Hi @LovingBPD, and welcome!
It got the perception that you might be trying to argue with him, are you? I mean, if he says something like "the Earth is flat" then you try to prove it's round, but as he adds nonsense arguments to support his flat-earther views and raises the tone, the discussion becomes exhausting for you?
But you must remember this:
"Arguments lead to counter-arguments."Particularly in BPD, when you talk about anything and it leads to a discussion, that interaction will only strengthen even more his rigid thought patterns.
The first choice is to ignore it. But if that's not enough, you might consider the possibility of pretending to agree with the nonsense, only until they cool off. And then after they cooled off completely and switched to "the pull mode," you might ask them if they really think that, as if you didn't quite know who you are. You might be surprised to notice that they may change their mind.
For instance, my wife has used the term "sexually impotent" to offend me. I find that funny because her real opinion is the exact contrary. So I just ignore it, and I don't want to spend energy on that.
Another thing she says is to call me controlling. Again, I don't care, so I was ignoring it. However, this is a very sensible spot because she is traumatized by controlling parents, so her perception of being controlled is something that creates lots of issues in our lives. Eventually she disagrees with me on something I considered important to her or the baby's health and calls me controlling, but since it's important, I find myself having to "hold up my stance." Unfortunately, she ends up perceiving me as if I were defending against the accusation of being controlling, when I'm not. Instead, I'm arguing about a food or a medication. But yet, since I am arguing with her, her distorted perception of being a victim of someone controlling deepens and feeds her anger at an impressive rate, quickly making it impossible for us to talk. So she is left with her deepened views.
So I tried to resolve this dispute by just agreeing with her. Before she got too aggressive, I just said, "Yes, I am." She took it as "a confession," and, with wide eyes and a dumbfounded facial expression, she began to think and stopped ranting. Later on, when she was calmer, she brought this up again, telling me that it was the first time I had ever "confessed it." I told her that it is pointless to discuss this, because people that are controlling don't change, so she made a bad choice, but she still can divorce and perhaps find a non-controlling husband. For someone else watching the scene from the outside, it might seem like a joke, but for her it did sink in and make her think about it. Maybe it's because she would never get that kind of response from her parents. Definitely not from her father.
Have you ever tried anything similar?
