Strange speech patterns

[11JB68]

Not sure where to put this or if it's even pd related.
Updh has a tendency not to speak in complete sentences and to expect me to respond and know what he's saying. He gets irritated if I don't understand.
This morning I heard him do this on the phone with a client, I was really surprised. The client clearly asked him to be more specific as I then heard him ask the complete question. As far as I know this is a person that he gets along with. 

[Wilderhearts]

This seems like subtle manipulation - he knows exactly what someone would assume he's going to say and wants to get them to say it, like he's a puppet master.  If you don't, that's also fuel because you're not being "empathetic" or listening well enough.  What a double-bind.  I'm sorry.  I'm curious what would happen if you continued the conversation, as if he had spoken in complete sentences?  If he's misunderstood, well that's a natural consequence of not expressing himself adequately, and you're not getting sucked into focusing all your energy on what he's "trying" to say.

[11JB68]

Wilderhearts
This is sort of how I always have interpreted it. Manipulation. Or perhaps a form of laziness/sense of entitlement, like he shouldn't have to speak full sentences (e.g. he will sometimes just gesture/point/grunt when he has a request and expects me to fetch what he needs etc.)
The confusing thing is when I heard him do this on the phone with client's employee...whom I think he gets along with - I could almost see him doing it with a different client with whom he is having 'issues'. How could he possibly expect a practical-stranger to 'read' his intention with a barely understandable 2-word 'question' on the PHONE? It really took me aback. I was picturing the confusion of the person on the other end of the phone (???) OR - have I just been SO enabling, that I have created this 'monster' who now thinks he can behave this way with ANYone? GOD....have I just rewarded this behavior for so long that now he thinks it's normal??
And he does sometimes express frustration to me that he feels he's being clear with people and they don't understand him...if this is how he's communicating then I can see why!
I just don't know if this is subconscious on his part or not.
So - he wanted to ask client's employee if client was unavailable due to being out of the office on a long weekend... instead he only said" "clientsname (pause) long-weekend?" The employee had NO IDEA what he was asking or stating...especially since no, the client  had not taken a long weekend, just wasn't in the office today...
It's like he gets an idea in his own head, assumes it is correct and then operates on that assumption when dealing with people around him.

[Wilderhearts]

JB, this reminds me of how I would have to order pizza for my family when I was a kid.  We had some modifications and the way my uPDf would order wouldn't make it clear which modifications went on which pizza.  He would fume when asked for clarification.  I, at 10, would clarify the order.  He was a professor - really no excuses for not finding another way of explaining things - that's what teachers do, after all.  In this case, I think it was narcissistic injury that somebody would insinuate his communication was inadequate - he was superior so others should have to do the work, should recognize that they, not he were the problem.  He shouldn't have to change the way he was doing anything.

I would say my mother is now codependent with my sister, who inherited a lot of fleas.  She was also codependent with her alcoholic father, from what I know she took care of him a fair bit.  I can't remember enough of my parents' interactions, but I'd say it's safe to assume the pattern persisted.  With a PD'd partner, it's also a matter of survival to assuage them to escape their rages - my uPDf could get murderously angry.

If there's a monster there - he already existed.  I would do some refresh reading about boundaries and responsibility (3C's, 50% rule, and boundaries in the "What to do") - he and he alone is responsible for his behaviour, and responsible for accepting the consequences.  Yes, the boogey-man side of pwPDs flourish in certain environments - maybe you can take responsibility for your actions that may enable (filling in his sentences) but if he reacts poorly, or continues, or switches to another manipulative behaviour, that is all him.  You are responsible for your actions, and that's it.  He's an adult.

I started doing this "intimacy without responsibility [for others' emotions]" course after learning I had been in a co-dependent relationship (I think he actually had more codependent behaviours than I did but I got sucked in).  It's by donation - I skipped the mushy meditative stuff, but the messages about how allowing others to experience consequences of their behaviour is a kindness, because it's their opportunity to learn, really hit home for me.  https://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/courses/courseoverview.cgi?cid=447&aff=0

[Wilderhearts]

I also wanted to say - grunting at you is bloody rude.  Do you get angry about it?  If my non-PD partner ever did that to me as a way of making a "request," he'd get the side-eye and absolutely nothing else.

[11JB68]

Wilder - thank you.
Your f and my h sound a lot alike unfortunately for both of us.
Re: getting angry at the grunting (etc). I've learned that getting angry at him/expressing such only results in raging (his), circular arguments, resulting in me JADEing etc. Since beginning to come Out of the FOG I am mostly using MC. I'm in a position where I would prefer to leave, but feel I cannot. So I am as you mentioned " a matter of survival to assuage them to escape their rages ".  I often feel guilty when I read posts on this site about people who had PD parents and an enabling parent and the anger at the enabling parent. I am that enabling parent. I know this. I own this. I also feel like I've only ever done the best I can to keep everyone safe to a certain degree. I know it's not enough. Lesser of two evils sometimes. When DS(21) was old enough I did sit down and had a long talk with him about his dad and he totally agreed with my 'armchair' diagnosis. I think he gets that I'm doing and have done what I can but I still worry so that I've damaged my relationship with him in some way, or that I'll lose him when he leaves home.
This: "narcissistic injury that somebody would insinuate his communication was inadequate - he was superior so others should have to do the work, should recognize that they, not he were the problem.  He shouldn't have to change the way he was doing anything." - this is my uOCPDh to a "T".

[Wilderhearts]

Yes - anger is power to them, so their anger always has to be bigger to maintain the upper hand.  That's smart of you to recognize there's no point in expressing anger - it doesn't serve you in any way.  For myself, growing up with a PD'd foo, I had to learn to how to even be angry.  Just acknowledging it for myself now helps remind me when my boundaries are being violated.

I'm sorry if my use of "codependent" sounded blaming or shaming in any way - I love and admire my non-M more than almost anyone.  Those "enabling" behaviours come from a place of empathy and caring and a mothering instinct.  All of these things I think are exploited by people with toxic traits and behaviours (e.g. selfishness, lack of empathy), or who just need love to replace the self-love they aren't able to give themselves.  The issue becomes that their demands are endless and often unreasonable.

From a child's perspective, I was never angry at my non-M for not leaving sooner.  When it came to the actual leaving, things got very dangerous - it's the ultimate narcissistic injury.  It was also dangerous for us having unsupervised visits as children, but the trade-off was that we finally had a home to return to (my mom's) where we could finally learn to feel safe.  As you say, "lesser of the two evils."  That's fantastic you can have such honest communication with your son.  My mom gave me "stop walking on eggshells" as a teen and it did help put things into perspective.  Have you asked you DS if he is angry towards you?  I know my sister took a lot of her anger out on our mom, but it's because she was a safe target, not because my sister really had reason.

[11JB68]

I haven't asked ds if he's angry at me. I guess I'm sort of afraid to. I don't really think he is though. I think he gets it.
I didn't think anything you said sounded blaming. Some other posts that I read on here, especially in the dealing with pd parents forum, I hear a lot of anger towards the en-parent...I get that..and it bothers me. I ended up losing my relationship with my enF because when the s*it hit the fan he would not or could not stand up to updm. He totally sold out. I told ds that story and told him that if it ever came to that I would choose him.

[athene1399]

Someone I work with who I expect has a PD does that same type of speech. It drive me crazy! I will be in the middle of something and she'll just say a name or a number and she expects me to know what she is talking about. Sometimes I don't even know if she is talking to me because it makes no sense. Then when I say I have no idea what she's referring to, she'll spout out some other one word sentence that doesn't clarify anything at all.  Then if I get openly frustrated, she gets really mad at me. I always assumed she thinks I should know what she is thinking, so I should be able to connect the dots on my own. Which doesn't make any sense. I cannot even see her computer screen where I sit. But maybe she wants me to get angry. Lately I've been stopping what I'm doing and waiting until she gets the whole point out. Now she gets frustrated when I repeated say "I still don't know what you're talking about." I let her put all the work in instead of me. If she can't tell me her question in complete sentences, then I won't work harder to figure it out. I just calmly repeat " I still don't know what you are trying to say" until she eventually says enough words where a full sentence in formed and I can understand what she is asking.

[StayWithMe]

My mother is like this.  Less so these days.  Everything is a whatchacom; the past is expressed as "the other day."  She would also get angry at me only to accept when things got unwound that she never talked about whatever with me before.  I've learned to be sanguine about these things.  I don't help her to express what she wants to; I wait.  If she accuses me of being stupid, I agree with her that she is right.  And so there is no fun anymore in her playing stupid.

In general, I have learned not to fill in the blanks for someone.  If they want something expressed, they will need to do it themselves. 

[11JB68]

In thinking about this I remembered that uPDh did this the first time we had dinner with my parents. (Given-m is ubpd, f is codependent/enabling...) But then-new boyfriend when asked a simple question at dinner by my mother, gave one of those weird 2 word answers. I remember m was confused. H had to explain. H was later annoyed ...I think m was sort of annoyed too. This may have been the first (very early) time that I was 'caught between' the two PDs !  I had almost forgotten about this. It probably should have been a sign to me....

[Sidney37]

My uPDm has 3 friends with the exact same first name - "Mary".  Two of the 3 have daughters with the same first name - "Lisa".  So my uPDm starts midway through a story about Mary or 3/4 of the way through a story about "Lisa", one who I've never met and the other might have been a pre-teen the last time I saw her.  Both of these girls are now in their 30s.  When I ask her to clarify, because there is no way I can discern which "Mary" or "Lisa"  is which based on the context clues of this half story, she goes into a rage.   She insists that I should know things about people I have never met or haven't seen in 20+ years.  I should know things about people that she has never told me and I haven't lived there in years.  She'll start halfway into a story about "the other day".  I won't know where she was, who she was with or what she was doing, but somehow I should have remembered that she told me 2 months ago that she was going to a church rummage sale and I should have known which "Mary" would be there.   Of course the "Mary" that she was talking about isn't the one who belongs to the church!   

[StayWithMe]

My uPDm has 3 friends with the exact same first name - "Mary".  Two of the 3 have daughters with the same first name - "Lisa".  So my uPDm starts midway through a story about Mary or 3/4 of the way through a story about "Lisa", one who I've never met and the other might have been a pre-teen the last time I saw her.  Both of these girls are now in their 30s.  When I ask her to clarify, because there is no way I can discern which is which "Mary" or "Lisa" is which based on the context clues of this half story, she goes into a rage.   She insists that I should know things about people I have never met or haven't seen in 20+ years.  I should know things about people that she have never told me and I haven't lived there in years.  She'll start halfway into a story about "the other day", I won't know where she was, who she was with or what she was doing, but somehow I should have remembered that she told me 2 months ago that she was going to a church rummage sale and I should have known which "Mary" would be there.   Of course the "Mary" that she was talking about isn't the one who belongs to the church!   

My mother does just the same.  I used to try to explain that it was not a sign of stupidity to not know who she was talking about given the circumstances......  These days I just simply say "Well, you tell me that I am stupid.  so why do you expect otherwise."  Lately, I've noticed that she has steered clear of those moments when I can use that response.

[11JB68]

I witnessed him do this again last night with a friend.
We had friends over for dinner. Updh was at one end of the table and wanted something that was near his friend at the other end. He used his2 word approach. Clearly friend had no idea he was even speaking to him. He repeated once or twice. I literally had to interpret! I asked uPDh what he wanted, then said to friend, "m, could you please pass the x?" Got an immediate response, go figure
This is so weird.....

[1footouttadefog]

Will ce back and read the rest of the posts but for now I will quickly respond with

Created a monster. 

No you did not.  You can enable behaviour towards you but you cannot create a monster.

Imaging the flip side would you become a monster to others of he treated you poorly or would you notice and take corrective measures even of it meant being hermit or leaving him. 

Review the three C rule.

[Whiteheron]

11jb - stbx would expect me to be able to read his mind, or at least intuit what he wanted. If I said anything about my lack of mind reading abilities or his inability to be clear (as in not finishing his sentences and expecting me to automatically know what he wanted), he'd get nasty and say something along the lines of "you really don't know me" or "I thought you'd at least make an effort to get to know me by now." I was married to him for 20 years. Still unable to read his mind. One of my great "failings" as his wife (aka doormat). 

[SparkStillLit]

White heron I really tick H off in these circumstances with the response "my crystal ball is cracked". I shouldn't fuel the fire like that, nevis absolutely going to fly off at that, but honestly, nobody reads minds!!!!
H chops words off all through a sentence. Normally I can follow along, but now and again I can't make heads or tails of it. "We were on the tra... and it started to ra... but I had my ge... so it was fi..." like that but no pause. If one has the context, it tracks. It's unknown to me if this happens outside the home. I've never heard it over the phone.

[Lauren17]

Wow! Just...wow.
My uBPDh regularly uses half sentences, but he can make them sound like a complete thought.
"Oh, I thought that they..."
"So everyone decided to..."
I one time tried to describe this to someone and they suggested that DH was using complete sentences, I just wasn't hearing them correctly because I expected more. 

I was married to him for 20 years. Still unable to read his mind. One of my great "failings" as his wife (aka doormat). 

I've "failed" in exactly the same manner. And asking for clarification results in nasty comments or a refusal to finish a conversation.
I'm going to watch and see if he does this with people outside the family.
I had no idea others were living with this frustration. Thanks, Out of the FOG for once again helping me to feel a little less alone.

[Andeza]

You know... My dh is not a pd. But when he was younger he did suffer a traumatic brain injury. Rolled an atv over a cliff, landed on him, unconscious for hours, it was really bad. He still has horrible memory problems.

He has bizarre speech patterns where he doesn't finish the thought. At all. And seems unaware that he has come to a full stop. Or, really annoying to me, he subvocalizes. What I mean is that as he's talking any normal sort of pause between words is filled with a hum of sound that is not a word or actual letter.

Frequently I ask him a question and I'm busy so I don't see him shake his head or nod. If there is silence for a bit, I've gotten into the habit of saying "you know your head doesn't rattle?" usually gets a laugh and a verbal response.

I guess that what I'm saying is that not all unusual speech patterns or quirks arise from pds. However the need to have others finish sentences or magically intuit what they're thinking... That seems to be more a pd thing. Kinda seems wrapped up in control.

[Whiteheron]

Lauren,

He also used to tell me it was because I wasn't "really paying attention" to him, because if I was, I would have known what he was going to say. So I aws either stupid or not listening. I think he did it just to confuse me, so that when I couldn't read his mind he could berate me. He seems to have a pathological need to put others down and make them feel very small.