She always felt that I was yelling at her

[BlackandBlue]

I read in a different thread that someone said their ex always thought they were being yelled at, even when they weren't and my ex was the same. I could be trying to have a serious talk with her and she would tell me she hated when i yelled at her. Meanwhile, I was using a normal sound level the whole time. Did any if you guys experience this as well? It used to drive me nuts cause I became self concious about it and I would make sure that I really wasn't yelling and I would still get accused of it.

[confusedinny]

I experienced this exact thing non stop as well and it drove me nuts too. It seemed to me to be a diversion tactic to cloud whatever was being discussed as she would then focus on my supposed yelling with comments like "I don't do that to you. I don't yell at you." and her focus would become that I'd done something wrong.

[lostjak]

Me too. No matter what I said, no matter how carefully I said it, I was always yelling. But especially arguing. Any slight disagreement with her was an argument.

Her: Would you like to go to the movie?

Me: I'm kinda tired.

Her: Fine... .I don't want to argue with you.

[SummerStorm]

I didn't really experience this, but I did experience other diversion tactics.  Whenever I said, "Please talk to me about this," she said I was making her anxiety worse, being "clingy," "nagging," and talking about things that didn't require a conversation.  So, as confusedinny wrote, the focus would become that I'd done something wrong.  

[lostjak]

I didn't really experience this, but I did experience other diversion tactics.  Whenever I said, "Please talk to me about this," she said I was making her anxiety worse, being "clingy," "nagging," and talking about things that didn't require a conversation.  So, as confusedinny wrote, the focus would become that I'd done something wrong.  

I lived those conversations too.

[Gonzalo]

My ex- wouldn't falsely accuse me of yelling, what she would do is shout at me until I raised my voice in response, then call me out on shouting at her. I would apologize (since it's the right thing to do) and calm my voice down, but then when I would ask her to calm her voice down (while deliberately avoiding tying it to me lowering my voice), she would respond as though it was a completely unreasonable request or deny that she had been doing it. When we'd talk about it later, she tried to paint the argument as being mutual raised voices, even though if you shout at someone other than Mr. Rogers for an hour they will eventually get worn down and raise their voice in response.

There were a lot of other diversionary tactics too, like interrupting me, demanding that I answer complex questions quickly with a short answer, throwing a 'wall of text' at me and getting upset if I didn't remember every bit of it, demanding answers to irrelevant questions, and the like. Also, if I said things to get her to calm down and succeeded in ending the fighting, she took it as complete agreement with whatever she wanted - so if I didn't actually agree with anything, or had second thoughts, or wanted to talk about the way she approached me, she would grow furious and accuse me of lying to her. When I'd try to talk about the damage her aggressive argument style was doing, and that it seemed she was more interested in winning the argument than making the relationship work, she accused me of turning it into a 'versus' thing by talking about a winner and loser, while she only wanted things to work for both of us.

[once removed]

i think a lot of these examples arent necessarily diversionary tactics, but genuinely the way our partners saw things from their perspective. how? ill give you an example.

got a cup or a glass nearby? pick it up, set it down. you hear a slight bump. one night with my ex i did this, and i was shouted at, several times, for "slamming" the cup. i was in a fine mood, i wasnt putting the cup down any harder than i normally do, and i was incredibly confused (frankly irritated) by her shouting at me. for a period after that, me needing to be right, i pointed out to her any time shed set a cup down, or anyone else did, that id done nothing different.

years later it hit me. our exes are living with some very old wounds and triggers, many of them so old they wouldnt recognize it. many of them came from chaotic households. much like (if not exactly so) post traumatic stress. i think thats what a lot of these overreactions were about. the past being a trigger in the present.

[workinprogress]

I read in a different thread that someone said their ex always thought they were being yelled at, even when they weren't and my ex was the same. I could be trying to have a serious talk with her and she would tell me she hated when i yelled at her. Meanwhile, I was using a normal sound level the whole time. Did any if you guys experience this as well? It used to drive me nuts cause I became self concious about it and I would make sure that I really wasn't yelling and I would still get accused of it.

Yes, it happened to me, also. 

She could yell at me and I would ask her what was wrong and she would get angry and say that she wasn't yelling.

[Loveofhislife]

I agree with "all of the above." In my case, "yelling" was saying something he didn't want to hear. Or he would project, "I hate when you yell at me; I NEVER YELL!" Did I mention that he was screaming at the top of his lungs when he said that? Then he would say, "I hate yelling; that's what my Dad did all the time." Again, he was screaming at me when he uttered those words. Did I ever yell? Heck yeah. I became someone I didn't know and had never seen before. Sometimes I just started screaming--no words, not even directed at exbfBPD. During those moments, an almost calm look would come across his face in a way that looked like his projecting his pain onto me made him feel better. Or at least that misery loved company. I am less than 3 weeks away from a year since he suddenly abandoned me and realizing the great favor he gave me by leaving and the great opportunity he gave me for self examination and healing over this past year.

[apollotech]

Have you ever tried to rationally settle a dispute with a toddler? It doesn't work very well. According to the comments on these posts, it didn't work well with our respective BPD partners either. Unfortunately, the toddlers and our respective BPD exes were/are on the same emotional maturity level.

[jhkbuzz]

I read in a different thread that someone said their ex always thought they were being yelled at, even when they weren't and my ex was the same. I could be trying to have a serious talk with her and she would tell me she hated when i yelled at her. Meanwhile, I was using a normal sound level the whole time. Did any if you guys experience this as well? It used to drive me nuts cause I became self concious about it and I would make sure that I really wasn't yelling and I would still get accused of it.

Yes. What I didn't realize at the time was that, for whatever reason (reasonable or not), she felt emotionally attacked - and, since "feelings are facts" for pwBPD, she would alter the facts to fit with the emotions she was feeling.

She did this a lot, but I couldn't 'name' it until she brought up a night that we went to dinner with friends and said that I yelled at her during the dinner. I said to her, "I yelled at you? Think about that... .if I had really yelled at you during dinner, wouldn't the other couple have had a strong reaction to my behavior? Wouldn't the other people at the restaurant have turned around to stare at us? Did any of that happen? No, it didn't, because I didn't yell at you." At that point, a lightbulb went off for me, and it became very clear to me that her thinking was disordered.

These types of conversations would drive me crazy with frustration, primarily because I didn't understand her or what was happening. Because of my lack of understanding, my responses would be very invalidating to her. Knowing what I know now, I would have responded to her emotional state, not her words - and would have validated her. Remember: BPD is a disorder of emotional dysregulation.

[jhkbuzz]

i think a lot of these examples arent necessarily diversionary tactics, but genuinely the way our partners saw things from their perspective. how? ill give you an example.

got a cup or a glass nearby? pick it up, set it down. you hear a slight bump. one night with my ex i did this, and i was shouted at, several times, for "slamming" the cup. i was in a fine mood, i wasnt putting the cup down any harder than i normally do, and i was incredibly confused (frankly irritated) by her shouting at me. for a period after that, me needing to be right, i pointed out to her any time shed set a cup down, or anyone else did, that id done nothing different.

years later it hit me. our exes are living with some very old wounds and triggers, many of them so old they wouldnt recognize it. many of them came from chaotic households. much like (if not exactly so) post traumatic stress. i think thats what a lot of these overreactions were about. the past being a trigger in the present.

Absolutely. I had a (bad) habit of closing kitchen cabinets loudly. I didn't fully comprehend how much of a trigger this was for her (she had ex who was physically abusive and used to stomp and bang around the house).

I do wish I didn't trigger her in this way, but I also know that everyone is responsible for managing their own triggers.

[Gonzalo]

years later it hit me. our exes are living with some very old wounds and triggers, many of them so old they wouldnt recognize it. many of them came from chaotic households. much like (if not exactly so) post traumatic stress. i think thats what a lot of these overreactions were about. the past being a trigger in the present.

One problem for my ex- is that she learned about triggers in therapy at some point, and would weaponize the concept against me. If there were narrow, specific specific triggers I could work around them (and I have for other partners who have trauma in their past). She expanded triggers to a whole host of words, and even whole concepts, and then if I hit what was allegedly a trigger, she would rage at me, and use the fact that I hit a trigger as justification. When I got tired of dealing with the minefield, she would accuse me of being a bad person for hitting her triggers. And again, these weren't narrow triggers like 'grabbing her wrist' or 'calling a specific name' - anything that touched on her being ungrateful or unappreciative was a trigger, saying 'this is both of our home' (as in you don't get to make unilateral decisions) was one if I said it but she liked to use it, just about anything to do with money, anything having to do with her being irresponsible or immature, and a bunch of other specific words.

[BlackandBlue]

I'm glad I'm not the only one this happened to. Hell, even in text messaging I would get accused of yelling at her and she couldn't hear my voice. This whole BPD expirence was hell and still is and we haven't even spoken in about a year... .ugh

[jhkbuzz]

years later it hit me. our exes are living with some very old wounds and triggers, many of them so old they wouldnt recognize it. many of them came from chaotic households. much like (if not exactly so) post traumatic stress. i think thats what a lot of these overreactions were about. the past being a trigger in the present.

One problem for my ex- is that she learned about triggers in therapy at some point, and would weaponize the concept against me. If there were narrow, specific specific triggers I could work around them (and I have for other partners who have trauma in their past). She expanded triggers to a whole host of words, and even whole concepts, and then if I hit what was allegedly a trigger, she would rage at me, and use the fact that I hit a trigger as justification. When I got tired of dealing with the minefield, she would accuse me of being a bad person for hitting her triggers. And again, these weren't narrow triggers like 'grabbing her wrist' or 'calling a specific name' - anything that touched on her being ungrateful or unappreciative was a trigger, saying 'this is both of our home' (as in you don't get to make unilateral decisions) was one if I said it but she liked to use it, just about anything to do with money, anything having to do with her being irresponsible or immature, and a bunch of other specific words.

The missing piece (for her) was the recognition that managing her triggers was HER responsibility, not yours.

[Circle]

I am less than 3 weeks away from a year since he suddenly abandoned me and realizing the great favor he gave me by leaving and the great opportunity he gave me for self examination and healing over this past year.

     It's great that you see it that way, as many people are being dragged through the legal system, etc. by their exes.

     I hung out with my exSOwBPD today. I can relate to the everything being discussed here. We no longer are together. We are just friends. Yet, it's like they are surrounded by a cloud of chaos. Everything is more intense for them. As Once-Removed mentioned; it's like they have PTSD. My ex was talking today about doing outdoorsy stuff with her Dad while growing up. He would be yelling and swearing the entire time, in frustration/stress/anger. If you are a kid, wouldn't that make you shell-shocked? My Mom is that way, so I can understand where she is coming from. However, my Dad is a master at controlling his emotions and almost never loses his cool. So I got to see both sides of the coin. She only got the chaos, from both her parents.

     Today she told me ":)on't tell me what to do" and other similar volatile statements. Luckily, I stayed calm and let it roll off me. The over-reactivity is always there though, like a cloud.

     I think she is a neat person, yet it doesn't feel bad to watch the storm go somewhere else!

[Gonzalo]

The missing piece (for her) was the recognition that managing her triggers was HER responsibility, not yours.

I don't entirely agree with that, and it fits in with a pattern I noticed of reasonable things taken to unreasonable levels. In a good relationship, partners should each be helping each other with problems, which makes a partner's triggers partly my responsibility. For example, she said that it would really freak her out to hear 'we need to have a talk' without any information about what the talk is, because of past history with bad things happening in that kind of talk. What I'd consider a reasonable effort on my side (and what I did) was to not use the phrase by itself, but to say 'we need to have a talk about X' (removing the vagueness) or 'I have a few things I need to talk about, but it's nothing major' (reassuring that it's not anything bad). I think that deliberately using a phrase like 'we need to have a talk' when you know it freaks your partner out is a pretty asinine move, and I'm willing to accept that level of managing her triggers.

The way it worked in practice, though, was that it would start with the specific phrasing, and then would spread to anything tangentally near the concept of talking or scheduling time to talk. We had a giant blowup because I sent a quick email that said essentially 'hope you're having a good time on the trip, when you get back can you be sure to schedule some time for the talk you've wanted me to have so we don't miss it' - even though she already knew what the talk was about, and I put in reassurance that it wasn't anything unexpected. Also, in a normal relationship you build up trust over time, and give your partner the benefit of the doubt on minor phrasing issues - instead, even though I consistently stuck to agreements (unlike her), she seemed to be more and more inclined to take the worst possible interpretation of anything I said.

I think that's part of why it's so hard to detach at the end, there's a piece of something reasonable in what they say, and when they go into full-on FOG with projection and trick questions, you start to feel like a villain even though you're not doing anything bad.

[jhkbuzz]

The missing piece (for her) was the recognition that managing her triggers was HER responsibility, not yours.

I don't entirely agree with that, and it fits in with a pattern I noticed of reasonable things taken to unreasonable levels. In a good relationship, partners should each be helping each other with problems, which makes a partner's triggers partly my responsibility. For example, she said that it would really freak her out to hear 'we need to have a talk' without any information about what the talk is, because of past history with bad things happening in that kind of talk. What I'd consider a reasonable effort on my side (and what I did) was to not use the phrase by itself, but to say 'we need to have a talk about X' (removing the vagueness) or 'I have a few things I need to talk about, but it's nothing major' (reassuring that it's not anything bad). I think that deliberately using a phrase like 'we need to have a talk' when you know it freaks your partner out is a pretty asinine move, and I'm willing to accept that level of managing her triggers.

I apologize if I came across "black and white" in my statement, because I didn't mean to. In a healthy relationship when two people care about one another, each does what they can to help the other - for sure. That goes without saying. But there's a big difference between "help" and "take responsibility for." In my own r/s, I offered help - and probably too much at that - but the really damaging dynamic for me was that I took on responsibility for her emotional state. The worst part was that I did this to myself, although her accusations helped me along that path. If she was unhappy, triggered, etc., it was due to something I did or didn't do - almost always. That's victim mentality, not the reasoned thoughts of an adult. As adults, our emotional states are our own, and we can't expect anyone else to manage them for us.

Isn't that what a lot of us do in these relationships? Try to soothe, try to manage, try to figure out the "thing" that will make our s/o happy? Isn't that why codependency is mentioned so often on these boards? Because we often blur the lines between where we stop and our partner starts?

The way it worked in practice, though, was that it would start with the specific phrasing, and then would spread to anything tangentally near the concept of talking or scheduling time to talk. We had a giant blowup because I sent a quick email that said essentially 'hope you're having a good time on the trip, when you get back can you be sure to schedule some time for the talk you've wanted me to have so we don't miss it' - even though she already knew what the talk was about, and I put in reassurance that it wasn't anything unexpected. Also, in a normal relationship you build up trust over time, and give your partner the benefit of the doubt on minor phrasing issues - instead, even though I consistently stuck to agreements (unlike her), she seemed to be more and more inclined to take the worst possible interpretation of anything I said.

Yes - and that's not your responsibility - that's hers. You've describe exactly what I am trying to get at. Truth be told, although you were valiantly trying to jump through every phrasing "hoop" she laid out before you, you couldn't get it "right" enough. In that scenario, you are always at fault because you're buying into the idea that you should have to jump through the hoops in the first place. The problem is that she can't soothe herself and that is exactly what she needs to learn to do in order to be in a healthy, adult r/s. You can't do it for her; neither can anyone else. She needs to address this issue in therapy.

I think that's part of why it's so hard to detach at the end, there's a piece of something reasonable in what they say, and when they go into full-on FOG with projection and trick questions, you start to feel like a villain even though you're not doing anything bad.

Absolutely. One of the things I'm learning through therapy that this tendency I have to take on too much responsibility for the emotional well being of others started in my childhood, with my sometimes anxious, sometimes raging mother. My little self tried valiantly to soothe her. I watched my father do the same. It's deeply ingrained in me - and it's the primary reason I stayed hooked in my r/s with my ex for so long - it felt familiar.

How about you?

[apollotech]

... .she seemed to be more and more inclined to take the worst possible interpretation of anything I said.

That strong "negative bias" is a product of devaluation, not him/her devaluing you, but rather an "I have given up" product (keep in mind their black/white thinking). It almost always, right on cue, occurs shortly after idealization ends. I think that if members that have posted on this thread look back, they will see that the negative bias wasn't present during idealization. The placing of the cup on the counter didn't change, her perception of the placing of the cup on the counter changed.

[Gonzalo]

I apologize if I came across "black and white" in my statement, because I didn't mean to. In a healthy relationship when two people care about one another, each does what they can to help the other - for sure. That goes without saying. But there's a big difference between "help" and "take responsibility for." In my own r/s, I offered help - and probably too much at that - but the really damaging dynamic for me was that I took on responsibility for her emotional state.

I think it's reasonable to take responsibility for not stepping on known triggers that you've talked about before, but not to take responsibility for someone else's whole emotional state and their reactions. I think we agree, we are just tripping over semantics and either talking about different parts, or using 'take responsibility for' in a slightly different way.

Yes - and that's not your responsibility - that's hers. You've describe exactly what I am trying to get at. Truth be told, although you were valiantly trying to jump through every phrasing "hoop" she laid out before you, you couldn't get it "right" enough.

Right, it wasn't "this specific thing that we talked about brings back a bad memory, so I agree to watch phrasing on that specific issue for you" it was "you can't say anything about me not appreciating something that you did, oh and whatever specific word you used is bad too, also you can't use this handy phrase that I like to use, and we're not going to discuss any of this, I'm just going to act like you're breaking an agreement when it happens". I think two of my major problems were that I was too worried about hurting her, so would feel like I was supposed to manage things, and that I wasn't willing to set a boundary on 'we didn't agree to this, so you don't get to act like I'm breaking a rule'. It's insidious because it goes from something so reasonable to to something so crazy seamlessly.

You can't do it for her; neither can anyone else. She needs to address this issue in therapy.

Interestingly, she seemed to know this on some level - when I would try to discuss that it seemed like she was reacting to someone else doing something completely different than me, she would tell me that it's not my job to manage her emotions. But she would later continue to berate me for not managing them, she had just enough knowledge to keep from really looking at what she was doing.

Absolutely. One of the things I'm learning through therapy that this tendency I have to take on too much responsibility for the emotional well being of others started in my childhood, with my sometimes anxious, sometimes raging mother. My little self tried valiantly to soothe her. I watched my father do the same. It's deeply ingrained in me - and it's the primary reason I stayed hooked in my r/s with my ex for so long - it felt familiar.

I think mine comes from the other direction - my parental family actually got along really well, and so I didn't really form a model of how to handle major conflict. There also wasn't anyone hopeless in the immediate family, and so I didn't really have anything to counter the 'you help people you love' idea. Since I didn't do much dating (my relationship with the pwBPD was my first live-in and longest- lasting relationship), I never really got practice at setting boundaries and didn't have experience with someone being completely unreasonable, and convinced myself that the relationship was more unique and important than it was. I do think the relationship burnt a lot of bad habits away from me, there are a lot of mistakes I definitely won't repeat, and other things I realize I need to work on.

[chill1986]

I hadn't really thought about this until I saw this thread, but there were a couple of times this happened now I think of it. Once fairly close to the break up, where her friends came over on the Sunday and I cooked all of them a Sunday roast, pork belly with roast veg and apple sauce. My gf said i hadn't made the gravy, I apologised and said I would do it, then she kicked off saying I hated gravy and I made light of this in front of her friends and said I didn't hate it just forget to make it as I prefer Apple sauce and made them laugh (can't remember what I said exactly), anyway after she left she accused me of starting an argument, yelling at her and embarrassing her in front of her friends.

[sas1729]

I remember not yelling, but somehow the way I said things when I first met my BPDex made her upset. So I remember developing a very calm and controlled tone when arguments started. It was fake but I didn't know how else to react. She always told me she hates to be interrupted, which is what she would do on occasion to me. The dynamic was geared toward keeping me silent.

I remember one time near the end I could not control my emotions. I sat down on her couch and cried. That was my only way to express my frustration and sadness at the time. I would often get the "You're not listening to me" response.

[hojo53]

Yes!

Can not have a calm, rational convo with BPD SO. No matter what it was, overspending, planning a vaca, our children's school... .whatever. It always goes from 0-100 in like 10 seconds. I know she felt like I was blaming her for something, or even that she felt that maybe she was losing control of the convo.

She spent 3 months in a rehab/mental facility 2 years ago, where they changed a previous diagnosis from bipolar to BPD, NPD, HPC and general anxiety, and also said that her mind stopped developing emotionally at 12 years old. WOW, it all clicked when I heard that.

At the end of my initial convo with my lawyer last week, she says "She sounds like a teenager". *Ding Ding Ding


My friend, you're not alone in this