was wrong.)

Except, after we met and I told her about my late husband (who died unexpectedly in July 2016) she got really quiet and eventually told me she'd had a premonition the day before he died that someone who would become very important to her in the future had a husband who was about to have a heart attack. Her "vision" told her she needed to somehow find and warn me, and she now felt guilty for not succeeding.

OooKAYYYYYY! I had lumped this in with her other weirdness before reading your post. Now it seems like something sinister, like she was trying to turn my loss into something all about her. I'm going to run this by my therapist in a few days and see what she thinks.

Absolutely! So I really haven't implemented too many boundaries. My ex was/is pretty high functioning, but this fight was happening, non-stop towards the end of our relationship. The one boundary I've ended up implementing was not discussing anything that happened more than two months ago. She hates this SO much. However, the fighting seems to have subsided as a result of it, and now we just focus on our baby.

EZEarache, that is so smart! I wish I'd thought of that.

Ultimately, our marriage ended after my ex spent 4 days calling me names, throwing my abusive childhood in my face, mocking me while I was in tears, and calling me "a dog with a bone" for still being hurt after she sarcastically apologized. But she never took accountability for any of it. Instead, in her mind, our marriage ended because of a thing I said in a fight we had 3 years ago. She sent me hate mail calling me an abuser and referencing that fight. For the past 2 years of our marriage, I was living in the moment, and she was stuck in the past.

I wish I'd thought of that boundary you put up. But she would have freaked if I had put that boundary up anyway.

She had 2 stock lines she'd use to shut down any conversation where I put up boundaries or expressed a need or something she'd done that hurt me:

1. "if it wasn't this, it would be something else. It's always something. You're always criticizing me! I never know what will set you off."

2. "What about that time that you ______?"

And then suddenly I'd be defending something I did or said 5 years ago and didn't remember.