Do we allow people to treat us bad?

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

I've heard it said we allow people to treat us bad. What does that mean? Was my Xw emotionally abusive or did she treat me bad bc I let her? A good friend of mine grew up with xw's BF, knows him very well. My friend said if Xw tries the same things with BF that she did with me, he would tell her to f### off. Does this mean I was abused for the simple fact I put up with it? Maybe my passiveness drove her crazy, she told me I was driving her crazy. Today I'm looking st my childhood, coming to terms that my father was very verbally anusive, I wouldn't fight back, my sister would. I wouldn't fight back with Xw. She clearly saw me as a coward and someone who couldn't protect her. Xw used threats of violence on me many times, she seemed to get pleasure out of it. Maybe she didn't respect me. Xw and my father were the only 2 anusive people in my life. My friend said just leave xw's BF alone, if he gets in your face, walk away, he will destroy you. He said the BF grew up fighting, beat and smash with his brothers all the time, pound each other bad my friend said. This seems to be the type of person Xw wants, a protector, she seems to have more respect for violence. She got her BF after me once already over a lie she made up and he flew to her house from his work when I was picking my son up for access. He jumped to her rescue over a lie but would be well respected for it.

[bus boy]

I've heard it said we allow people to treat us bad. What does that mean? Was my Xw emotionally abusive or did she treat me bad bc I let her? A good friend of mine grew up with xw's BF, knows him very well. My friend said if Xw tries the same things with BF that she did with me, he would tell her to f### off. Does this mean I was abused for the simple fact I put up with it? Maybe my passiveness drove her crazy, she told me I was driving her crazy. Today I'm looking st my childhood, coming to terms that my father was very verbally anusive, I wouldn't fight back, my sister would. I wouldn't fight back with Xw. She clearly saw me as a coward and someone who couldn't protect her. Xw used threats of violence on me many times, she seemed to get pleasure out of it. Maybe she didn't respect me. Xw and my father were the only 2 anusive people in my life. My friend said just leave xw's BF alone, if he gets in your face, walk away, he will destroy you. He said the BF grew up fighting, beat and smash with his brothers all the time, pound each other bad my friend said. This seems to be the type of person Xw wants, a protector, she seems to have more respect for violence. She got her BF after me once already over a lie she made up and he flew to her house from his work when I was picking my son up for access. He jumped to her rescue over a lie but would be well respected for it.

[Lucky Jim]

Hey bus boy, Good question.  I suspect that we allow people to treat us poorly because it's a familiar pattern from childhood, as you note, and also because on some level we seem to think we deserve it, even though we don't deserve it.  The solution, I submit, is by caring enough about oneself that one will never allow abuse again.  In other words, it's about learning to love and accept oneself, in my view.  Unfortunately those w/BPD find it easy to manipulate a kind and caring person such as yourself.

LuckyJim

[Hisaccount]

I have a different take on this.
Yes I did allow myself to be treated bad.
Partially because I felt like I deserved it or maybe didn't deserve better, but the real reason was this was my second marriage. I was committed to it. I made a promise to her. Better or worse, sickness and health. All that crap.
I gave my word. To hold onto the last piece of me that was left I was going to stick by that no matter what it meant, and hope for better days ahead.
Often I would tell myself this is the life I chose as well as convincing myself there are people in the world that have it far worse than me.

In the end, I was true to myself, I did not give up on her, she gave up on me. That is probably the only boundary I did not cross for her.

[pjstock42]

Yet another take on this... .

I definitely allow people to treat me poorly / take advantage of me but this doesn't stem from childhood issues or me truly believing that I deserve it. I honestly think that I find myself in these situations due purely to naivety / giving people the benefit of the doubt when they may not deserve it. I know in my head that I could never hurt someone, use someone, take advantage of someone etc. so for some reason this makes me believe that no one could do that to me either. I guess the only way for me to ever really learn about this was to be forced to experience it for myself the hard way.

[joeramabeme]

"Bad": Subjective question based on our own histories and self-understanding.

Ex used to verbally berate me in the beginning and I thought it was amusing that she had so much spunk and vitriol; it had a funny and familiar familial edge to it.  Over time, I grew to dislike it and asked for it to cease but it did not. 

Rather than characterize her treatment as "good" or "bad"; I would now ask myself if the treatment was "respectful" of me; with a deeper awareness of who I am and how I want to be treated.

So, would you consider your exes treatment of you as being respectful?

[FSTL]

Definitely let my BPDx treat me badly. I was always saying "I don't take things personally", but that just gave her a free get of jail card, rather than taking responsibility for her actions. It was also familiar to me due to an abusive x and an abusive father, so not that big a deal on the surface, but drove me to depression as I was squashing my own feelings.

I guess we all need to know our boundaries.

[degree]

For me, the acceptance of being treated badly was because anything bad about me was overlooked during the idealisation honeymoon stage by my exBPDgf.  This stage was very, very addictive.  Subconsciously, I think I was addicted to that "feeling" of being unconditionally loved, and then I returned that unconditional love incorrectly as the bad treatment of me slowly kicked in.  Compounding this, my exBPDgf also had been previously physically abused by her ex husband, so I was too quick to become a rescuer and too accepting of her uncontrollable emotions after the honeymoon stage.

Something you may find interesting on this topic is this TED talk about why domestic violence victims don't leave:
https://www.ted.com/talks/leslie_morgan_steiner_why_domestic_violence_victims_don_t_leave#t-851248

[Curiously1]

I would say she treats people badly because that's who she is. It honestly does not matter who you are. A really healthy person, I believe would not take the crap and would have walked out a long time ago or when they spot the obvious red flags at the beginning imho. I used to bring it up everytime she did something that was against my values, beliefs etc. I wouldn't just let someone treat me badly however, my mistake was to stay despite addressing what never seemed to change. I was too focused and optimistic on trying to find another solution and kept forgiving and letting it go.

  Degree
That is exactly how I felt. I thought I was unconditionally loved especially during the idealisation phase because I felt like I was. I had insecurities about not being loveable and she soothed those to the point I felt secure in trying to be in a relationship with her. I was afraid of being vulnerable because I had abandonment fears of my own and eventually she opened me up. I thought we were alike. I became more patient during the later stage because she seemed like a dream come true and we were two flawed beings who made each other better when we were together. She already made me feel loved like nobody had before. I did not think it was ok when she wasn't her best self however I kept telling myself that nobody's partner is perfect and I was convinced she loved me and that 'all you need is love' at the end of the day (which is not true). You can't just go by feelings and emotion. There's so much more to a relationship working out and she did not try as hard as I did to find a solution looking back (so we weren't as alike as I used to think).

ALSO I used to buy into the idea that she could get away with more bad behaviour than me because she came from an abusive family. Like oh she doesn't know any better so I should understand her and forgive her more. That's not right. Don't think abuse is more OK because you understand where they came from. That helped me forgive her time and time again. Feeling sorry for her and as if she could not improve. She should really want to and care about how she affects me too.

[Curiously1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Eu0f5EbT2c

Just a video I thought to share that was good at explaining reasons why we make excuses for abusive behaviour.  I know her channel is more NPD specific but I think it still relates in regards to abusive behaviour. There is just more people doing videos on NPD which is quite interesting over BPD but expressing the same type of abusive behaviours all cluster Bs and or abusive people seem to share. Anyway, Jenna states theres a great tendency for many people who grew up in an abusive environment to make excuses for someone who is being abusive as well. It does start from childhood.

[degree]

Curiously1 - Thank you for the video, everyone here should check it out.  Interestingly, my dad was emotionally abusive throughout my childhood.