Idea: The listening continuum

[Steppenwolf]

I am looking for some feedback on some ways I am currently trying to understand conversation issues, feeling heard/unheard etc and to clear up my confusion.

I have a lot of issues with me sometimes not feeling heard by my uBPDw during conversations, especially about relationship issues. But if I try to talk with her about this, she accuses me of entitlement by defining what a good or healthy communication should look like. But that's not really the issue, I just want to feel heard during these times, and sometimes these conversations just don't make me feel heard. Calling me entitled for this, or accusing me of being to sensitive when I try to point out that I just feel unheard often makes it worse, because this seems very close to DARVO to me.

Especially if I try to talk about me feeling unheard, we easily tend to go into a discussion/trap where we talk about this in terms of absolute standards for what a good conversation is. In the past I often fell for this, because I doubt with some of the conversation tactics my uBPDw pulls off (DARVO, invalidation, actively looking for distractions, etc) there are many people that would feel heard. But this just gets us nowhere and completely sidesteps the issues of me trying to be heard.

Nevertheless, I found that thinking about this in a somewhat detached rational way helps me to understand the issue.

So how I see this now is, that there is at least some kind of continuum on how well somebody can listen to someone. On the positive end we would have things like "active listening", "listening", or "passive listening". But I now think we should also extend this scale to the negative end: "passive not listening", "not listening", "active not listening".

I've actually would say most people don't have the training and understanding to practice active listening most of the time. But at the same time, I have encountered very few people that really have the ability for "active not listening". For me this territory encompases all these techniques where the other person is not only not listening, but also employs methods to actively destroy the conversation and to actively make the other person unheard (may not be intentionally, but still feels bad). Stuff like circular conversation, DARVO, straw man arguments, exaggeration of what the other person is saying etc.

So my uBPDw sometimes just attributes these issues to her being a bad listener sometimes. But that definitely is something I could easily relate to. We all are bad at listening to another person sometimes. But this stuff is so much more. This doesn't just feel like someone who is bad at listening to someone, this feels like someone who is actually very good at not listening to someone. And that doesn't just feel neglecting to me, it feels much closer to actively being rejected.

Oh boy, unfortunately this sounded much more negatively and much less constructive than I hoped it would. I guess that what I am saying is that I don't feel heard again, when she then just interprets these situations as her being bad at listening or me demanding too much in a conversation. That just adds injury to insult, and has created a trigger for me, where I can get quite reactive myself whenever she is in active not listening mode. So this definitely is something we have to find a way to work with, if we want to find any way to make this work. And also something that feels important to learn for me, in case I need to deal with similar situations in the future.

P.s. just to vent: She actually broke up once again over this issue, because I wouldn't feel heard by how we talked to each other. I am always unsure if it might be the final breakup, so I am treating it that way. But it still seems an important topic for me to reflect on. Also because I am trying to think about whether my way of requesting my need to feel heard was healthy enough and without blame in the past. It definitely isn't anymore at some times due to the build up frustration, but I definitely want to get back to a healthy way of asking for my needs to get met again.

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[hellosun]

It sounds like when your wife is “actively not listening” to you it is painful for you. I know it would be painful for me.

Tell me if I am understanding correctly: you tell her you want to feel heard, but conversations about generalities regarding “good communication” or what “good listening” entails, don't exactly help your wife to become aware of the extent to which her rejection triggers you.

Instead, your wife seems unbothered? She excuses her hurtful behaviors by saying she’s a “bad listener” sometimes?

Hmm. Is your wife always in “active not listening” mode, or can she sometimes move up on the continuum? Does she sometimes “passively not listen” or “passively listen?”

Do you think “active not listening” mode is what she does when she is already disregulated herself?

I find when my uBPDh is emotionally disregulated, it’s typically is not a good time to express a request for mature and reciprocal behavior. Instead, I express a request of that sort when my uBPDh is regulated. When he is dysregulated, I prefer to express I will be taking some space using “SET.”

For example: let’s say my uBPDh is hypercritical, overtired, frustrated, and I can tell a small thing might trigger him into a rage. I am making dinner, and he wants to help. I will say, “I see that you are hungry and want to ensure dinner gets done faster, but you seem quite tired. I think it would be better for you to rest instead. (Support and Empathy) I will make dinner by myself tonight. (Truth)”

If I said: “Please calm yourself so you stop acting out emotionally if you are going to help me with dinner,” I think at this point he’d probably only disregulate further.

As the more emotionally aware person in the relationship, it seems to be up to us to recognize when a pwBPD is unable to meet our needs because he or she is just not emotionally regulated in a particular moment to do so.

Your need to be heard does matter a great deal, and I agree it’s absolutely not entitled to express that need...it just might be that your wife isn’t always capable of meeting that need.

Does that help at all? Please feel free to disagree with me, of course, if what I have said doesn’t seem to apply to your situation. And please share more details about healthy and unhealthy ways you have tried asking to be heard in the past, if you’d like to do so. Has asking in a “healthy” way changed the outcome of your request?

[Steppenwolf]

First, I am very sorry for not answering sooner. The last weeks have been very extreme and culminated in my uBPDw yelling at my kids she is going to k*** herself during a fight with the kids and running out. So I called the police because I didn't know where she went, and she tried to hid from the police because she didn't trust. Oh, yeah of course this has all been "a big misunderstanding" and she didn't really mean what she yelled and we are all just stupid for not knowing that it wasn't what she was actually going to do.

After the last weeks I am not sure if this really makes much sense any more, because it is taking too much toll on me and the kids, but I need my time to plan for an exit. Still I don't want the old posts to just linger here, without me responding.

Tell me if I am understanding correctly: you tell her you want to feel heard, but conversations about generalities regarding “good communication” or what “good listening” entails, don't exactly help your wife to become aware of the extent to which her rejection triggers you.

Instead, your wife seems unbothered? She excuses her hurtful behaviors by saying she’s a “bad listener” sometimes?

I am not sure if she actually cares, if I feel heard or rejected, but this might be part of manipulation. Sometimes when I tell her I don't feel heard, she does this little school routine where she just repeats back what I just said. Yeah, I can do that to, even if I am not actively listening. I know I can just kind of rewind my memory, but it doesn't mean I was actually processing what someone said. I recently noticed that this matches the typical invalidation she uses a lot, where she is trying to show an objective fact, like "oh, I was listening, and I can prove it to you by repeating it back. And if you feel hurt or rejected, that's your emotional insecurity, because it doesn't match the objective facts." Unfortunately, this is a game I engaged in a lot more than I should have and which just led to a lot more mutual invalidation than it should have. But right now, I am doubtful if this is fixable or if I still have enough strength left to fix it.

But back to the point of actively not listening I was trying to make. A simple example is when I try to talk with her about something, because we are quite often doing this in her study room, she might just go to the computer and start looking at shopping pages etc. She herself feels extremely rejected sometimes by me looking at the phone, even at times where we are not interacting, but she expects me to feel heard while she is online shopping while I a trying to have a conversation about relationship issues. And then when she does her "oh, I did listen to you, you aren't ok if you don't feel heard" invalidation routine, that just adds insult to injury.

Or I tried to talk with her about some issues and she took it as me trying to pressure her into going to therapy. For me actually pressuring her into therapy would be overstepping a boundary, so I tried to clarify that I don't feel entitled to pressure her or even ask her to go to therapy, there are just some issues that we need to adress, because in my opinion these have gotten to a point where they are impeding the well being of the kids and me, and this is unacceptable for me. She basically just replied something along the lines "Ok, I understand. These issues for you are that I don't go to therapy, so I will tell our child therapist that you are pressuring me to go to therapy during the next appointment"

Hmm. Is your wife always in “active not listening” mode, or can she sometimes move up on the continuum? Does she sometimes “passively not listen” or “passively listen?”

Do you think “active not listening” mode is what she does when she is already disregulated herself?

Yes, she can be an extremely empathic and a very active listener. I tried to focus on this issue lately, and it mostly seems to be related to accountability. This is something I finally understood during the last weeks, that most issues are about her not taking any real accountability for her actions. It was always confusing for me up until recently, because she would take accountability and excuse herself over the top for issues that no one really cared about. Like some little thing that happen, so people would tell her a lot not to excuse herself so often. She can also be extremely caring for people who feel hurt, rejected etc, as long as it is not about her. But as soon as there is some real emotion about her involved, someone really feels hurt or there really is a deep issue, she can be extremely avoidant of any kind of accountability. And this is, when she most often does this type of actively not listening.

I find when my uBPDh is emotionally disregulated, it’s typically is not a good time to express a request for mature and reciprocal behavior. Instead, I express a request of that sort when my uBPDh is regulated. When he is dysregulated, I prefer to express I will be taking some space using “SET.”

For example: let’s say my uBPDh is hypercritical, overtired, frustrated, and I can tell a small thing might trigger him into a rage. I am making dinner, and he wants to help. I will say, “I see that you are hungry and want to ensure dinner gets done faster, but you seem quite tired. I think it would be better for you to rest instead. (Support and Empathy) I will make dinner by myself tonight. (Truth)”

Yes, I agree. The problem, which may really drive us apart is that she gets dysregulated almost immediately if there is almost any kind of accountability on her part involved. And while SET worked in some other cases, this has never worked for these types of issues.

If I said: “Please calm yourself so you stop acting out emotionally if you are going to help me with dinner,” I think at this point he’d probably only disregulate further.

Yeah, I agree. Asking someone disregulated to calm down really never works. No matter if it's a pwBPD or not, that will just further fuel the fire. I feel for this trap way to often.

As the more emotionally aware person in the relationship, it seems to be up to us to recognize when a pwBPD is unable to meet our needs because he or she is just not emotionally regulated in a particular moment to do so.

Your need to be heard does matter a great deal, and I agree it’s absolutely not entitled to express that need...it just might be that your wife isn’t always capable of meeting that need.

Yes, again I agree. What I found that there are some core issues where the need to be heard almost never is met, and because of my confusion about some things I did not really see this as clearly. But this really makes it questionable if I should really wait much longer.

[once removed]

i wonder how these conversations start, and how youre going about them.

my dad didnt have bpd, but he could be a very difficult person, prone to episodic, bpd like behavior. even later on, when hed get back to baseline, be more apologetic, if you pushed him, he would go into a mode where hed laugh a lot, or look for a distraction, or get kind of smart. if you pushed harder, hed start to get put out about it, like he was done with it and wanted it to go away. it was rare, though not unheard of, to both have a frank discussion and get a sincere apology when he felt bad about something hed done.

likewise, my ex would have a very hard time discussing our fights after the fact.

people with bpd traits not only carry a lot of shame, but they dont much like having the spotlight on their behaviors. push them, and they can often become defensive, or dismissive, or distracted. they have a particularly hard time with "here is how your behavior affected me", and being able to validate your feelings about it.

could this be what youre bumping up against?

[Steppenwolf]

i wonder how these conversations start, and how youre going about them.

my dad didnt have bpd, but he could be a very difficult person, prone to episodic, bpd like behavior. even later on, when hed get back to baseline, be more apologetic, if you pushed him, he would go into a mode where hed laugh a lot, or look for a distraction, or get kind of smart. if you pushed harder, hed start to get put out about it, like he was done with it and wanted it to go away. it was rare, though not unheard of, to both have a frank discussion and get a sincere apology when he felt bad about something hed done.

likewise, my ex would have a very hard time discussing our fights after the fact.

people with bpd traits not only carry a lot of shame, but they dont much like having the spotlight on their behaviors. push them, and they can often become defensive, or dismissive, or distracted. they have a particularly hard time with "here is how your behavior affected me", and being able to validate your feelings about it.

could this be what youre bumping up against?

We had a big fight again yesterday, and I noticed something I did not see before. The conversation started with a different topic, and I accidentally overstepped a boundary in that conversation I did not know about before. I tried to apologize and to understand what I had done wrong, but she later explained she really didn't want to hear anything from me or talk to me in any way.

However, we tried to plan our day afterwards, and when I tried to tell her what I would like to do on that day, she would pull off some really aggressive not listening tactics. So at that time there was this really ambivalent push-pull atmosphere of "I want to talk to you because we need to plan, but I absolutely do not want to talk to you because I feel hurt from the previous mistake". But wanting to talk and not wanting to talk at the same time just leads to completely dysfunctional conversation and typically ends up in a fight.

Additionally, both needs of wanting to talk and not wanting to talk seem so strong, she is absolutely unable to reflect on them. When I tried to talk to her about this and tried to focus on one of these needs, she would immediately flip to the other. When I tried to figure out how we could address her need not to talk with me, she'd indicate that she actually wanted to talk to me, and saw my ideas of addressing not wanting to talk as a mistake on my behalf. If I tried to figure out how we could talk about our plans, she saw this as violating her need not to talk to me.

At the same time, because these two conflicting needs were so strong, she was completely invalidating of my needs, like first restoring an accepting atmosphere after she aggressively yelled at me. She just was completely derogatory and basically just called me weak and overly emotional for not wanting to talk about my wishes for the day after I was yelled at.