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Title: Good intentions turned into silent treatment Post by: daylily on May 14, 2013, 10:36:21 AM My uBPDh and I had what I thought was a very productive talk on Saturday. Of course he engaged in the usual blame shifting and constant focus on my role in our issues, he admitted that he has problems with extreme emotional reactions, which he blamed on his head injury from a motorcycle accident. (Not sure how much of a role that really played because I noticed the symptoms of BPD beforehand, though perhaps not as strong. Regardless, I think the fact that he has something on which to blame his behavior helps me, in that at least he's accepting some responsibility for the behavior itself.)
We discussed the fact that I say something I perceive as being innocent (and certainly is not intended to hurt him), he takes it as an attack and says something really mean back to me because he feels like he has to "get me back" for hurting him. Although he did not acknowledge the difference between saying something that unintentionally hurts someone and saying something to deliberately put a dagger through their heart (intent means nothing to him - it's the result that he focuses on), we did agree that each of us would take a break when things between us are starting to escalate. So if I says something that hurts him, he agreed to say he needs a break rather than countering back at me, and vice versa. So, this has officially backfired. When I got home from work last night, he was visibly mad at me, but wouldn't speak to me until late in the evening because he was implementing our "agreement." I had no idea what I did to piss him off. Then this morning, he is irritated when he gets up, says he "hates his life" and that it's my fault, but refuses to elaborate or talk about it because he's implementing our "agremeent." So essentially, I have now turned what formerly would have been a series of arguments into perpetual silent treatment. Where am I going wrong? Or am I not going wrong and he's just feeling dysregulated and needs some space? Daylily Title: Re: Good intentions turned into silent treatment Post by: Chosen on May 14, 2013, 09:12:04 PM From what little info I have here (don't know what happened to his day), daylily, I think it is just another one of those means to get back at you. During the discussion, he somehow had to admit something he did wrong (overreacts), and now from hindsight he probably feels forced into the agreement that he will back out when he is not calm. And you know how they can exploit everything into a form of "punishment" on us... .
Don't know if this was how he felt but seems like something my h would do... . |