The suggestion that some of us share equal responsibility is upsetting to me

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

I will admit that sometimes I find the suggestion that we sometimes share equal responsibility for the relationship to be upsetting, as I spent the whole time I was with my ex being blamed by him and blaming myself for every little thing that he did to me. Another part of my recovery has been recognising that his abuse of me was his problem. I spent long enough making it mine.

Me too and I’ve also excused much of his behaviours because he has personality issues and is suffering. I want to stop pathologizing myself and I want to stop viewing him as a poor wounded soul unable to control himself and therefore not accountable for his actions. This doesn’t mean I no longer have compassion for him because I do, but I am detaching and not so attached to his sorrows now. I am being kind to him. In the last few weeks he has sent me a few emails, one was full of anger and insults, one full of sorrow, a sad song, and a photo of his beautiful dog. I responded briefly and kindly using some of the tools I learned on here. It makes me feel sad, but I can’t deny the harmful nature of the relationship anymore.

I’m looking back at it all with clearer eyes and there is no doubt that what I experienced was abuse. I read something recently that therapists helping abused clients to survive and escape abuse are specifically trained to locate problems within the client and that focusing on the individual attributes of abused people and pitching therapeutic techniques towards their own responsibility is disempowering and stops us from seeing the forest for the trees.

What I’m hearing from some of the posts is that I was equally responsible for the failure of the relationship because (1) We both had problems (2) We were emotional equals (3)That me being subjected to his abuse was a personal failure on my part because I chose to stay. No one forced me after all. It fails to take into account that my ability to make good choices was compromised, but the view seems to be  that there must have been something wrong with me and therefore places equal blame for the abuse when in reality that was a decision made by my ex. Responsibility for hurting me is taken away from him and placed in my hands.

I take ownership of my side. I didn’t react well. Fight or Flight and all that. I JADEed. I yelled and fought back. I fled in my car crying my eyes out leaving him feeling abandoned more than a few times. I didn’t realise at the time the impact this would have on him. I certainly wasn’t the strong person with good boundaries that I’ve read pwBPD need. I didn’t understand him, where he was coming from and no doubt he suffered because of that. I would most definitely have cleaned up my side of the street if I had known. I regret not knowing. “If only” thoughts crop up, but I know deep down  it never would have worked.  I thought he was a psychopath by the time I left things were so toxic between us and it was getting worse. My heart raced so much and my anxiety was so high. I no longer believe he is a psychopath and it’s all so very sad. I still love the person he has inside of him, the one that used to say “hello gorgeous”, and “hi lovely”. I always knew he was in a good mood when he used those words. It usually meant we were going to be ok for a few hours and he used to make me laugh so much sometimes. I loved a person who hurt me.

I’m going to stop blaming myself. The decisions he made and the hurt he caused reflected his pathology and entitlement to do whatever he wanted to cause me damage and this is predominately why the relationship failed. Not all, but predominately. As you can probably tell I’m struggling a little trying to find balance. Anger gets in the way sometimes because I’m still trying to get back up. It’s better out than in I suppose. I suspect if I find the right balance I’ll get closure.

I was going to waffle on about point 2 above the idea that him and I were emotional equals, but you’ve all probably had enough of me right now.

Thank you for allowing me to waffle on and thanks for the great thread Optimus and everyone. Got me thinking.

[Larmoyant]

I will admit that sometimes I find the suggestion that we sometimes share equal responsibility for the relationship to be upsetting, as I spent the whole time I was with my ex being blamed by him and blaming myself for every little thing that he did to me. Another part of my recovery has been recognising that his abuse of me was his problem. I spent long enough making it mine.

Me too and I’ve also excused much of his behaviours because he has personality issues and is suffering. I want to stop pathologizing myself and I want to stop viewing him as a poor wounded soul unable to control himself and therefore not accountable for his actions. This doesn’t mean I no longer have compassion for him because I do, but I am detaching and not so attached to his sorrows now. I am being kind to him. In the last few weeks he has sent me a few emails, one was full of anger and insults, one full of sorrow, a sad song, and a photo of his beautiful dog. I responded briefly and kindly using some of the tools I learned on here. It makes me feel sad, but I can’t deny the harmful nature of the relationship anymore.

I’m looking back at it all with clearer eyes and there is no doubt that what I experienced was abuse. I read something recently that therapists helping abused clients to survive and escape abuse are specifically trained to locate problems within the client and that focusing on the individual attributes of abused people and pitching therapeutic techniques towards their own responsibility is disempowering and stops us from seeing the forest for the trees.

What I’m hearing from some of the posts is that I was equally responsible for the failure of the relationship because (1) We both had problems (2) We were emotional equals (3)That me being subjected to his abuse was a personal failure on my part because I chose to stay. No one forced me after all. It fails to take into account that my ability to make good choices was compromised, but the view seems to be  that there must have been something wrong with me and therefore places equal blame for the abuse when in reality that was a decision made by my ex. Responsibility for hurting me is taken away from him and placed in my hands.

I take ownership of my side. I didn’t react well. Fight or Flight and all that. I JADEed. I yelled and fought back. I fled in my car crying my eyes out leaving him feeling abandoned more than a few times. I didn’t realise at the time the impact this would have on him. I certainly wasn’t the strong person with good boundaries that I’ve read pwBPD need. I didn’t understand him, where he was coming from and no doubt he suffered because of that. I would most definitely have cleaned up my side of the street if I had known. I regret not knowing. “If only” thoughts crop up, but I know deep down  it never would have worked.  I thought he was a psychopath by the time I left things were so toxic between us and it was getting worse. My heart raced so much and my anxiety was so high. I no longer believe he is a psychopath and it’s all so very sad. I still love the person he has inside of him, the one that used to say “hello gorgeous”, and “hi lovely”. I always knew he was in a good mood when he used those words. It usually meant we were going to be ok for a few hours and he used to make me laugh so much sometimes. I loved a person who hurt me.

I’m going to stop blaming myself. The decisions he made and the hurt he caused reflected his pathology and entitlement to do whatever he wanted to cause me damage and this is predominately why the relationship failed. Not all, but predominately. As you can probably tell I’m struggling a little trying to find balance. Anger gets in the way sometimes because I’m still trying to get back up. It’s better out than in I suppose. I suspect if I find the right balance I’ll get closure.

I was going to waffle on about point 2 above the idea that him and I were emotional equals, but you’ve all probably had enough of me right now.

Thank you for allowing me to waffle on and thanks for the great thread Optimus and everyone. Got me thinking.

[Skip]

I will admit that sometimes I find the suggestion that we sometimes share equal responsibility for the relationship to be upsetting,

In response to everyone who struggles with this... .

It would be a understanding of Family theory to boil t down to mean "equal responsibility for relationship abuse". Using the interpretation, is of course, offensive.  

Why is "we mate with our emotional equal" , a cornerstone in Family Theory, and often repeated here?

In short, it tells us that the struggles we are having are bigger than the person we just dated. Bigger than us. We inherited and/or learned our levels level of differentiation from our family (including our attachment style), and it flows into who we pick as partners, how we perceive them, how we react to them, how we respond afterward in recovery, and how we absorb the experience and how it influences our next relationship. Its even why some members can easily accept Family Theory and try to learn how to use it to grow, and others can extrapolate and be hurt by just general mentions of it on the site (i.e., there is no mention of balletomane's specific actions in her relationship here, for example).

Why is this valuable?

Because if we can see the big picture, we can start dismantling the not so healthy influences, stop the progression, redirect ourselves to be seek and be something else in the next relationship.

For example, ever read on this board "how could anyone resist the intoxication of being idealized"? Is this because the whole world is a slave to adulation?  Or is this because many of our members grew up in an environment that seeded insecure attachments styles and the over-adulation (even at dysfunctional levels) is more than intoxicating to someone with an insecure attachment style. Two puzzle pieces fitting together. This is one example, I'm not putting every member in this model. There are many other models. Bowen grouped them as "seeking our emotional equals".  

Bowen goes on to further explain the dynamic - part of it is related to our levels of differentiation - how much others influence our view of our own self worth.

Hope that helps.

[balletomane]

I consider myself to be largely recovered from the PTSD caused by my abusive relationships - there are no more overt struggles such as nightmares, flashbacks, perpetual pain in the chest, poor appetite extreme weight loss, etc., and in addition to moving beyond those, I've become a much more assertive, self-forgiving person. So it's not that I'm at the beginning of the process and needing to work through a crisis. Even when I was in crisis, I never thought my ex was a monster. At first I excused everything bad he did ("He's ill, he can't help it, he doesn't mean it" - that kind of reasoning). Then, after I had gone NC, I wondered which was the "real him" - him at his most cruel, or him at his kindest. But even when the question was hurting me on an emotional level, I was still able to see on a logical level that he did possess genuine good likeable qualities and that these coexisted with his cruel behaviour. They were both him. Now I hope one day he is able to accept the help he needs to overcome his problems and build on his strengths. I will never know how much of his abuse of me was deliberate, but I don't need to know the answer to that in order to wish him well in making the changes he needs to make.

But while I am able to see him and his behaviour in a nuanced way, I still do not view us as sharing equal responsibility for the relationship. In situations of abuse, there is always a power dynamic - that's part of the nature of abuse. In my case I was additionally vulnerable because I have a physical disability, and I was dependent on my ex to help me with practical tasks like cooking (which sometimes he refused to do, so I didn't get to eat). I can't look at a situation in which I was denied food and physically unable to get any for myself and think, "Well, it takes two to tango." This doesn't preclude me from taking responsibility for my recovery, of course... .and part of that recovery has meant acknowledging his responsibility in what I experienced, as opposed to making excuses for him in the way I used to do.

Personally I can't relate well to Bowen's theory. I only had one relationship before my BPD ex, which lasted nearly four years and was very positive (my ex and I are still good friends - we split amicably because we realised that we had different goals and priorities in life, and our relationship had run its natural course). I dated someone briefly at college, when I was nineteen, but we didn't really hit it off and so went our separate ways with no hard feelings. So no turbulent relationships and no relationships I could even really consider 'failed' either. In fact, this was one of the biggest contributors to my self-blame: I thought that because I had had a healthy relationship before my BPD ex, I had no excuse for not recognising his behaviour for what it was immediately and getting away from it, unlike people who have never known differently. I accept you say that no model can describe all the members here, but the frequency with which certain ideas on mentioned on bpdfamily does make it feel as though people are getting pigeon-holed sometimes, and if they object to this they're just not yet insightful enough or recovered enough to recognise that it's accurate.

[roberto516]

I share some of your sentiment. But there are things, only for me, that I had to confront. When we would argue or I'd be upset she would be quicker to get over it. She would want to just put it behind us. Well I would hold onto it. I can remember us going out to eat after an argument with her and she was trying to be funny with me and I just wouldn't allow myself to do it. I must have been hurt or else I would not have been so emotionally closed off. But it was my responsibility to do one of two things; to either communicate to her my feelings that I was still upset or to do some mindfulness/emotional processing to figure out where it was all coming from (feelings of parental betrayal) and let it go. That was my responsibility.

Do I like to admit that? Not a chance in hell . Because it means that I messed it up. When I was grieving from my grandpop's passing I could have looked at what she was trying to do for me. It wasn't what I felt I needed from her. She heard that I wanted a connection the last real night we were together and she made love to me. I said after "I didn't feel a connection." Who says that to someone who just put their time aside to hear my concern and be romantic with me?

I could give 100 other reasons. Do I want to admit all of this? No. Because it means a part of me pushed her away. Did she push me away as well? Yeah. I absolutely hate admitting these things because it means I'm a flawed human being.

Your situation might be different. And in no way am I telling you that you are wrong. Because I do agree with some of your points here. Because all I asked from her was for emotional support if I ever needed it and to be able to communicate our problems. Had she been able to do that would we be together? Had I been able to exercise more patience and allow her to keep trying like she was? Yeah... .I really think so.

However, this took me a very long time to get to this view. I kinda knew it before the relationship even ended about myself but you know.

It takes two people watering the relationship plant so to speak to make it work. I thought I was always watering it while she withheld. I'd be a liar right now if I can't admit that at times I withheld the water as well. I guess the only difference was that I was always willing to see the positive after the emotions came and went and was more than willing to spend the rest of my life with this woman and take care of her to her dying day.

The only comfort I take is that during the recycle I was more patient, understanding, and listening. She yelled at me twice during the recycle and I told myself "She is stressed. This isn't personal. Don't react. Offer your ear to listen to her." Well it was too little to late as she had already detached from me. But I know I am capable of being in a healthy relationship. The month of the recycle proved that. I exercised my independence and kept doing my hobbies I had gotten back, set boundaries, and was more understanding.

And I do agree to your point. It's tough because this is online but people come here guilt ridden, ashamed, battered, and depressed. It's tough to only want support and people are asking you "What role did you play?" It can really pile on the feelings of shame and sadness and low self-worth. Maybe some people's recovery doesn't go through that? I know for me, I only came to this realization when I wanted to. I know that some people have the best interest for others here but I didn't shift my perspective until I wanted to. No one else was going to get me to that viewpoint other than me. That can make it seem very shameful when people are telling you how you are thinking wrong.

And yes, some people are a little more blunt on here and a little "know it all" in the message they convey. Not necessarily the best for someone who is grieving or in a bad mental spot. But it's all meant out of genuine concern or they wouldn't be reading posts and giving ideas or personal experiences.

[patientandclear]

For quite of few of us, the initial instinct was to look within & figure out what we could do or could have done to improve the relationship and put responsibility there, which is a sort of control maneuver when one has been badly hurt, and can be its own kind of dysfunction.  So then the injunction to "look at your own part" can feel like doubling down on what was already an excessive tendency to take responsibility.

I read some of the "look at yourself" advice to mean, actually, that how we could have done better was to take less responsibility for the outcome or for the other person's reactions.  I tend to agree with this, for myself and in general.  But if that is really the dynamic, telling the person to "take responsibility for our own part" when really, you mean "you take too much responsibility and that is how you contributed to the poor relationship dynamics," gets very confusing.

[OptimusRhyme]

  patientandclear

This is a point in 2 paragraphs that pages of my rambling in the other thread didn't put together nearly as neatly. Great post.

[Meili]

For me, what we are actually talking about are not the day-to-day problems and struggles, or what we could have done differently on that level. I think that what we are talking about when we say equally responsible is on a deeper level.

I suppose that one could look at it like:

We could go to couple's counseling to deal with the day-to-day stuff, but we would need to go to individual therapy to deal with the deep issues that caused us to get into and stay in the relationship.

It isn't the couple's counseling stuff that we are talking about, but the individual therapy stuff.

I don't think that there is any argument that I was not responsible for how my x treated me. I can't say that things would have turned out differently had she treated me differently because I ultimately ended things for other reasons. Most of the members here can say that things would have probably turned out differently however. She squarely owns her own actions.

But, my part of all of this was the stuff that got me involved with her in the first place, caused me to overlook all of the red flags, and taught her that it was acceptable to treat me as she did. Those are the parts that I own. Those are the things that ultimately destroyed my relationship with her. They are the reasons that I invited all of the chaos into my world and made me so tolerant of it. There is no possible way for me to blame her for those things. They were baggage that I came into the relationship with and directed my choices with her.

Maybe I'm wrong about all of this. All that I know is that when I stopped allowing the chaos, I was able to draw her back into my life and we were working on giving the relationship another shot when I decided that I we didn't actually have anything in common (a that I chose to ignore the entire time we were together) and that I didn't like her as a person. Had she not presented BPD traits, I probably never would have gotten involved with her in the first place.

So, could we actually be discussing too different things here? Couple's counseling issues versus individual therapy issues? Day-to-day interactions versus deep seated internal problems that we have?

[babyducks]

This is one example, I'm not putting every member in this model. There are many other models. Bowen grouped them as "seeking our emotional equals".  

I have been diagnosed with C-PTSD, and I believe the rudiments of that existed before my relationship did.   I don't relate well to Bowen's theory.   Actually right now I find it counter productive to even add it to the mix of the discussion.

Because if we can see the big picture, we can start dismantling the not so healthy influences, stop the progression, redirect ourselves to be seek and be something else in the next relationship.

Again, for me, what I have seen to be true, is this is not a binary issue, a one size fits all and one theory covers the entirety of the complex mess we had going on.   Dialing back to see the big picture is helpful and that means I get to see all the not so healthy influences.

Did I struggle with some of the same issues that my partner did?    Yes.   Did I struggle with them to the same degree as she did.   No.

Murray Bowen came up with his theory in, what?   the 1950's.   I wonder what his theory would look like if it was created in today's psychiatric context.    If I were to slice up the pie of my recovery Bowen would have a very small sliver of a slice.  

I don't believe that my partner was evil,  satanic, or totally responsible for what happened between us.    I don't come here to vent.   I don't need to be convinced that I have work to do.  I believe there is a shared responsibility between us but it is not equal.

I read something recently that therapists helping abused clients to survive and escape abuse are specifically trained to locate problems within the client and that focusing on the individual attributes of abused people and pitching therapeutic techniques towards their own responsibility is disempowering and stops us from seeing the forest for the trees.

Whether it is learned helplessness, or trauma bonding, or Stockholm syndrome,  there is a balancing act to be done so we don't inadvertently blame the victim of abuse, or ignore the victim of abuse but instead empower them to responsibly claim their unique experiences as part of the path towards healing.

For me Pete Walker's work does that.  To use a poor metaphor, if I am involved in a car accident I don't spend a lot of time working out what was my level of differentiation was/should be.   Yeah I need to look at my driving skills and if I was texting or not but what is more immediately important is that I recover from the damage of the accident.  

'ducks

[balletomane]

I'm a children's mental health professional myself, so I'm very familiar with psychological literature. It's just that this particular theory is honestly not helpful or illuminating in my situation, and pointing me to the crisis board doesn't acknowledge that - it suggests that I am not ready to be on the 'learning' board, but that when I've worked through my crisis, I will surely see that this theory is applicable to me too. This is what I mean about feeling pigeon-holed.

Speaking as a clinician as well as a person who has experienced PTSD, I know that you don't have to be emotionally on a par with your partner in order to be drawn into an abusive relationship. My ex was definitely not my emotional equal at the start of the relationship. But our psychological state isn't static, and as his behaviour got worse, my state deteriorated. My ex's behaviour was like waves on the shore - at first it was nothing remarkable, so the erosion wasn't evident, but over time it got worse, the rages more extreme, and I sustained damage. As was discussed in the other thread, if he'd acted like that at the outset I would have been out of there, but he didn't. The analogy of a frog swimming in a pot of water that is slowly brought to boiling point is accurate here - at first the frog might well have strong muscles, but when the heat's turned up, they get weak and the frog struggles to jump out in a way that it would not have struggled in the past.

As a clinician with a PhD in psychology, I understand that theories aren't infallible, no matter how well established they may be. In fact, in training we are strongly discouraged from clinging to any one particular theory or model, and to take a flexible approach. I know that over the past three decades Bowen's work has attracted significant criticism, and a meta-review of studies testing the validity of his family theory found that his hypothesis about people seeking their emotional equals is not supported by empirical data (Miller, Anderson, and Keala 2004). Again, if you have personally found that idea helpful to you, good. But it's not watertight and those of us who don't find it helpful in our personal situations shouldn't be written off as just not understanding it properly.

Acknowledging that there was a gross inequality in power and responsibility in that relationship doesn't mean that I disclaim responsibility for myself and my recovery. When I came to bpdfamily, two years ago now, I felt that if only my ex could see my hurt and apologise, I'd feel so much better. I felt like I needed to have my wounds acknowledged in order for them to stop hurting. Then I realised that this wasn't going to happen and that I couldn't wait around forever hoping he was going to magically change and give me what I needed to feel better. I had to do it for myself. Recovery was my responsibility, nobody else's. But this doesn't mean that he and I share equal responsibility for the things that left me in that state.

[Skip]

Murray Bowen came up with his theory in, what?   the 1950's.   I wonder what his theory would look like if it was created in today's psychiatric context.  

After World War II, some returning soldiers struggled to return to society for no apparent reason - others did just fine. On examining the issue further, it became more complexing as some returning soldiers who experienced the exact trauma did just fine on returning to the states while others were debilitated and ended up with what we now PTSD. Family Theory explained that factors beyond the trauma in theater were at play in the injury (PTSD).

It applies here at bpdfamily, because many of us (not all) are having a harder time bouncing back from our relationship trauma because there are other factors - factors we often haven't considered.

The analogy of a frog swimming in a pot of water that is slowly brought to boiling point is accurate here - at first the frog might well have strong muscles, but when the heat's turned up, they get weak and the frog struggles to jump out in a way that it would not have struggled in the past.

Frogs are Survivors - The Frog in the Boiling Water is Internet myth.  If it were true, we would see lots of dead frogs on rocks after the sun baked them alive when they were sunning.  If you put a frog in a pot of water and turn on the heat, it will jump out when the temperature gets uncomfortable. Frogs are survivors. Let's learn to be the frogs that jump out- the survivors.

Healing and enlightenment happens in stages. - Our ability to deal with self-analysis changes as were travel on our journey to recovery from these experiences. Its very common for members to change their perspective on many aspects of their experience and their self-analysis as they grow through the stages of recovery. It's one helpful aspect of having a case history here - we audit our own posts and see how our thinking evolved and matured as we did the work. My own history is here, from crisis to recovery - I am amazed when I read my own evolution and others. I still read my own from time to time to be sure that I'm still growing and reaching.  

Research papers - If anyone wants to post the meta-review by Miller, Anderson, and Keala 2004, lets met at that thread and kick around their observations.

Not every psychology theory applies to every member. Even though pwBPD traits often pair with pwNPD traits, that doesn't imply that every single member has NPD traits. It just says that it is a question we should at least entertain about ourselves. The same is true for Family theory - a lot of members here struggle with "differentiation" - but not everyone.

We should at least entertain whether it applies to ourselves.  

Acknowledging that there was a gross inequality in power and responsibility in that relationship doesn't mean that I disclaim responsibility for myself and my recovery. When I came to bpdfamily, two years ago now, I felt that if only my ex could see my hurt and apologise, I'd feel so much better. I felt like I needed to have my wounds acknowledged in order for them to stop hurting. Then I realised that this wasn't going to happen and that I couldn't wait around forever hoping he was going to magically change and give me what I needed to feel better. I had to do it for myself.

This is a good discussion to have.  We have some background info here (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=61403.0) and we have the Duluth Model which is a good discussion reference. We also have a 21 step program on the coping board (see right margin menu) that talks about the importance or realizing that you have been abused. Lets open a thread and have that discussion.

Duluth Model

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[babyducks]

Acknowledging that there was a gross inequality in power and responsibility in that relationship doesn't mean that I disclaim responsibility for myself and my recovery

I agree that I am responsible for myself and for my own recovery and part of that responsibility entails being able to fairly, honestly, and accurately represent what happened, and that includes not accepting responsibility for abusive and damaging acts that were not my own.     

[enlighten me]

I used to blame my exs fully for everything that was bad about our relationships. Then after a lot of soul searching and reading I came to the conclusion that I was equally responsible for the failures.

I don't mean this in the way that I did wrong and behaved badly. The reason I am equally responsible is that I was on a different plain to my exs. My behaviour would have been perfectly acceptable in a normal relationship but these weren't normal relationships. I can see how perfectly normal things would have a negative affect to a pwBPD. In affect by behaving normally I was causing distress to my exs.

So when you read that we were equally responsible it isn't necessarily that we did anything wrong its just that what we did was wrong for them.

[HopinAndPrayin]

Speaking as a clinician as well as a person who has experienced PTSD, I know that you don't have to be emotionally on a par with your partner in order to be drawn into an abusive relationship. My ex was definitely not my emotional equal at the start of the relationship. But our psychological state isn't static, and as his behaviour got worse, my state deteriorated. My ex's behaviour was like waves on the shore - at first it was nothing remarkable, so the erosion wasn't evident, but over time it got worse, the rages more extreme, and I sustained damage. As was discussed in the other thread, if he'd acted like that at the outset I would have been out of there, but he didn't. The analogy of a frog swimming in a pot of water that is slowly brought to boiling point is accurate here - at first the frog might well have strong muscles, but when the heat's turned up, they get weak and the frog struggles to jump out in a way that it would not have struggled in the past.

Yes! Balletomane, thank you for posting your response.  What you are struggling with in regards to that theory not fitting all cases is exactly where I have struggled.  Thank you for putting it so clearly and for suggesting an alternate view.