What happened when you called them out on their abuse?

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

My ex would write fulsome apology letters, reeking of maudlin sentimentality, about how he had failed me, failed himself, shot himself in the heart, was a failure, and so forth. He never took directly responsibility for any specific behavior. In fact, if questioned about the specific rage and abuse that had led to the apology letter, he would quickly become angry again, and cite all the reasons why I "made" him angry. Or how it hadn't happened the way I said. It was totally reality bending.

He also had this obsession with "fairness." He didn't want to admit any wrongdoing unless I was admitting equal responsibility. No matter what had happened. So if he blew up over something trivial, he wanted me to take equal responsibility. I commented to him once that it was like a drug dealer bringing their own scale to the deal. That didn't make him happy, .

Sometimes he did seem to have insights, but now I wonder how deep they ran, since they vanished quickly.

I found it amazing that he would sit there and revile his father for being cold, imperious, scornful, abusive and the most narcissistic man on the planet... .and then repeat exactly the same behaviors. Of course, his behaviors are the result of him being "provoked."

But back to the original question: Any effort on part to name the abuse led to more abuse, even if he was in a calm place at the time. Later it would come up and feed the rage. He twisted what I said in subtle ways, such as repeating my statements in a mocking, shrewish voice, as if I sound like the worst henwife in history.

[HurtinNW]

My ex would write fulsome apology letters, reeking of maudlin sentimentality, about how he had failed me, failed himself, shot himself in the heart, was a failure, and so forth. He never took directly responsibility for any specific behavior. In fact, if questioned about the specific rage and abuse that had led to the apology letter, he would quickly become angry again, and cite all the reasons why I "made" him angry. Or how it hadn't happened the way I said. It was totally reality bending.

He also had this obsession with "fairness." He didn't want to admit any wrongdoing unless I was admitting equal responsibility. No matter what had happened. So if he blew up over something trivial, he wanted me to take equal responsibility. I commented to him once that it was like a drug dealer bringing their own scale to the deal. That didn't make him happy, .

Sometimes he did seem to have insights, but now I wonder how deep they ran, since they vanished quickly.

I found it amazing that he would sit there and revile his father for being cold, imperious, scornful, abusive and the most narcissistic man on the planet... .and then repeat exactly the same behaviors. Of course, his behaviors are the result of him being "provoked."

But back to the original question: Any effort on part to name the abuse led to more abuse, even if he was in a calm place at the time. Later it would come up and feed the rage. He twisted what I said in subtle ways, such as repeating my statements in a mocking, shrewish voice, as if I sound like the worst henwife in history.

[Thread]

@HurtingNW

My ex would write fulsome apology letters, reeking of maudlin sentimentality, about how he had failed me, failed himself, shot himself in the heart, was a failure, and so forth. He never took directly responsibility for any specific behavior. In fact, if questioned about the specific rage and abuse that had led to the apology letter, he would quickly become angry again, and cite all the reasons why I "made" him angry. Or how it hadn't happened the way I said. It was totally reality bending.

This is like an exact replica of my life 

And @Starla

He says the control thing to me often, so often, however always asks me to make decisions, I offer for him to lead things or decide things and he never will, than later guess who hears the control rant or how I never let him do things. It's very frustrating to say the least. 

[Dhand77]

I foolishly broke 2 months of No Contact after she was manipulating a co-worker of mine to get my attention. I railed into her, told her she has BPD and she needs serious help and leave my co-workers out of it.

She blame shifted. Accused me of being crazy and then threatened me with a restraining order if I contacted her again.

Now I'm scared to death of her. I don't need this crap in my life.

[balletomane]

My ex never apologised for anything. Ever. However, he remembers himself apologising to me over and over again, and believes that I manipulated him into believing he did bad things he never did just to get him to say sorry. You couldn't make it up. In reality I was the one who would be compulsively apologising, in tears, admitting to and saying sorry for things I hadn't done (even thoughts he accused me of thinking) just because I wanted the vicious verbal abuse to stop. He didn't remember any of the awful stuff he said and decided I was making it up. He also told me I was the worst abuser he'd ever met in his life (almost all his previous partners are abusive, according to him). So projection is main response. He basically accused me of everything he was doing himself.

[HurtinNW]

Another thing I realized over time was that every time I tried to confront my ex about his abuse it was another opportunity for him to build a case about me. Same with efforts on the part of counselors. He would obsess about the "accusation" and build up lots of evidence and arguments about how wrong it was, including details and specifics down to the day and hour.

He spent a lot of time in his own head building up evidence to defend what he had done, and efforts to confront that just added fuel to the fire. Eventually he would no longer remember doing anything wrong at all, and just focus on how I was "maligning" him.

Balletomane, I remember apologizing repeatedly to my ex for crying while he berated me. Sobbing, even, and saying sorry for being hurt. 

[5tarla]

Yeah. I don't consider 'sorry' an apology if you keep doing it, and also if you don't explain what you're sorry for. :/

[Frustratedbloke]

Mine hasn't contacted me since I called her out on behaviour as part of a final email. It made me laugh.

We never actually had a real conversation about feelings, emotions, whatever, in the whole year and a bit we were together, apart, then together again. Every serious conversation happened on Messenger or email, then it was never brought up in person.

She really was broken in retrospect! But I detailed her behaviour, angled it in the validation sandwich type of thing and even said that certain behaviours made her look like a massive user, but I know she can be a better person than that. So don't be that person.

What a waste of time it was crafting that email so perfectly, I haven't heard from her since

Mine never said sorry either, she did once and I knew it meant she was lying to me. It even sounded fake.

[balletomane]

She really was broken in retrospect! But I detailed her behaviour, angled it in the validation sandwich type of thing and even said that certain behaviours made her look like a massive user, but I know she can be a better person than that. So don't be that person.

What a waste of time it was crafting that email so perfectly, I haven't heard from her since

Mine never said sorry either, she did once and I knew it meant she was lying to me. It even sounded fake.

In one of my last conversations with my ex, I told him that when he gets emotionally overwhelmed he becomes like a kettle that's been on the boil for too long, and people around him end up getting burned by the overflow of emotion. I took care to stress that I don't think this is his fault, and that it must be frightening and difficult for him too, but it's still harmful to others. I should say here that this was one of the very rare times I was honest with him about how his behaviour was affecting me - during the relationship itself I would assume all blame for everything, no matter how ludicrous his accusations, and I would never challenge him on anything in case it made him lash out at me. This time I was very clear in what I was saying to him. He reacted with anger - "So basically you think I'm this mean person who lashes out at his friends" - and started ranting about how much I'd hurt him. "Good luck getting me to forgive you yet another time."

That was when I gave up trying to get him to understand. His history is littered with broken relationships and friends he no longer speaks to, but he couldn't see that he'd played any role in that. As far as he's concerned, he is a victim whom people single out specially for abuse (he actually said this), which explains why he has encountered so many 'abusers'. He always forgives and apologises and is unfailingly kind ("I have been nothing but kind to you", but everyone else lets him down. When I quoted his verbal abuse back to him, he said it was "tough love" and I was manipulating him into thinking it was abuse. (Examples of this so-called "tough love" include "I don't give a sh*t if you can cope or not", said after he'd just cheated on me/discarded me and I was in floods of tears, and "You're crazy and that's the only thing that stops you being completely evil".) I think he honestly perceives himself as the good guy in all of this. Heaven only knows how.

[bus boy]

My ex wife did what every good old fashion every day abuser did, deny, lie,  don't know what your talking about, that never happened, one half hearted apology in 12 years of abusive bliss. Even lied to the forensic psychologist  who did our accessment but she couldn't fool the test.

[GreenEyedMonster]

What happened when I called him out?

"I'm sorry you feel that way."

A typical narc apology. 

What happened when I called him out again?  He turned off his phone and didn't speak to me again for six weeks.

[steelwork]

Honestly, after I found out the truth there was no more self-blaming on her part, just invalidating me and what she did to me. I didn't stay after the cat was out of the bag, but I'm still interested to hear about others.

I found out that he was seeing someone else via a one-line email. He'd said only two days earlier that he wasn't seeing anyone. (I'd suspected and asked.) Who knows how long he was intending to keep that up, but I guess the pressure of lying just built up. He was never the same person after that. Totally 180 about-face.

[bus boy]

Don't forget the litany of everything they did for you.

[Stolen]

Don't forget the litany of everything they did for you.

Exactly.

"For twenty years I did EVERYTHING for you!"

"Umm, Honey, that's a pretty broad brush for me to respond to. Give me some examples and I'll address them"

"So you are saying I did NOTHING for you?"


Can't make this stuff up.

Oh - and to comment on much of this thread; I never got a single apology, not even an acknowledgment of hurtful behavior.  I think this ties right in to xW's hypersensitivity to any hint of perceived criticism.  An apology would admit fault, and would be as invalidating to the unstable sense of self as overt criticism.  I really think the two issues are the same.

So many times I would be reduced to pleading "Can't you just be nice?"

Always met with the spin "You be nice too".   She just couldn't accept it being about her.

[bus boy]

Hi stolen. Thanks for your input you answered a nagging question for me. I read so much about the apologies and repenting of the abuser to change there abusive ways. I was so stumped on that bc I never heard any such promises. It was the big hang up I had that kept that spark alive in me that I must of been the problem.  I did so much work on my self, now I feel I can move on a bit more. I use to beg, I was always there for her only to be constantly  told, " your never there for me" or " you don't know how to protect me" I took great pride in being a good provider so that's where she hit me. She never asked how my day was. I asked her why and she said "  why bother, your going to tell me anyway" . As I heal I can't believe I loved this person, I shake my head and say wow thank god I'm done of her. Mean, dirty, rotten, thinking before I speak or not talking at all for fear of saying the wrong thing, reading the phone bill and raging at me for calling my family, saying I'm calling them and telling them what a terrible person she is. I was always told how horrable I treated her how no one ever treated her as bad as I did. After a while you believe those words and start re arranging everything about your self, being told you have to change,  trying to change, than being told you have to change this and that as well, I would reply give me time I can only change one thing at a time, she would say your not changing g fast enough. I was a mental mess. She would say we can't have children until you do something about your family, in the next breath she would say will you still love me if I weigh 800 lbs after I have a baby. All of which she denies ever saying. There was never enough reinforcement I could give her, never enough kind loving words. We could be snuggling and out of the blue she would say, things are not good bc we are snuggling, you didn't do anything about your family, what are you going to do about your family? Wow! Writing this and reading this opens up my eyes so much to the unbelievable insanity I lived with.

[Stolen]

"thinking before I speak or not talking at all for fear of saying the wrong thing,"

otherwise known as walking on eggshells.

welcome to the club

[Daniell85]

Mine typically responded with some nasty comment about "blaming", or "I am sorry you feel " some way. If I persisted, he would begin ignoring, refusing to respond. If I didn't shut up at that point, he would say something nasty or link a song or video to me that was intended to be hurtful. Which it was. And if I protested that, I would get blocked all over the place, or he would begin days or weeks of silent treatment and if somewhere along the silent treatment ( days or weeks in) if I got angry at him for the ST and told him off or tried to call him, he would then block me everywhere and run a smear campaign. Pretty soon, his minions would be saying nasty stuff to me, too.

One popped up yesterday. Doesn't seem to matter how much I stay out of it and try to let the drama die down, it makes grabs for me anyway.

[WoundedBibi]

Mine typically responded with some nasty comment about "blaming", or "I am sorry you feel " some way. If I persisted, he would begin ignoring, refusing to respond. If I didn't shut up at that point, he would say something nasty or link a song or video to me that was intended to be hurtful. Which it was. And if I protested that, I would get blocked all over the place, or he would begin days or weeks of silent treatment and if somewhere along the silent treatment ( days or weeks in) if I got angry at him for the ST and told him off or tried to call him, he would then block me everywhere and run a smear campaign. Pretty soon, his minions would be saying nasty stuff to me, too.

One popped up yesterday. Doesn't seem to matter how much I stay out of it and try to let the drama die down, it makes grabs for me anyway.

Were we dating the same guy?

[stimpy]

So if I called her out on her abuse, any one of the following :-

guilt tripped (all my fault) because I was "too sensitive"

emotionally invalidated and told to "just leave" followed by the silent treatment

insulted and demeened- called schizophrenic and told my arguing with her was me being abusive.

or a break up.

But the "best" from her was one time when we had an argument, and then a couple of weeks later, when I thought it was done and dusted, she brought it up again and said to me, that she "thought she handled me well". How insulting is that.

We were only together for 4 months, but I stood my ground as much as I could. I'm sure that was why she dumped me - just too many arguments. In retrospect, I'm so glad to be out of it. No more drama and no more crisis.

Also, I've read in a couple of posts here of a so called "apology" along the lines of "I'm sorry for how you feel" - which is of course no apology at all. So an ex narc friend of mine, (not my expwBPDgf), gave me this answer when I called him out after he kept on interrupting me when I was talking. I told him that this was not an apology and that he should apologise for his actual behaviour. He did. And I have never heard from him again. HOORAY!