Reality check: Is this DARVO?

[Queenfrog]

Today my PD spouse called me at work - where I was taking a break to arrange my father's memorial - to ask me not to arrange any family events at our home. I said of course I won't, because my family is not welcome in my home - a fact that causes me great pain - and they would not dream of gathering there. Spouse hates my parents and doesn't like any of my family to visit. (My family are nice, gentle, harmonious people. We aren't perfect, but we all get along with each other and with others. Except for my PD spouse, who cut my parents out of his life years ago.)

So, when he goes out of his way to say don't bring the family over, where they have never been in 25 years, I find it triggering.

Shortly thereafter, he called again to ask why I am so hostile - but he was not looking for an answer. He said his piece and hung up. Then he texted to suggest other options and said "check the reactive hostility." I repeated that my family would not dream of gathering at my home and we were already exploring the other options. Then he suggested (again) that we skip the memorial service altogether.

A little while later, he texted about some minor surgery he will be having. I responded that I could wait on him hand and foot while he recovers. He then again said "just quit with all the hostility." I said I wasn't being hostile. He responded, "nothing interests me less than being waited on. Think of something else to demonstrate to yourself that you care." I was trying to be supportive, but it seems like every time I try to express care, support, or love, he accuses me of being false. I admit, it's become very hard to love him!

I didn't mean to react with hostility at any time, though I was a bit triggered. I guess I am writing this post because I need a reality check or at least some validation. I am finally learning about DARVO now and wondering if this is what it looks like. Or am I being hostile without meaning to?? Now that I have written this out, I think I know the answer . . . . On the other hand, I often wonder what is being left out by our posts on here. History, context, and tone of voice can make a big difference in how the spoken word is interpreted, no?   

[notrightinthehead]

The short answer: yes.

I would be irritated if someone I like was banned from my house or if my partner contacted me several times a day in such a way as you described. And the accusation of being hostile could be a bait to get you into a JADE dance or play the karpman triangle. Any engagement means your attention is on him. Where it should be. Your friend would be medium chill. And to find a safe outlet for your frustration.

[moglow]

You could be "hostile" because you're grieving and your mind is elsewhere, as is expected right now. He can interpret that as he likes and frankly you don't have to repeatedly explain your "hostility." Maybe he could stop interrupting you during your work day, how about that? He sounds so focused on having your attention on him, he's overlooking the simple fact that you have other responsibilities as well.

HE may skip the service if he chooses - and you do what you need for yourself.

My apologies if I'm coming across as hostile (!) but seriously. Maybe he needs to back off just a skosh.

[Queenfrog]

Thanks for the responses! It is helpful for me to reflect on this little incident, which is typical of my interactions with my PD spouse. When he accused me of being hostile, he seemed to be in pain. He said his entire focus is taking care of me and thinking of my needs, which is pretty much true, and what he gets in return is hostility. This may well be DARVO or whatever, but there is also truth to his suffering. And it's also true that after decades of experiencing his verbal abuse and controlling behavior I am resentful toward him. I try to practice love, understanding, and compassion, but I can't sweep my negative emotions under the rug. I have every right to be angry about how he has cut off my family, too.

He is pathologically risk averse (I think it's OCPD), so when he called to say "don't bring the family over" I believe he was genuinely trying to ensure that it wouldn't happen. My response reflected my surprise and indignation that he could think it was even possible, in addition to my anger. I think sometimes when he comes off as untethered to reality, I react negatively out of fear. In hindsight, I could have responded to his underlying anxiety and FUD somehow, rather than reacting as I did. I am not sure how much I can reasonably expect of myself, but I can always try to be more mindful. After all, he was not trying to attack or insult me in that moment.

The whole incident upset me and I wrote a post on here instead of getting back to work. I was stifling the urge to text him back and call out his own hostility. I have lost so much time and mental energy to this type of stuff over the years! Notrightinthehead, I appreciate your point about finding a safe outlet for my frustration. I wonder what that would look like, especially in the middle of a work day. More walks around the block, I guess.

Oh, I wasn't clear: when he suggested skipping the memorial service, he meant we shouldn't bother having one at all. He has been taking that attitude since before my father passed away. He has no say in it.

[square]

Queenfrog,
I'm very sorry to hear of the loss of your father.

I'm also very sorry to hear that this loss is apparently highly complicated by enforced isolation from your family. There's got to be so many hard layers to that.

I'm sure I could suggest lovely medium chill responses to the various things your spouse has been saying - except, no, I can't.

This is one of those handful of times that you REALLY REALLY REALLY need, if not actual support and help and empathy and soothing from your spouse, at least the benefit of him GETTING OFF YOUR BACK ONE DAMN MINUTE.

You should be able to be thinking about your memories of your father, be they good or bad or whatever mixture, and not tiptoeing around a freaking landmine who is making this about him.

Even in a heavily lopsided relationship, I would expect him to be thinking about YOUR anxieties here.

But, I do know the reality is that we are dealing with people who not only push the boundaries of the most basic decency, but blow far past them.

Feel free to share your feelings here, or journal them privately to yourself (you can delete after if you like).

If things fall apart with your spouse and he blows up with his anxiety, feel free to leave him to pick up his own little mess while you get yourself a hotel and block him while you focus on you, your grief, and the many things you have to deal with in a practical sense right now.

Or, if doing that seems more stressful than white knuckling it, then white knuckle away with all of us behind you and supporting you. Right now is the time to do what YOU need.

You got this 💪

[Poison Ivy]

 

[Call Me Cordelia]

I was reading this thread and this jumped out at me:

He said his entire focus is taking care of me and thinking of my needs, which is pretty much true...

Really? Really? Because wow he definitely seems to be making it all about himself and his feelings here. You have lost your father, are planning his memorial service, and he's harassing you multiple times a day with how you aren't being nice enough to him and please don't let your family come and gosh couldn't you just cancel the whole thing? Taking care of you? How? I'm not seeing that at all.

So yes, looks like a classic DARVO to me. Just looking out for YOU, dear wife. 

[Queenfrog]

That's a fair point, Call Me Cordelia. He does all the grocery shopping and cooking, most of the housekeeping, takes care of the finances, and caters to me and my needs quite a lot. (I am the breadwinner and he, in his own words, is the "houseboy.") So that's what I was referring to. On the other hand, some of this is controlling behavior on his part. I'm sure I'll be posting about all that at some point. Also, the language of emotional needs and feelings in general is completely foreign to him.

I am so, so glad to have found this forum. Still finding my way Out of the FOG here.

[bloomie]

Queenfrog - I am so sorry for the loss of your father and the strain your H's estrangement from them brings at such a difficult time.

One thing I know for sure, when you live with a disordered person for a long time your trust of yourself, your perceptions, your thinking and responding can take a huge hit. Especially when they are out of the blue like this.

You are in the middle of your work day, you are in the middle of organizing a very significant family event to honor and remember your father.

I ask ever so gently... is that the time to allow your H's accusations and needs to be the priority or throw you so off course?

I guess where I am headed is asking if it may be time to protect your peace? And if you agree... what would that look like right now when you are under so much pressure while grieving?

[sunshine702]

I think BECAUSE you are focusing on an important life event and are grieving is why this level of petty disrespect is happening.

Narcs are JEALOUS when attention is not on them. It was known that you were not arranging anything at the house.  It should have ended there (IF THAT WAS WHAT IT WAS ABOUT). It is not. Power and control and making you less than (in a tough moment too)
THAT is what this is about.

Know that.  Try to side step it and focus on the task.

I am sorry dear your instincts are correct.

[Queenfrog]

Thank you for the comments! Bloomie, your words have stayed with me. I am further distancing myself from my spouse right now, realizing I don't have to grit my teeth and stay in the same room with him at any particular time, ever. Last night when I got back from from my father's interment (which of course he did not attend), he asked about my parking job (which he went to inspect), made a dark joke about my father's remains, and got angry when he learned that I picked up the tab for my family's little get-together at a nearby tavern. (Trust me, it was my turn to pick up the tab and I can afford it.)

I had smoke coming out of my ears, so I just went into the other room. The words of my brother-in-law were reverberating in my head: He stood up at the interment and said my father was the best father-in-law he could have wished for. I've also been feeling sad as I saw my parent's love for each other in my father's final days and realized I don't have that type of loving relationship with my spouse. Comparison generally leads to negative thoughts, don't it.

One thing that's been bothering me: I rely heavily on the tactic of exiting the scene when he is being abusive or insulting, and when I feel flooded or angry for any reason. I am done arguing (no JADE!) and I'm not going to sit there in angry silence either, any more than I have to.

So now he accuses me of "running away" all the time. To him, it's like I can't take any criticism, can't defend myself, can't be bothered to do the work, am reactive and impulsive, can't just settle down and wait for his episode to blow over. When he makes this accusation, I have to fight off the possibility that he has a point, and I have to work not to feel weak and childish.

Part of me feels like it just doesn't matter anymore what he thinks of me. Part of me wonders if there is some truth in what he says. Not that I should hang around for abuse, to be clear. But there are many times when he isn't being abusive and I get upset anyway. Like what happened last night. Maybe I should occasionally try to talk things out???

I never try to talk things out. There might have been times, 10-20 years ago, when I made that type of effort. I wasn't as skilled then, though, and it always backfired. I guess I think it would backfire now too, even with my improved skills. At best, it would change nothing. Nothing I say will cause him to stop seeing me as childish and incompetent.

So I just exit whenever I feel like it. I suppose this is increasing the already huge distance between us. I just can't see a better way right now.

[MaxedOut]

"You just run away" "You're always running away" etc.

I have been clear about expressing communication I want and don't want to tolerate, I have done boundary warnings prior to leaving the room (I can't recall those ever actually working with my spouse without at least a short break/removal). We often can pick up the conversation later in a better way.

At this point, I see it as just another issue for her to pick at instead of the ones that would have continued had I stayed and continued to take whatever meanness was getting dished out. It is definitely a hook though, and they know it. I am not the type of person who ditches tough conversations. I am not the type to leave someone who is in distress hanging. But the *why* I'm leaving the room doesn't matter in the PD blame game (certainly not when she's dysregulated). Her failure to communicate respectfully doesn't matter. Just me leaving.

So for me, I am having to also add the narrative that I am not someone who will just sit there and absorb abuse. I am not someone who will let damaging dysregulated communications escalate to full on tirades - because that is not good care of myself or the relationship.

And I am working on being more comfortable owning it rather than trying to JADE. Yes, I am running away. Yes, it is "selfish." Yes, I am sure it feels hurtful and uncaring. I wish the hundred better ways I navigate things like this well in other relationships and situations worked.

To the rest of the world, I am the person people want in the room when they can't see eye-to-eye or connect or collaborate or seek win-win solutions. I think that very trait (and my attachment at being adept that way) has been really problematic in this relationship as I very much lost sight of the 51% Rule that the toolbox mentions.

[Queenfrog]

Oh, MaxedOut, I'm so glad we can compare notes here. I think you are right on this:

At this point, I see it as just another issue for her to pick at instead of the ones that would have continued had I stayed and continued to take whatever meanness was getting dished out.

Unlike you, I am not skilled at having tough conversations. I tend to back away from them or just find an excuse to say as little as possible. Not that I have many opportunities. My PD spouse and I are socially isolated, and everything is always harmonious with my family. But I've noticed my shortcomings at work from time to time. I could stand to try harder with some of my relationships.

That being said, even the most skilled conversation on my part is unlikely to change things much with my PD spouse. Still, I hope that after I more fully master some of the new skills I'm learning here, there will come a time when I am ready to try again. The one thing that can change, I've learned, is how I feel about myself and my role in the relationship. The more I can be a bigger person and actually try to solve our problems rather than drowning in them, the better I will feel. 
 

[Queenfrog]

Last night, another chapter in the "you're being hostile" story that was my OP here.

This is an old pattern with my PD spouse. This time, we were watching a movie on TV and he said he was switching it off because it had no plot. (He always has the remote.) The movie had three story lines in three different locations, and I immediately said "it has a plot." I didn't take a tone about it, at least I don't think I did. We agreed to switch off the movie; no big deal as I was falling asleep anyway.

Boy did this set him off! He ranted for quite a while about how I meet everything he says with argument and hostility because I am always angry with him. He really leaned into it. He brought up an incident a couple of days ago, which I won't take the space to relate here, when I got angry at him for saying something about my father. There was mutual misinterpretation involved. I explained why I got angry that time, which of course was a mistake because my engagement only fueled his rage. He couldn't hear what I was saying. Duh. Never JADE.

This has happened over and over for years decades. He says a thing, I disagree or say a different thing, and he gets angry because I "argued." I guess this is classic PD behavior. One confusing part is that I am carrying around some negative feelings toward him and it's becausehe is this way. I certainly wasn't displaying any hostility when I commented about the movie, though! We'd had a good day. Sometimes when we are doing well, I start to relax and I forget to bite my tongue all the d**n time.

I caught myself JADE-ing a couple more times, as he kept going on about how hostile and hate-filled I am and how wrong I was about the movie. Then I was just lying there listening to him. At least he was not name-calling or belittling me, which is progress. He stayed on topic, I'll give him that. I still felt like I was being beaten up.

I could hear the pain in his voice. He really suffers with this and sees himself as a victim. Someone on another thread commented that it helps to view the PD person with pity, and I find that to be true. Episodes like this reveal how much pain and anger he carries around. I once thought I might be able to change that. At least I know now that I'll never change it by trying to be sweet and agreeable.

Even after all these years, I can't understand these sudden eruptions. We had a nice day until we sat down to watch TV together, then out of the blue he brought up the episode from a couple of days ago, then this happened a few minutes later. He obviously felt compelled to vent some anger. There is nothing I can do to stop this when it starts. When it feels like it is coming out of the pure blue sky, it sure throws me off-balance. (I think people will say that's his real purpose. If that's true, I'm convinced he doesn't realize it himself.)

After he finishes, he wants us to act like nothing happened. One of his themes is that I should always have a clean slate and not carry forward any negative feelings from his abusive or angry episodes. I guess this is a common PD trait as well.

I'm not sure if there is anything different I should be doing when he has one of his anger storms. They really are like the weather. They come and go, no matter what I do and say. Right now the best I can come up with is to go Gray Rock and wait for it to blow over. I don't think exiting the apartment is the right choice when he is just expressing his pain and anger without any abusive language. Should I be doing something different?

 

[Rebel13]

I don't think exiting the apartment is the right choice when he is just expressing his pain and anger without any abusive language. Should I be doing something different?

Hi Queenfrog! In my opinion, there is no "right" or "should" here. What do YOU *want* to do?

Personally, I do not want to be a dumping ground for someone else's extreme expressions of "hurt" and "anger" at my normal human behavior (having opinions, having different opinions, expressing opinions), with no opportunity to be heard or to defend myself, and I do whatever I need to, to protect myself from that. I don't see anything wrong with other people doing the same.

I really feel for you in this difficult situation and I wish you the best.

You get to do what YOU want, what is right for YOU.

[Call Me Cordelia]

After he finishes, he wants us to act like nothing happened. One of his themes is that I should always have a clean slate and not carry forward any negative feelings from his abusive or angry episodes. I guess this is a common PD trait as well.

Yes, it is a common PD trait. But you notice how there's a double standard here? You have to let it go as if it never happened. He gets to be mad about something that happened two days ago and lay into you about it. He can be as hostile as he likes and you have to take it because he truly feels bad. Why are his feelings so important and yours just not allowed?

That's not real life. Actions and words have consequences, both ways. You are not responsible for his feelings while he takes no responsibility for his actions.