I think maybe I went too far

[Monkey Boy]

So I got totally feed up with my PD partner and left the house to avoid his toxic tirade and verbal abuse.  Went to a safe place and unloaded this message to him.  Did I go too far.  Three days later he's this way.  I had to leave again as he started ranting and I didn't say a word but he got pissier and unfortunately I feel that if I don't say anything he feel dominant and he's put me in my place.

" I think that you have unreasonable expectations to demand that no noise is made at all after we eat lunch.  I have to wash lots of dishes after cooking a special Cinco de Mayo lunch and the sink is only 2 meters from where you watch TV from your recliner and rest for most all of the afternoon.  You expect silence?   I realize that you are tired but you have to realize that you are NOT the center of the world and other people have needs and exist.

You need to realize that you have responsibilities also.  If you really need to rest in quiet YOU NEED TO TAKE YOU PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY to wash your feet (is 3 minutes that much?) and go into the bedroom (which is VERY quiet with AC and TV) and rest.  If your excuse is that you don't want to get the bed dirty easily solution:  WASH YOUR FEET!

To get SO ANGRY and demand quiet and not take a couple minutes to wash your feet and rest in the bedroom and expect everyone to bow to your demands is acting like a Princess and that your needs are superior to everyone else. 

And then, after you come home at that night 5am drunk, I was very considerate and after taking care of the dogs I left not to make any noise so you could sleep and brought you lunch because I knew you would be hungry (and you complained that the food was bad). I let you rest all day and took to La Riojanita to eat dinner.

Then the today (2 days after the first fight) you bring up what a bad person I am and I don't respect you because I make noice when cleaning. YOU NEED TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF and stop attacking me.  You love to bring up the past to start drama.  This has been a reoccurring problem since we met - you love stirring up the past to start fights. I tried ignoring you but when you start telling me that "I need to change" and "I don't respect you because I make noise while cleaning up after lunch" and I'm sooo bad, I've had enough.  YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS NOT RESPECTING ME.  And your continued tirades are abusive. 

After thinking about what I'm saying in this message and you still think you're an entitled person, well I can't help you.  Then that case, you need to think how you want to live and if you need help figuring that out I suggest that you see a personal counselor or psychologist.  I can't help you because you are 100% sure that you are right and I am wrong and bad. 

I'm the meantime, I will not talk to you when you are not respecting my boundaries and abusive.  I WILL NOT ADMIT FAULT WHEN I AM NOT DOING ANYTHING WRONG.  Don't disregard this message because you are mad.  Take your time to consider what I'm saying and make you decisions accordingly."

His text reply: " Tu hablas y hablas, pero no sabes la essencia, en realidad, de las cosas."  (You talk and talk but in reality don't know the true essence of things). 

Just a bunch of words that don't mean any other than I am wrong and he is right.

Did I go too far?  He's still blaming me for everything under the sun and I feel so tired, helpless and depressed.

[Starboard Song]

"When someone shows you who they are, believe them."   -- Maya Angelou

I don't think you went to far. I personally wouldn't have put it in writing, but it wasn't wrong to do so. You didn't call him names. And though you generalized, you backed it up with specific complaints. What was missing? A statement that you love him very much and want him in your life.

I encourage you to take a bit of time. If the answer is that you do very much love him and want him in your life, you should let him know that. He should know what you adore about him. He should know why you are with him now and why you want to stay with him. You should express your hope that he loves you, too. That pays the entrance fee for the hard part of the conversation. Let him know that while you will work with him, you really do need to see changes, and they need to be large and lasting. You know you aren't perfect, but you do not deserve to be yelled at, berated, and insulted. And more: you will no longer tolerate it.

If the answer is that -- well, sadly, you don't very much love him anymore, then it is time to make new arrangements for your peace.

You initiated an important conversation, and that took courage. If you wish to finish it with this man, it will take calm. No raised voices and no generalities. If he says something mean, you have to calmly say "that wasn't nice" and procede. He will have to believe and feel how much you love him and want this to work. He will as fully have to believe and know with confidence that you will no longer tolerate anger and mistreatment. Get the bed dirty if you want, right? But do NOT yell at me about it.

Maya Angelou said something else wise: "Do the best you can do until you know better. And when you know better, do better."

[1footouttadefog]

I personally dont agree that such a conversation needs to be enveloped in a bunch of statements about love and such. 

I think you said your bit and said it well.  He responded.  take it that response into full account.  If you need clarification ask for it.  if you continue to get snarky answers, you know where you stand. 

[Starboard Song]

1foot is absolutely correct that you don't owe anyone a bunch of fake rhetorical cushion. That said, I assume you hope to achieve success. I am highly confident that success is far more likely when -- if we really do love or admire or appreciate someone we need to correct -- that we share with them the wonderful truth that they are loved or admired or appreciated. Too often, we go into Correction Mode, like we've put a car in reverse: like it is the opposite of Love Mode. It needn't be. I can tell my wife that something she does annoys me or hurts my feelings without conveying to her a sense of condemnation and resentment. A hard shift to Correction Mode makes the other party more resistant to our message.

user expresses a wise caution. Sometimes a person just isn't going to change. Folks bad-off enough to really warrant the PD label are often beyond change. But PDs are rarely diagnosed and are not all of one flavor or severity. We use our words and advise each other all the time because doing so usually works. You can go in with cautious optimism. But be ready, as user says, to accept reality if this is a person who is just not capable of change.

[1footouttadefog]

Sp true you cannot change them.  They will remain a PD person.  But you can potentially  hange how you get treated and what you put up with.

Doing  so requires in many if not most cases accepting some hard realities.  It often means coming to terms that you will never get what you thought you had when you committed to them because it was an act. 

It means coming  to terms with the real them and deciding of that is so.eone you can or will live with.

[Poison Ivy]

 

[Lookin 2 B Free]

I was once married to someone high in NPD traits.  My other ex was, according to a psychologist, a true PD.  There was a difference.  One of them could grudgingly be reasoned with, could understand normal logic, and could imagine being in someone else's shoes if forced to think about it, though would never think about it on his own.   The second was incapable of any of that.  You might as well try to reason with a rabid dog.  

Talking to either of them about anything pretty much never made a dent.  Even if we made an important agreement to proceed in a certain way, that would unravel as soon as it was inconvenient or forgotten.  And mostly we wouldn't get that far anyway.

The only thing that made any difference was when I made a change in behavior.  Often the fewer words the better to accompany that change.  The more I just started doing what seemed right to me instead of responding to the bullying, the less resentful & disempowered I would feel, which was what was important to me.  A nice side bonus of being less resentful was that I could usually be pleasant   "Hey, sweetie, I'm getting ready to leave for ___ (thing he expressly doesn't want me to do).  How about if I pick up some ___ (his favorite takeout) on my way home for us for dinner?" That might soften the narc injury.  

If he started in with the angry bullying again I sometimes said "Well, this is what's been planned and if I cancel  I'll feel resentful, which I don't want.  So I'm going to go ahead and go."  He might be seething, which I wished wasn't the case for either of us, but I felt like a whole person and was treating myself as an equal.

It was a great improvement over earlier days though it didn't make it worth staying in the long run. Once I was thoroughly convinced that nothing we did, and no therapy he did, would "fix" him,  I knew I would be better off alone, which is how I am now.  It's not perfect, but it's better.