Reactive abuse and physical violence

[Ashesanddust]

Hey ya'll. I know i have been posting a lot. I am having a hard time reconciling everything. I have been thinking through so much of the relationship. Examining pieces and fights.  My actions and responses to him.
There were 2 times that things got really out of control and I slapped him in the face. I feel horrible about it. I know violence is never the answer and there is no excuse.

To give you a better idea of the situation, the first time, we had been fighting nonstop for a couple days and this one day was especially bad. Probably about 5 hours of accusations and cruel words. It was late and I had been trying to go to bed for a while. He had the tv all the way up, all the lights on, was trying to push me out of the bed. He decided I was hiding something and insisted on going through my phone. He went really far back and wound up finding a sexual message I had sent to a man about 2 years before my bpd partner and i had even met. He started laying into me about it. At one point, he called me a stupid slut. At that point, I snapped. I followed him into the living room and said what did you call me? He got this incredibly malicious look on his face and said you heard me you disgusting slut. I slapped him. I left. I went to a friend's and fell apart. I told her how horrible i felt about my response. She thought it was warranted but I still do not.

The other time was when we were broken up. At this point, he had ignored and abandoned me when I was going through a miscarriage with his child, he had been on a smear campaign telling people that I raped him, he had called me every name possible, berated me while I was having panic attacks, left me alone for hours after tearing me apart while he would disappear into the night, would be upset if i tried to talk about it later when I desperately needed to, constantly blamed me for his suicidal ideation, held knives to his throat and his chest, slammed his head into walls, tore apart his apartment, pushed me to my breaking point over and over. I also have cptsd and he would trigger me very badly. Anyway, he had been calling nonstop for two nights and I had been ignoring him because typically, answering when he was like that would lead to more fighting. But i was concerned that maybe he was hurting himself. So on the third day, i reached out to check on him. Nothing. I called and texted a couple times throughout the day and no response, no read receipts. I was so stressed out all day thinking he had actually hurt himself so when I could, I went to check on him. He had another girl over, they were making out. He had turned his read receipts off. I lost it, called him a liar, slapped him. It was stupid and awful. He had spent all this time telling me that i was the only one for him and he couldn't even imagine thinking about someone else and there he was kidding this woman that he had claimed he never felt much about in the first place.

I have never hit anyone outside of the rough housing my siblings and I did as young kids. I feel so incredibly guilty about it. I know there is never an excuse for physical violence.
I guess my question is, have any of ya'll ever been pushed to that point? Is reactive abuse a thing in that way? How do you cope with doing that to the person you love? How do you cope with knowing you slapped a mentally ill person?

[ForeverDad]

Rather than viewing a slap as outright violence, I would agree with your friend that it was warranted in the aspect that a behavioral boundary was crossed and a response was natural.  Essentially, a response was appropriate and a slap is not quite aggressive.  We have observed that people with BPD traits (pwBPD) repeatedly push boundaries, especially when they sense weakness or wavering.

Looking back, yes you regret it.  But a response to poor behavior was needed.  Why?  Because pwBPD resist proper behavior boundaries, especially with those closest to them and especially in private scenarios.  That's why boundaries are for us... our response to poor behavior.

Since tit for tat can escalate tensions, one possible choice for a Boundary (I will leave when poor behavior erupts) is to exit the area, go visit a friend, walk in the park, go to a gym, go grocery shopping, whatever, and return once the other has reset.  This of course is not a fix nor does it succeed in all scenarios, but it does allow time and some distance to - hopefully - calm down the immediate incident.