The reason I'm supposedly abusive.

[Depression = 72% of members]

My ex and I were both into astrology. When I met her, she said she was a Pisces. I told her that I was surprised, because I would have guessed Aries. I thought that was a fairly casual and harmless comment. She twisted my words and decided that her parents had created a false birth certificate and were lying about her birthday and she was really an Aries (which is fire). Her mother didn't deny it (which honestly shocked me), so I figured my ex was telling the truth. Occasionally she'd have doubts, but I knew she was a survivor of abuse and fear that you're just "making it all up" is very common for abuse survivors. I tried to be supportive and tell her that I believed her.

Fast forward a few months. She told me that she was wrong about her changed birthday. I got this huge lecture about how she was scared to be a Pisces because my ex (before her) was a Pisces and I obviously "discriminated" against them. I told her that her zodiac sign had no bearing on our relationship and that I was happy to hear that her confusion was finally over. A week or two later, she was an Aries again. If I expressed any disbelief, she got extremely hurt and felt like I didn't trust or support her.

Another couple of weeks later, she was suddenly a Libra. She asked me if I believed her, and I said, "I don't know." At that point, I had no idea what the hell to believe and was getting really tired of things changing every five minutes. Every time she changed her zodiac sign, her personality changed into a complete caricature of whatever that sign was supposed to be like. She was constantly asking me for Tarot readings about her zodiac sign, and spent a crazy amount of time on a site that makes astrology charts, entering in new birthdays, then reading me the traits and asking: "does this sound like me?"

If I said that it didn't, she would get very upset and suggest that I wasn't "letting her be herself" or was forcing her into a mold, and that chart really did fit her. If I said that it did fit, she'd decide that I was trying to "force" her to accept that chart and wasn't giving her room to figure it out for herself. I couldn't win and it felt like we went back over this issue pretty much every single day.

A couple weeks later, she was back to being a Pisces and I was in big trouble. She told me that she was a poor, vulnerable person that I had "bullied" into an identity crisis. She told me that she had NEVER doubted her sign before but then I came in and just started "attacking" her and "insisting" that she wasn't a Pisces and "tearing into her" about it. She started crying and asking me why a Pisces wasn't "good enough" for me. When I told her that I had never had a problem with her being a Pisces, she said "well that's not how I interpreted it." It occurred to me that her split-second impression of a situation seemed more important to her than the truth.

She told me that I "bullied" her into becoming everything I needed in a partner and that she had been forced into a lie. At that point, she admitted that she had not only lied about her birthday, but had also lied about her age, her trauma history, her religious beliefs, her opinions about social issues, and her sexual history and preferences. In her mind, this was my fault because by reacting positively to her lies, I "proved" to her that her "true self" was unlovable and severely damaged her self-esteem. I had no idea she was lying, so I thought that responding favorably when she talked about herself was a good thing. *Sigh.*

At that point, living with me became far too difficult and she moved back in with her parents (after promising not to do this AND telling me they were so horribly abusive she might literally die if she moved back in). We spent the entire week before she moved with her just going ON and on and on and on about how horrible I made her feel about her zodiac sign (with occasional breaks to criticize me for everything else imaginable). Nothing I said was good enough.

It gets better. She told me that I had maliciously tried to force her to be confused about her birthday to compensate for the fact that my own birthday was changed. If I told her this wasn't true, she felt invalidated and like I didn't respect her opinion. She started making free astrology charts online, changing my birthday to various dates that "fit me better." After telling me that I had abused her by making her confused about her sign, she turned around and started trying to convince my roommate and me that our signs were changed.

My roommate just shrugged and said "yep, you're right, my parents totally lied to me." He didn't believe her, he just knew she was going to explode if he didn't act like he did. She exploded anyway because he didn't have enough of a breakdown over the revelation and that made her look pathetic in comparison or something.

After she moved back home, I was getting text after text about how she was seeking "validation" from her sister that her birthday wasn't changed. We spent ALL night one night talking about her birthday. The next day, she IM'd asking how I was doing. She said she needed to go to bed in an hour, so I told her honestly I wasn't doing very well. Rather than just leaving it at that, she started laying into me with all the things I was doing wrong and all the reasons my pain was my fault essentially. I was trying to calmly and gently correct her because I didn't want us going to bed angry.

She was furious with me because:

a.) I wouldn't "let" her go to bed. This wasn't true. I told her to go to bed, but I wanted her to essentially drop the anger and the rage before going to bed because I didn't think going to bed that angry would be healthy for either of us. I wanted some kind of resolution. This caused her to accuse me of being selfish.

b.) I didn't express enough interest when she started going on about her conversation with her sister about her zodiac sign. I told her I was happy for her that she had received validation, but apparently that wasn't the answer she wanted.

c.) I got her "so worked up" that she wouldn't be able to sleep.

d.) Clearly all those things meant I didn't care about her.

----

I KNOW I did not force her into zodiac confusion. I just supported her when she told me that the confusion was there. Yet... .somehow she's convinced I "forced" her into all this and am therefore a horribly controlling, abusive monster. I don't want to be an abusive monster. I really hope I'm not... .but I can't fully convince myself that I'm not. This issue is so confusing because I feel like she essentially gave me no real choice but to validate whatever she thought she was on any given day, and then used my attempts to support her against me. I felt like a bad girlfriend near the end because I just wanted to scream "I DO NOT GIVE A DAMN WHEN YOUR BIRTHDAY IS, JUST SHUT UP ALREADY!" She accused me of not caring about her, and by the end I honestly didn't. Should I have?

I went NC with her, but this still hurts a lot.

[spiralthorns]

My ex and I were both into astrology. When I met her, she said she was a Pisces. I told her that I was surprised, because I would have guessed Aries. I thought that was a fairly casual and harmless comment. She twisted my words and decided that her parents had created a false birth certificate and were lying about her birthday and she was really an Aries (which is fire). Her mother didn't deny it (which honestly shocked me), so I figured my ex was telling the truth. Occasionally she'd have doubts, but I knew she was a survivor of abuse and fear that you're just "making it all up" is very common for abuse survivors. I tried to be supportive and tell her that I believed her.

Fast forward a few months. She told me that she was wrong about her changed birthday. I got this huge lecture about how she was scared to be a Pisces because my ex (before her) was a Pisces and I obviously "discriminated" against them. I told her that her zodiac sign had no bearing on our relationship and that I was happy to hear that her confusion was finally over. A week or two later, she was an Aries again. If I expressed any disbelief, she got extremely hurt and felt like I didn't trust or support her.

Another couple of weeks later, she was suddenly a Libra. She asked me if I believed her, and I said, "I don't know." At that point, I had no idea what the hell to believe and was getting really tired of things changing every five minutes. Every time she changed her zodiac sign, her personality changed into a complete caricature of whatever that sign was supposed to be like. She was constantly asking me for Tarot readings about her zodiac sign, and spent a crazy amount of time on a site that makes astrology charts, entering in new birthdays, then reading me the traits and asking: "does this sound like me?"

If I said that it didn't, she would get very upset and suggest that I wasn't "letting her be herself" or was forcing her into a mold, and that chart really did fit her. If I said that it did fit, she'd decide that I was trying to "force" her to accept that chart and wasn't giving her room to figure it out for herself. I couldn't win and it felt like we went back over this issue pretty much every single day.

A couple weeks later, she was back to being a Pisces and I was in big trouble. She told me that she was a poor, vulnerable person that I had "bullied" into an identity crisis. She told me that she had NEVER doubted her sign before but then I came in and just started "attacking" her and "insisting" that she wasn't a Pisces and "tearing into her" about it. She started crying and asking me why a Pisces wasn't "good enough" for me. When I told her that I had never had a problem with her being a Pisces, she said "well that's not how I interpreted it." It occurred to me that her split-second impression of a situation seemed more important to her than the truth.

She told me that I "bullied" her into becoming everything I needed in a partner and that she had been forced into a lie. At that point, she admitted that she had not only lied about her birthday, but had also lied about her age, her trauma history, her religious beliefs, her opinions about social issues, and her sexual history and preferences. In her mind, this was my fault because by reacting positively to her lies, I "proved" to her that her "true self" was unlovable and severely damaged her self-esteem. I had no idea she was lying, so I thought that responding favorably when she talked about herself was a good thing. *Sigh.*

At that point, living with me became far too difficult and she moved back in with her parents (after promising not to do this AND telling me they were so horribly abusive she might literally die if she moved back in). We spent the entire week before she moved with her just going ON and on and on and on about how horrible I made her feel about her zodiac sign (with occasional breaks to criticize me for everything else imaginable). Nothing I said was good enough.

It gets better. She told me that I had maliciously tried to force her to be confused about her birthday to compensate for the fact that my own birthday was changed. If I told her this wasn't true, she felt invalidated and like I didn't respect her opinion. She started making free astrology charts online, changing my birthday to various dates that "fit me better." After telling me that I had abused her by making her confused about her sign, she turned around and started trying to convince my roommate and me that our signs were changed.

My roommate just shrugged and said "yep, you're right, my parents totally lied to me." He didn't believe her, he just knew she was going to explode if he didn't act like he did. She exploded anyway because he didn't have enough of a breakdown over the revelation and that made her look pathetic in comparison or something.

After she moved back home, I was getting text after text about how she was seeking "validation" from her sister that her birthday wasn't changed. We spent ALL night one night talking about her birthday. The next day, she IM'd asking how I was doing. She said she needed to go to bed in an hour, so I told her honestly I wasn't doing very well. Rather than just leaving it at that, she started laying into me with all the things I was doing wrong and all the reasons my pain was my fault essentially. I was trying to calmly and gently correct her because I didn't want us going to bed angry.

She was furious with me because:

a.) I wouldn't "let" her go to bed. This wasn't true. I told her to go to bed, but I wanted her to essentially drop the anger and the rage before going to bed because I didn't think going to bed that angry would be healthy for either of us. I wanted some kind of resolution. This caused her to accuse me of being selfish.

b.) I didn't express enough interest when she started going on about her conversation with her sister about her zodiac sign. I told her I was happy for her that she had received validation, but apparently that wasn't the answer she wanted.

c.) I got her "so worked up" that she wouldn't be able to sleep.

d.) Clearly all those things meant I didn't care about her.

----

I KNOW I did not force her into zodiac confusion. I just supported her when she told me that the confusion was there. Yet... .somehow she's convinced I "forced" her into all this and am therefore a horribly controlling, abusive monster. I don't want to be an abusive monster. I really hope I'm not... .but I can't fully convince myself that I'm not. This issue is so confusing because I feel like she essentially gave me no real choice but to validate whatever she thought she was on any given day, and then used my attempts to support her against me. I felt like a bad girlfriend near the end because I just wanted to scream "I DO NOT GIVE A DAMN WHEN YOUR BIRTHDAY IS, JUST SHUT UP ALREADY!" She accused me of not caring about her, and by the end I honestly didn't. Should I have?

I went NC with her, but this still hurts a lot.

[northerndragon]

I went NC with her, but this still hurts a lot.

You did the right thing in going NC. Stick with it!

[Let it Be]

I went NC with her, but this still hurts a lot

I hope you are able to read what you wrote and realize how you were not causing her to have an identity crisis.  I am glad you went NC and the next time you date someone who does not know when their birthday is consider it a 

[OTH]

No, you are not abusive. You were being abused. Your ex was making you jump through hoops. Do you not see this?

[Clearmind]

Spiral, thank goodness you are out of all that mess. I figure two things: either it's her lack of identity/impulsivity or she is gaslighting you - aim of gaslighting is control/test whether you believe what she is telling you - it worked because now you are under the illusion you were abusive - no sister!

[spiralthorns]

The whole relationship was like this, and the birthday thing was only one of the things I had to deal with. The difficult thing was that she was basing a lot of criticisms of me  on half-truths, blowing legitimate flaws or issues way out of proportion in order to paint me black. I keep having battles in my mind, trying to prove to myself that this wasn't my fault, and never quite winning. I don't know why.

[Suzn]

   I've read your last 3 posts about this r/s. Your ex is almost a carbon copy of mine. Except for this bday thing, which btw sent my head spinning... .woow. Omg I do NOT miss conversations like these. I'm here to tell ya it does get better. Just reading that made me feel the wieght of my past with her so I know you're feeling pretty heavy right now.

 I too rented a house for "us" when we were together and I OWN a house. Wasn't big enough for her, it is pretty small but still. When we split the time before the last I just went home to my house and gave her the rental only to have her leave the state and the house. It took 5 people an entire weekend to clean this place up and I had to sell most of what she left behind because I had no room for it. That was two of the hardest days of my life going through all that. Things I had bought her and the kids for xmas just a month previous to this. Hundreds of dollars worth of stuff the kids loved, their clothes, their toys... .ugh. Very painful. Take some time, a good amount of time, to find out about yourself and learn about these disorders so hopefully this won't happen to you again.

  And since you've changed your number and email... .might be a good idea to change the locks in case she runs back since she can't reach you. Just sayin... .  

[Clearmind]

The whole relationship was like this, and the birthday thing was only one of the things I had to deal with. The difficult thing was that she was basing a lot of criticisms of me  on half-truths, blowing legitimate flaws or issues way out of proportion in order to paint me black. I keep having battles in my mind, trying to prove to myself that this wasn't my fault, and never quite winning. I don't know why.

Spiral, firstly just accept where you are right now in your healing and dont bash yourself on the head - not helpful!

You said it all in your post - your ex was basing a lot of criticisms of me  on half-truths, blowing legitimate flaws or issues way out of proportion in order to paint me black - this is all it is - not your fault - you are dealing with someone who bases reality on twisted thinking.

You know who you are - and you are none of these things - your ex does not hold your power - you do.   

[Finished]

We would also have conversations that went on and on and never got anywhere. They only created more confusion.

My ex told me they were a form of emotional/psychological abuse because they would go on into the night therefore depriving him of sleep.

He would conveniently forget that he was the one who kept them going by not participating in the conversation.

I found out later he said I would "lecture" him for hours and hours. I never did this.

I did try to get him to engage in a conversation with me that would lead to some form of conflict resolution. These conversations were a nightmare. They created nothing but hurt, confusion and damage.

Didn't matter what the subject was - no matter how small - it would always escalate and become a monster of a conversation.

Yes, I wanted him to talk to me. I wanted him to engage in problem solving with me. I wanted him to discuss our life and our goals with me.

Yes, this was me being abusive.

[2010]

Imagine what it feels like to be utterly confused as to who you are. Then imagine what it would feel like when someone says they know you. This is the curse of being a Borderline.

Borderlines respond to people who have strong beliefs and opinions about who they are. Borderlines then try to conform and mirror those beliefs with the faulty reasoning that in the outcome they will be loved and accepted for "who they are."  You can see how this can be confusing.

The Borderline chooses to let others determine who and therefore, what they are.  When a new partner comes along with a different belief - that belief is adapted to.  If that belief has drawbacks or is done in order to prove worthiness- the fury and rage at being controlled is set aside for a time while the new belief is mirrored. When that belief doesn't solve but adds to their anxiety, the fury and rage that was kept underground and hidden erupts and is projected out at the perceived controlling object.  Usually the object suffers counter transference and rages back because of the Borderline attacking their strong belief.

Anything or anyone that attempts to give a personal belief to a Borderline about who they are will further keep the Borderline from finding their own way and discovering their own truth because the Borderline will assume judgment about the belief and use it as a reason for failure. They will then change according to the transference which triggers counter-transference in the partner. 

Both people have to go it alone and suffer the abandonment depression in order to realize their potential self. 

[Mystic]

Imagine what it feels like to be utterly confused as to who you are. Then imagine what it would feel like when someone says they know you. This is the curse of being a Borderline.

Borderlines respond to people who have strong beliefs and opinions about who they are. Borderlines then try to conform and mirror those beliefs with the faulty reasoning that in the outcome they will be loved and accepted for "who they are."  You can see how this can be confusing.

The Borderline chooses to let others determine who and therefore, what they are.  When a new partner comes along with a different belief - that belief is adapted to.  If that belief has drawbacks or is done in order to prove worthiness- the fury and rage at being controlled is set aside for a time while the new belief is mirrored. When that belief doesn't solve but adds to their anxiety, the fury and rage that was kept underground and hidden erupts and is projected out at the perceived controlling object.  Usually the object suffers counter transference and rages back because of the Borderline attacking their strong belief.

Anything or anyone that attempts to give a personal belief to a Borderline about who they are will further keep the Borderline from finding their own way and discovering their own truth because the Borderline will assume judgment about the belief and use it as a reason for failure. They will then change according to the transference which triggers counter-transference in the partner. 

Both people have to go it alone and suffer the abandonment depression in order to realize their potential self. 

Hi 2010:

Great post, thanks once again for these brilliant glimpses of understanding.  Can I ask for a little  explanation of counter transference? 

And "abandonment depression".  Don't think I've heard it described that way before, but it's a spot on term.  I think I'm going to get an "I survived" t-shirt for that one 

[spiralthorns]

suzn - Wow, that does sound very similar. I'm sorry you went through all that and that she complained about the house. Mine did too, referred to it regularly as a "shthole." Luckily she can't come running back because she doesn't drive and she didn't stay long enough to get her own keys.

Clearmind - You're definitely right. Thanks.

Finished - Ugh, that sounds completely familiar. I hate how trying to resolve a situation equals depriving them of sleep or abusing them.

2010 - I wish I had known she was borderline a lot sooner xD.