And for the first half of the conversation he seemed genuinely contrite. And then things went BPD. But it was sad. Because he clearly WANTED and NEEDED met to understand his point of view. And he kept trying to explain his physical outburst and explain what it was that I did to have a caused it. And as usual I HAVE NO FREAKING CLUE what he is talking about but I'm trying to say things that let him know I am HEARING him without AGREEING with him but it wasn't working and he was just so sad and kept trying.
From how you describe the conversation, he was open and vulnerable, was as receptive to what you might say as he gets. And the two of you failed to communicate anything that improved anything this time. If you can remember what was said and post the dialog here, we might be able to offer constructive suggestions; where you said something invalidating, where you let him cross a boundary you shouldn't have, or where you missed an opportunity to validate.
I'm willing to try to help, even if it might not work--I ended one relationship specifically because any time the two of us tried to communicate about something intimate or significant in our relationship, I had that same feeling that I was talking in the wrong language because she just didn't get anything I said.
I don't even really know the purpose of this post really. Just feeling as sad and uncertain as ever. I care about him so much, but how can I possibly move forward in a relationship where there has been emotional and physical abuse that he genuinely believes to be my fault?
I took a very hard line about abusive behavior with my wife: Emotional or physical abuse is not acceptable. Period. Of course there are reasons, but it doesn't matter, abuse is unacceptable for
any reason. I will not tolerate or experience any more. I will not participate in discussions of why it was justified, triggered, deserved or anything else.
Our situation sounds different--We were looking for some sort of counseling to help, and she found a website for workshops for couples recovering from abuse in a relationship. (They only accepted couples who no longer had physical abuse going on, if it ever had) Anyhow upon reading it, my wife was horrified when she realized that she was the one who was being abusive, not me.
It doesn't sound like he is at this point yet.
There is a *very* fine line around this--when my wife was abusing me, she did have real feelings, often about something I was doing or wasn't doing. And to make a relationship work, I did had to be able to talk to her about those feelings. The slide from talking about her feelings to talking about how her feelings justified her (abusive) behavior toward me was something I had to watch out for.
I took the approach that since I was the one who was abused, I got to draw the line, and while I would try to be fair, it was my line, not hers. This is especially true because abuse is at its core about the abuser controlling the abused person, and I was no longer willing to risk that, no longer willing to hand that control over to her, especially here.
