Reactive Abuse

[zad7242]

Seems like a there is a lot out there on social media, etc  on reactive abuse. My wife labels her outbursts as merely her reaction to my abuse of her. Can't all people with BPD claim their tantrums and rage are reactive abuse?

My wife has been screaming and calling me names since our engagement when we didn't even live in the same state and she raged against her family and boss too, so it makes me wonder if I'm really the cause of her acting out. On the other hand, the Tik Tok videos of reactive abuse do sound like her with the husband quietly sitting there. The difference I see is those men are portrayed as enjoying the fact they have gotten their wives to snap. I sit quiet to hooefully make the screaming stop but inside my anxiety and anger is very high. There are times when my wife's accusations are especially off-base that I apparently do have a tendency to come across as smug to her, which I don't like about myself. Upon reflection I do think that happens because there are so few times that it is clear and right there in plain view  for me to see she is the one with the serous mental disorder, so there is a validation and satisfaction that comes with that.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Not sure if there are any resources that help discern reactive abuse vs. the abuse of a spouse with BPD that isn't the fault of the non-BPD spouse.

[square]

My thoughts:

1- It's hard for me to imagine an abused person being willing to post videos on social media that show their abusers in even the vaguest identifiable way, and expose them to public shame for their abuse.

No abusers react well to public shaming. It's hard for me to imagine someone purportedly being afraid of someone but also being willing to carry out what may be the top trigger for abusers.

Not saying it's never happened, and maybe this trend involves mostly old footage of abusers who have died or are in prison without possibility of parole. But I do have to wonder if the supposed victims of abuse might be leveraging videos for attention seeking and revenge purposes.


2- I think if you are in fact smirking, it would be a good goal to work on stopping. Perhaps it comes from the cognitive dissonance where you are genuinely unsure whose behavior is normal or rational and the relief to see evidence that you are in fact not crazy. But relief isn't the same as what drives smirking, which is a dominating behavior (I won, I'm more powerful, I have you in a weak position).

Perhaps your wife plays this domination game with you and you feel relief at being able to score points against her instead of them always being scored against you. But I'd like to recommend not playing the game at all. If she feels like she's dominated you, you could feel amazed and sad at her small perspective of the world, but not feel weakened yourself. And therefore need no points to even the score, because there is no score. 


3- If you and she are engaged in a battle of "who is the real abuser and who is just reacting," you might benefit from consistantly removing yourself from charged situations.

If she starts being abusive to you, do not sit there calmly, smirking or not. Say that we can discuss this when things are calmer and haul out.

I know you'll never be able to discuss certain things calmly, but the point of that is to disengage with less ability for her to call it abandonment or whatever she will call it. It's rational to disengage and calm down and leave the door open for further, calm discussion.

She will of course see it as you having abused her, triggering her "reactive" abuse, and then further abusing her by leaving.

But leaving an argument is not abusive. It just isn't.

And if she is being abused by you, I imagine she could leave the conflict? You're not forcing her to stay, right? (These are rhetorical questions). So you can encourage her to also disengage from conflict, and tell her she does not need to stay and take what she feels is abuse from you.

This should all be done and said in good faith. I assume you genuinely don't want her to feel abused, right? Of course you cannot twist yourself into knots to avoid what a BPD feels is a threat to them, but you don't want her to feel abused. So maybe you can discuss ways you BOTH can disengage from volatile situations.

What I see in your writing in that you are both engaged in an impasse. Maybe it will make things 5% better to stop talking about who is abusing who and agree that both people should be free of abuse, and both people need to stop name calling and both people need to start disengaging from conflicts. Not "YOU need to ___" but "we BOTH need to ___" and the behavior named should be very very general so it does indeed cover both of you without calling out just one.

[square]

Another thought - you might benefit from stopping using the "abuse" label with her.

So instead of saying:

You're being abusive, I'm leaving
I don't have to take this abuse
You're the one being abusive

Say:

I'm going to take a walk, we can discuss this after we both calm down
I'm not okay with name calling
We both agreed that we would disengage if things got to yelling

[blunk]

I can admit that I have been guilty of reactive abuse, but it was things like yelling back after being rage-screamed at for hours on end, and it was usually something like "OMG will you f-ing stop already". Not that it is right or good to do, but there were times when I just reached my limit and snapped. It was also before I was Out of the FOG.

I did, at times, feel like I was being baited into reacting, just so that he could claim that I was being abusive. Once I started practicing things like No JADE, MC, and GR he would try to find other ways to say that I was "just as abusive". That I "made a face" when he was talking to me...the same man who couldn't tell that I was upset when I was sobbing so hard that I may as well have been convulsing, but somehow he could detect some micro-expression that did not even reflect my actual feelings about the situation (ex. he'd say that I rolled my eyes, when in reality I was looking downward trying to prevent myself from crying).

I guess my point is, just because they think you are doing something doesn't mean that you actually are

[zad7242]

Thank you, there have been really good points made.

Sorry for not being clear, but I'm fairly sure the social media reels that my wife sends me are people acting out what reactive abuse looks like.

I really like the idea of walking away. Benefits me in that I don't have to sit and absorb the name calling and screaming. I also will not be tempted to sit back and take any satisfaction in her appearing irrational. I should be sad for her not feeling like I'm winning anything - there is no winning in all this. Hopefully helps her in calming down etc too. 

I know we talk about the Karpman Drama Triangle, and I need to remind myself that the more time I spend in this dynamic, the more often I find myself being the perpetrator- even if it's in more subtle ways then my wife. The longer I go the more I lose who I want to be. I need to focus on removing myself from not just the victim role, but the perpetrator role as well.

[Xyz]

Zad, I wonder if this article from the website of the National Domestic Violence Hotline might be of use to you?  It is to me; the uPDm with whom I live tries to convince me and others that I abuse him.  The article title is "Mutual Abuse:  It's Not Real."

https://www.thehotline.org/resources/mutual-abuse-its-not-real/

[zad7242]

   Xyz,

   The article you posted is right on point! Thank you!

[MaxedOut]

Yeah, I don't thing reactive abuse is a thing. Reactive behaviors, sure, reactive yelling after getting verbally abused. Reactive pushing or physical stuff to protect oneself or stop abuse. Abuse is about power, control, and intent. And part of most definitions of abuse is about patterns of behaviors, not just certain behaviors. A partner who looses their cool once or very rarely and calls the other person names is not abusive (especially when they take accountability and work to repair following the events).

Sort of like the distinctions between race related bias/prejudice/stereotyping and racism (bias/prejudice plus power and harm at system level or between individuals).

To me, behaving in ways I didn't want to, and that ran counter to my values was a major factor in getting very serious about change/leaving. This was typically about behaviors my ex expected/demanded regarding third parties she was angry. And that highlights the intent piece-behaving in any ways adjacent to the sorts of things I experienced as abusive was really painful, awful, and shameful to me, not a method to get what I want. It was usually about avoiding more and escalating abuse myself. Or trying to protect others from her rage.

And... PDs often revel in the non-PD losing their calm. They get to both-sides things. I mostly avoided calling things abuse/abusive to my ex and focused on specific behaviors and values, owned up to anything I did, and implemented to tools to avoid stuff like that (e.g., boundaries to exit a situation where I was getting really activated, not engaging in conversations once name calling and such started.).

That was as much for me as her/the relationship. I needed to regain myself and my values as guiding forces because that is what I have control over, that is what I have to live with, and that is about how I navigate the world. There are a thousand ways PDs bait those around them (and a thousand ways the world tries to too). Taking bait, defending yourself, loosing your patience and or temper due to abuse is not abuse,

[Poison Ivy]