I've Just Slapped my ndwBPD in the face

[panchito]

Hi,

We have been to a hell of a time since last satruday night (in fact since saturday afternoon, because we had a fight then on me not liking the way she insitingly had told me of during lunch, in front of her sister. But we mooved forward from that after one hour or so). The problem that started the big fight arrose later at night. She is a compulsive smoker. But she normally concentrates her smoking during the night period (from 8 or 9 pm until she goes tobed. At a rate of 15 to 22 cigarrettes one after another). During weekdays she starts smoking earlier as soon has she arrives from work. There is a peak from 2pm to 5 pm. Sometimes this is accompanied by compulsive drinking. In fact, most of the nights it is accompanied by compulsive drinking (one or one and a half liter bottle of wine or beer). Of course... .I know... .This is just her quick way of stop or numbing the pain and anxiety she brings from work as weel as from her mere existence.

But we have been having a lot of problems with this and I have been thru a lot of conversatiosn with her before on her addiction to nicotine. I have told her that if she wants to quit smoking I'm prepared to go thru her retrieval syndrom (bad mood _ and beleive me... .Its BPD mood swings and conflictiveness but potentiated by 1000 times!). But if she wants to keep smoking I just ask her to do me the favour o smoking one or two cigarrets during the day (at the weekend. Because during the week she usually smokes a lot more). Because if her body comes from smoking a lot during the day before and mayby a lot more during the night before, you can't leave your body withoutnicoti e during all ady long until 9pm because "any smoker would feel the retrieval syndrome and the mood changes. It's not you. But anyone who's addicted to nicotine". But she insistently keeps doing tne same pattern at weekeds, bank hollidays or holidays. She spends all the day not smoking until 9pm, when she finally smokes 15 cigarrets in a row. And I can see clearly the positive mood cgange as soon as she smokes the first one.

So... .going back to where I started the story, last saturday the story repeated itself again. And only when she smoked at 10pm her mood imprived for better (after an awfull ady). When she came and told me gently... ." come on... .lets be ok... .let's be nice to each other, I told her I was not ok with her. I was actually anoyed with the fact that once more she restrained herself from smoking during the day, knowing the possible efects that this may have on her mood but stressing that it is nit a problem that she has. The mood swings would affect anyone who smokes regularly and is deprived from nicotine.

She starts ranting with me, teling me I have no right to tell her when to smoke and that she is free to do waht she wants and that I,m accusing her of being the responsible one for the earlier arguments because she did not smoke during the day... .bla bla bla.

Well, to cut a long story short. We had a week booked in a resort from today to next friday. And next friday my mother was coming to visit us for 2 or 3 weeks (I did not want to invite my mother anymore because it is not worth the previous and subsecuent fights about what my mother said or says, my familly, about their ingrattitude... .etc.). But this time my wife had been insisting a lot that I invited her. That she (my wife) would behave really well with her... .that It is important for her to have a relationship with my family (no win situation here, or what?).

But since saturday night we are not talking anymore because she decided so. The real reason behind it is that I confronted her with her attitude on her addiction. Her excuse is my attitude dung last saturday afternoon that she so kindly decided to forgive me until I tried to putthe blame on her because of not smoking during the day... .(talking about blame game).
Since sunday morning she told me tod do my own plans and that she would do the same. That she was not going to the resort on monday (today) and that she wanted me to go on my own to the resort for the week and leave her alone in her house (we leave in the house she had already before we got married. So when she is ok, she likes me to speak and make plans about "our house" but when she is in a mood swing or an argument she always is quick to start talking about her house and how she wants me out of her house asap)... .I had tospend all the day outside our place without nowhere to go, because I am not from here. And although I have friends I do not want to ruin their day with my marriage problems, etc... .I was hopping that her BPD switchcould sooner or latter turn off but it didn't... .

So... this morning I asked her if she kept thinking the same way. And she answered she did, unless I was prepared to ask her for forgiveness for having mistreated her so unbeliavably badly. So I said to her that I had no choice but to leave house and move on to gat separated from her (here where I live, separation is like divorce but before having sign the paperwork). Because, obviously, if because of such a thing she wanted to compromise all our holiday and also my mothers trip to our (her) place... .This marriage was not worthwhile anymore ( and I do feel that. But I was hoping that by being confrontedwith the consequences of her actions she would step back on this).

She then starded to make fun of me and ridicularize me and the way I speak too much when we are toguether with her friens ( besides she has the bad habit of calling me names everytime we have an argument and I cant'' acceptit anymore). So I kept asking her not to disrespect me. She kept tring to make me feel ridiculous and she tarted shouting at me ridicularizing me and then she called me "damn idiot".

I do not know what happened and how it happened. I stood up, I walked near her and I slapped her face 1 time. While telling her... ."do not disrespect me anymore!".

It is no less true that, my ndwBPD has hit me many times during our 9 years of reationship. During the early years with punching on my body and acctually slapping me, but latelly she prefers to stick her hands and fingers on my face and mouth to shut me up. Itold her many times that that is a form of phisical violence but obviously she denies it. I had only hit her one or two times with sor of a slap or slap with closed fist (but not a punch by no means) when answering to her phisical agressions (and I know thats really worng. Even if it is by reaction it is still dead wrong. I just couldn't avoid it! I have been a victim myself. My father used to hit me and shout at me since I was a child (also to my brother and my mother) and I never initiate agression but I have always had this probelm in not being able to stop my reaction when someone hits me... .And I know I have a problem and I should seek a specialist to treat me on this).

But this is the first time I innitiate the agression myself. I have had bas realionships before and never did this. Not even after being cheated! (not that I feel that being cheated is an excuse for beating your partner). I'm in a relationship with this woman for 9 years and I had never taked the initiativeto hit her. Not until today.

Now I left home. We didi not speak anymore after this. I want to punish myself hard and I do not know how! I'm ashamed of myself. And if that's not enough I gave my soon to be ex wife the best tool ever to paint me as a wife beater (which maybe I am, after all... .) and as the one to blame of all our problems, and she as a victim.

I feel miserable.

Sorry for the long post. I'm not in the best mental condition to be able to cut the story to its essentials... .

[Lady Itone]

Hi Panchito,

I got into physical altercations with my ex. It was so out of character for me, I am not a violent person, and the look on her face, and how bad about myself I felt afterwards... .ugh, I feel for you.

Normally, this happened when I was feeling cornered, trapped, and misused.

What feelings lead up to you slapping your wife?

[panchito]

Hi Lady Itone,

Thanks for you answer. I really do not know! I think that partly was her meaningness of intentionally ,aking me feel ridiculous about myself in onyeraction with her friendas, giving the idea that people spoked about it behind my back! And than the insistent name calling. Tpday it was bloody idiot... .Yesterday animal. I rarely call hef anything, and if I do say things like you're acting stupid she reacts like if I said something really tremendously  harsh on her! However, she calls me the worst name callimg you can imagine, together with this name calling wich is only meant to destruct your sel esteem. Like you're a faillure. Look at you. You're a loser. Your friends are loosers just like you... .not like my friends husbands which are real men.

But althou it hurts... .it is the tipo of offenses that imply that people laghh behind your back. That you're somehow innadecuate and everybody knows it... .These are the ones tha really manage to touch my inner feelings. Because although, on my youth I have been to a lot of different schools, I was a victim of bulling for 3 yeas in one of these schools. I was also bullied by my older brother and ridicularized in front of me. And I've felt what it feels to have a group of "friends" laughing at you making you feel ridiculous. Children are mean... .(lord of the flies style)... .And although I've managed to be popular enough and fit quite well outside my family circle as well as on any other school I've been to as well as at the university, I gess that this type offenses that still touch my once bullied innermost are really quite effective in hurting me. And I must say that she does this on instinct. I have ne er been do dumb to tell her about my bulling story and scars... .


Besides, I guess that after a more than 36 hours of conflict for no logical reason (at least that would justify such a thing) and after spending all sunday out of home, sleep on the visitors room as if you really had done something that would justify being expelled from the couples room... .This morning I felt and I am still felling emotionally exhausted and drained. Completely enmotionally destroyed! And as you say probably feeling trapped and cornered by this person who keeps wanting to keep the argument, going for more time, maybe hours or days, unless I offer her no less that my deepest and most sincerer apologies for being the one to blame for all that happened. So... .I guess that you're right. That is feeling cornered. Not having a way out of a drama which you are allready too exahusted to keep enduring!

So... .thanks for your question. It made me think a little more about my feelings. I ges my explosion came out of the fact that her words reached the scars of my bulling years and I was feeling trapped and exausted. I think that made for the slapping coming out of me. It was something completely horrifying, because it was like someone else taking over my body and slapping her face. I still cannot understand how I was capable of doing it!(let me clarify that I do know I did it myself. There was noone else in my head. I do not beleive that... .But is just that it does not feel like me doing something like that without beong hit first).

[Cat Familiar]

Hi Panchito,
I'm so sorry that you've found yourself in this position where you reacted to her bullying you and found yourself behaving in a way that is so completely out of character for you.   

Even though she doesn't know your history of being bullied as a child, people with BPD are very good at finding our weaknesses and preying upon them. I once did the same thing you did (different target--shoulder) and my husband has never laid a hand on me in the past. He just had pushed me so far with his words that I snapped.

And like you, I had a history of this sort of thing. My ex-husband was physically violent with me on many occasions.

So yes, there's embarrassment. Of course.    But be kind to yourself. Know that it's tremendously challenging to be in a relationship with someone with BPD. Even therapists get their own therapists when they have a difficult BPD client.

After enduring so many hours of conflict, you certainly weren't at your best. I've had to impose a "no arguing" limit on myself after just a few minutes. If something can't soon be resolved, it's not going to be resolved in hours of speaking about it. So I have to disengage, leave the room, just stop... .it's not easy to institute this if you haven't before, but it eventually begins working.

Cat

[panchito]

Hi Cat.

Tanks a lot for your words. I found confort on your words. I really feel miserable. Like following my wife-child-beater father's steps.

About the no arguing, actually I've spent all sunday until 11pm giving her the space she asked for (i.e. grounded with no contact until I got tired and asked her to forgive me my sins. And I didn't). Doing my own plans (which in my case were nothing more than wondering around the blocs near my building because I had nowhere to go). But even that... .although it is not fighting nor arguing, in the end it is exahusting too, because in your heart you know you are being submitted to an awful and depressing weekend against your will for no plausible reason.

It's like that saying  don't ever wrestle with a pig. You'll both get dirty but the pig likes it". Even when we choose not to bite their bate and withraw from the scene, it is still ruining your day, afternoon, next hour... .And at the end It is something that in a way is already some type of turmoil which is sort of what they wanted to cause in the first place.

So... .in a way, I always get the feeling that in the end, one way or another they manage (the BPDs) to get dirty and put some stains on you too, at least by ruining what could have been a wonderful day into something depressing. They destroy your happiness and joy, they get genuinly miserable themselves, but that is also what they wanted/needed to vent their tortured feelings.