"Teasing"

[BowlOfPetunias]

About week  and a half ago, I was worried about being late to an important event and not being able to get in.

My wife had gotten frazzled trying to find affordable parking (something she said she would do beforehand but did not get to until the last moment.)  It turns out that we had to wait a little bit longer than we were supposed to for them to let us in.  So she started ridiculing me in front of the other people there, laughing and saying how I had been wrong and worried over nothing--several times.  A let this slide because I did not want a scene in front of the other people.  Later, one of them said that she had once done this activity with a couple and they had fought the whole time.  She hoped that we wouldn't be fighting the whole time.  My wife was puzzled and asked why she would think we would be fighting.  The other woman did not give a clear answer.

A few days later, we had a fight over dropping our son off for graduation before parking.  She had already been screaming at the kids for making us late.  The traffic near the school was horrible and there was no where to pull over without blocking other cars.  There was no room for anyone to pass me on the other side.  So I made the first turn I could, and she exploded at me about how I was going to make him late.  (She later saw there had been an accident where this happened and apologized for that reason.)

This attack prompted me to bring up the ridiculing at the previous event.  She told me that she had not ridiculed me.  She "was teasing like all couples do."  I drew a boundary and said that this was an attempt to deflect.  I explained that she was invalidating my emotions--I had not right to be upset because I should be able to take some "teasing" like "all couples."  I  tried to establish some empathy.  I asked how she felt when her (recently deceased and very narcissistic) mother "teased" her.  "That wasn't teasing.  That was haranguing!" I distinctly remember her mother saying, "What's the matter, ___, can't you take a joke?"  I also reminded her that she used to demand that I stand up to her parents on her behalf when we were still dating.  (I also pointed out that I have previously told her that I do not like being teased because of all of teasing I received as a victim of bullying.)  A few days later, she admitted that it "sounded mean" but insisted that she did not intend to be mean.

See the post below on dissociation.  It seems likely to me like this is another one of those times where she knows she is hurting someone but can't stop herself and then denies that she knew she was hurting them.

The whole event reminds me of a time when we visited her grandmother, who was one of those people who call me "rude" because I am an introvert.  She commented on my being quiet, and I replied that I felt tired because we had been driving all day--meaning, we had been in the car all day.  My wife jumped in and "teased" me that I hadn't done any of the driving--she and her friend had.  In other words, she pulled my excuse for not being talkative right out from under me and made me look bad to her grandmother.  And, in fact, I did feel really wiped out at the time.

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[isilme]

Empathy, the ability to think outside of your own head, feelings, and circumstances, is stunted in a pwBPD.  I think most PDs seem to have some sort of either really atrophied empathy, or it's hypersensitive (co-dependents). 

Your wife can only go on what she is feeling at that moment.  So, she goads you, but excuses it as just teasing, especially later when she is no longer in that mood.  It makes her feel funny, and upbeat because it's not about her being on the receiving end, so it's all okay.  YOUR feelings about it don't matter.  Just hers.  On the other hand, if she is being teased, "harangued", it's wrong, because it makes HER feel bad.  Only her emotions register fully.  Thre may be glimpses of how she appears to others, but it's only a glimpse, soon forgotten, or easily ignored.  Because to change her behavior means she must be kinda wrong, which in turn means she has done something to trigger shame, which means she is responsible for an action, not another person.  This is hard for BPD to precess - that THEY are responsible for how they feel, and for how they treat others.

Everything is defined by emotions, so if she doesn't FEEL she was being mean, she was not.  The empathy required for her to stand in your shoes, or to analyze what the woman in line was saying isn't clicking. 

[Grey Kitty]

That was one of the things my wife did, and it really got to me. I call it doubling down on the invalidation.

Step 1: Say something mean/pointed (invalidating) at you.
(naturally you feel rejected/hurt, and that was the exact purpose of the statement.)

If you want to keep playing this game, respond the way you did:

Tell her that it was mean/unkind/hurtful/etc. and ask her to stop or apologize. You just left a perfect opening for... .

Step 2: Say something MORE mean and invalidating, telling you that your hurt feelings (from your response above) were WRONG, and that there is something WRONG WITH YOU for having them.

(Naturally you are more hurt or angry now, feel worse, and everything goes downhill from there... .)


What can you do instead?

You can't get her to admit that she was being hurtful. It becomes a horrible JADEing argument, and just makes things worse. She is willing and able to argue her plausible deniability (which is completely missing the point but sounds almost reasonable) pretty much forever. I bet you know that one by now.

The key is that at some deep level, she KNOWS what she's doing to you.

You don't have to convince her. You don't have to force an admission.

My best response was a shorthand that expressed the following (emotionally): "I know exactly what you are doing, I don't like it, I've told you before, and I know you know what you did too, and this time I'm not going to explain what you are doing, and most importantly, I'm not going to participate in it further."

In effect it is a agree-to-disagree response at the emotional undertone level.

A couple possibilities:

"I'm not playing that game." (optional segue to other topic)

One that worked well for me, was "f*** you." said in a flat, conversational tone, NOT an angry or confrontational one. If you don't use four letter words freely, this won't work for you, but in my case, it often worked well. And yes, the conversation kinda falls pretty flat at that point.

[RedPill]

This is familiar. Nitpicking, mean comments, criticizing, and haranguing, all dismissed as, "I'm just teasing!" She would do it to our D15 too. The little voice in my head would always whisper, "That's not teasing, you're just being mean" but I didn't know how to respond out loud in the moment.

[BowlOfPetunias]

Just a clarification:

The people she "teased" me in front of were not just other people who happened to be waiting in line for an event.

This was a cultural event, but we needed to be there early because we were volunteering for an organization in which I have several leadership positions.  I offered to let my wife volunteer as well because I knew she really likes the performer and thought it would be a nice way that we could both see the show without spending a lot of money on tickets.  (We did pay for parking and a babysitter.)  Two of the people she "teased" me in front of were people that I know, I have worked with, and plan to continue working with.  There were a few other people I did not know.  The woman who asked if we would be fighting the whole time was someone I did not yet know. 

BTW, I remember her response to my wife asking why she asked about us fighting.  She said that she had volunteered with another couple who had spent the whole time fighting.  In other words, a way of avoiding saying that she saw behavior that could provoke an argument.