Meeting passive-aggressive with passive resistance

[writeaway]

I don’t know if this was a healthy response or not, but here’s what happened this morning:
We have to live together for at least another month or two until we meet with mediator and financial advisor and figure the logistics of separate households. She is mad at me right now over a dispute we had a couple days ago, and giving me silent treatment. Yesterday and today she has been subjecting me to music played from her phone with passive-aggressive lyrics played loud enough and on repeat so it’s clear it’s more for my benefit than hers. Lyrics about being misunderstood and not listening to her and keeping her down and she doesn’t have to take it, etc.
Yesterday I just ignored. But then the song got stuck in my head all day and was annoying as hell. So this morning I popped earbuds into my phone and watched episodes of a TV show. I kid you not, when she saw me doing that her music got louder. I just cranked my volume louder too.

We may be stuck with each other a little while longer and I can’t control her actions, but I won’t let her manipulate my emotions any more. I refuse to let her bully and guilt-trip me. Been there, done that.

[Harley Quinn]

Good move!    Not reacting in time will mean she gives up on this method of trying to provoke a response out of you.  Just guard yourself against whatever she may try next.  The behaviour may worsen before it improves and such is life.  However, if you stick to your guns and refuse to get drawn in, hopefully she will calm in her own time and return to base line so that you can communicate more effectively.  You are not responsible for her emotions.  She is, and managing them in healthier ways is the goal, so that you can co parent effectively.  Well done for not flipping out when she was doing this to antagonise you.

Love and light x

[writeaway]

Thanks Harley (love the name, by the way!). I am also hoping that she’ll come back to baseline soon. In the past I would have tiptoed around the silence or responded in kind until I couldn’t take it any more and apologized and gave in to whatever it was that she wanted that had caused the friction in the first place. Now, I’m responding to the silence by still speaking to her, but only in short, polite bits, and only about the basic necessities of things she needs to know or I need from her for logistics of household and childcare. Mostly she will just nod or shake her head while avoiding eye contact, or respond with short texts, but at least it is getting the job done.

I had been resisting using “tactics for dealing with pwBPD” because I was afraid of treating her like a stereotype or like a disease instead of like a person whom I had loved and cared for. But now I see that treating her irrational behavior as if it was justified and came from a place of rationality was only giving her what she wanted, which was conceding all power and control to her, and ensuring that she would do the same thing over again each time she felt like she was losing control. In a sense, not only was I making myself miserable and ending up the loser, but I was also enabling and encouraging her maladjusted behavior. I honestly do not think any of her actions are coming from a place of malicious intent or intent to hurt me. I don’t think she even realizes how destructive it has been for both of us. I think she is just frightened and anxious a majority of the time, and does not have the proper coping mechanisms to deal with that. Before, I was internalizing and making it my fault. Now, I just feel sorry for her, and I hope she will learn and recover from this. She is seeing a therapist who specializes in BPD, so Hopefully that will help her in ways I cannot.

[writeaway]

And... .now she is talking to me again. I went grocery shopping yesterday (which was something she had usually done for the household in the past, but we were running out of stuff and she hadn’t mentioned shopping, so I decided to do it myself). Then this morning, she played that passive aggressive song again, but I just removed myself from the room and found some other things to take care of around the house. And then, out of the blue, she turns off the song. A few minutes later, thanks me for shopping and makes a positive comment about something I bought, then gives me a basic idea of what her plan for the day is (we are going our separate ways and she is doing her own Xmas shopping, but yesterday she would have just walked out the door with no hint of where she was going or when she would be back). So it seems we’re back to neutral at least. I just treated her the same as I have been. Polite. Short responses. Friendly without being overly so. Inwardly celebrating, not because I think anything has changed between us (it hasn’t, and I know she’ll prob split me black again before too long), but I celebrate because my approach worked without backing down or giving in to her tactics. Crucial to get us through this separation while we still have to live together with my sanity intact. Also celebrating because I have been relying on her for a lot of household things (in part because she always made me feel incompetent and second-guess the way that I did them), and doing the  shopping yesterday without any input or assistance from her reminded me that I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself and our family’s needs without her help, thank you very much.

[LegioXX Victrix]

Get your Zen on.

“The moon like a mirror in a cold stream”

[Harley Quinn]

Kudos!  Especially for coming to some positive realisations about your own capability.  There are many gifts to be found in this experience if we look for them and it sounds as though you've already begun to discover this.  Keep up that level of awareness.  It will serve you well.

Love and light x