Consequences of Gray Rock?

[errorglobal]

I was just wondering if anyone else has had bad fallout from the gray rock strategy? 

My uBPD partner used to rage at me pretty hard when I would JADE (before I found this site).  Their anger was awful and it wrecked me emotionally, but now that I've started deliberately gray rocking, they just get super depressed/hopeless and accuse me of not caring/loving them.  The conversations are shorter and less violent but my partner is now very much in victim mode, which I have a hard time handling because I care about her so much.  It feels cruel to not cave and just try to be as caring and loving as possible, even though I know a) it probably won't help, and b) it just reestablishes our old abusive dynamic. 

Anyone else have negative fallout from gray rock/medium chill?

[Starboard Song]

Grey rock is emulating a boring grey rock, so you don't draw the attention of a person seeking a target.

But a grey rock doesn't care about or love the people overlooking it on the ground. If my DW acted like a grey rock to me, if anyone I'd ever dated acted like a grey rock to me, I'd assume they neither loved nor cared about me. I don't think you are in an easy predicament, but I am not optimistic that grey rock ever works to strengthen a long-term relationship.

Perhaps other de-escalation tactics are in order: tactics that calm the situation but don't force you into a role of rejecting your partner.

[errorglobal]

Yeah, maybe I'm not using the term quite right.  I mean that when my partner starts criticizing/raging, rather than engaging with them and getting worked up myself either by trying to defend/explain myself or care-take for their emotions, I stay calm and try to acknowledge their feelings and verbally express care, but I don't emotively react to their anger/depression.  This has helped keep our conversations from exploding and has protected me from internalizing their anger/criticisms, but now my partner is accusing me of being uncaring in all aspects of our relationship, which simply isn't true (I do the majority of the practical work for our lives and I spend a ton of time trying to care for them emotionally, way too much really, etc).  I just don't want to be their emotional whipping boy/comforter when they are like that. 

I'm at a bit of a crossroads in my relationship--I can't make up my mind to leave but I also can't tolerate my partner's behavior and I don't want to feed them when they start working themselves up.  If I do, things tend to get violent.  So, I've adopted the above strategy.  I express care verbally but I don't rush to comfort them.  I'm mostly trying to survive until I can work up the emotional/practical strength to leave or things get better. 

What other strategies do you have in mind?  I'd love to learn more. 

[Starboard Song]

That sounds like you are doing exactly the right thing.

When we choose acquaintances we are willing to engage with, it is a low bar: as long as they aren't mean, you know? When we choose our close friends, we expect consistly to be able to trust them, and to enjoy them. When we choose a lover, it is supposed to be a high bar: we select very few lovers, and they are supposed to make us better and happier in many ways, most of the time. The reason isn't only that we love them. It cannot be only that. I love and can love many more people than would ever be fitting partners for me.

I'll never tell someone to run: we don't know enough of your story. But do make sure to put a plenty high price on your happiness and security.

Be good. Be strong.

[Boat Babe]

Hi error global. One of your sentences really worries me, when you write that your partner can be violent. This tells me you are living with a bucketful of misery and fear. That in itself is a very good reason for taking a full and painfully honest look at your situation, because you can't carry on like this without sustaining immense damage to yourself, at all levels.

Ask yourself:

Is my partner likely to change? (This is an easy one)

What do I think I am getting from staying in the relationship? (This is the big question and until you answer it, you will stay stuck. I stayed for a number of reasons but they all boiled down to a sucking chest wound of attachment trauma linked to my father. The work, for me, has been healing from this, in great part. Knowing this now means that I can exit a relationship if it starts to become unhealthy relatively quickly now, cos I now know that I don't have to relive that pain everytime a relationship ends. I still feel it, but it's like an old war wound that plays up in cold weather. )

And a final question, looking forward. How do I envision the rest of my life? What do I value and how can I live my values in a life free from fear, obligation and guilt?

Keep talking

[1footouttadefog]

There is grey rock, which is extreme and meant to help disengagw from a dangerous person by no longer being of interest to them in amy way.

There is another technique which may be closer to what you describe called medium chill.

Medium chill is for working to improve a relationship with appropriate levels if engagement but not playing the games pds like to play.  Chill becaise you dont let them get you worked up.


There is fallout withedium chill amd other de-escalation tools.

They PDs often need to comolete a cycle of vehaviour in order to reset theor vrain chemistry.  Its not unlike addictiin brain chemistry.  Tue need for a reset continues to build tuem tuey seek release via a fight etc.  As nons our reaction is part of this process for tuem

When we are no longer a jack in a box they can wide up, they get frustrated.  They seek otuer forms of manipulation and often crank up tue pressure on tue ones they typically use.  Sometimes to am extreme before the give it up finally. This is called an extinction burst.

Stay strong  and carefully aooly the tools.

[errorglobal]

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and support!  Yes, I think I do more medium chill than grey rock--thanks for helping me clarify. 

The cycle thing is spot on.  Once she starts getting worked up, she needs to go through what is essentially an emotional purge until she burns herself out and can go to bed.  Then she is usually fine the next morning, like nothing happened.  Since I've started medium chilling, she doesn't get to complete the cycle, so she's usually still pissed the next morning and things keep going until she finally works through it.  To use a waves metaphor--with medium chill, the amplitude is lower, but the wavelength is much longer...

Her violence worries me too.  We are roughly the same size but I am much stronger than she is, so she can't really hurt me.   Not that that makes it ok.  She doesn't get violent that often (average once a month lately? things have been worse since COVID), and when she does its usually just throwing things, sometimes at me, sometimes at walls.  She does hit me sometimes but, again, she can't really hurt me...  Last time she said she'd never do it again, but, she said that 10 years ago...  The problem is that everything goes in waves.  Things will look better for a long time, and then get worse again.  It took me ages to recognize it as abuse and several more years to figure out that its probably uBPD.  So much FOG...

I'm still wrestling with the change question...we've been together our entire adult lives (both 33, married ten years, dated all the way back to high school, so we've had a relationship of some kind for about 20 years).  She is so wonderful and caring  when things are fine, and I know the abuse comes from a place of suffering.  I have a massive care-taker complex so its very hard to let go.  She would be almost completely alone without me and I don't know if she'd make it (suicide has been on the table our entire relationship).  I also think I have some attachment trauma that I've been working through with my therapist, and I have some martyrdom issues.  So, its all quite the emotional knot for me...

Again, thank you all so much.  So glad I found this place.

[tragedy or hope]

errorglobal,
be careful to make your own decisions. people like myself who desire to be helpful can almost virtue signal that my idea is superior. you know what is best for you. there will always be a reason to stay and a reason to leave. if it is not physical it is emotional violence. not all people learned good communication skills growing up and what they have done has worked so far so why change?

you sound caring. you sound as if you can take care of yourself. you could walk away, or when she is escalating leave. don't tell her as that could insight more control. you could leave quietly then call and let her know at some point you will return so she does not feel abandoned. (you are not trying to punish, you are taking care of you). She is an adult and responsible for her own feelings. you cannot make her feel better when she is raging.

suicide seems to be something she uses against your better judgement. You cannot help her with this. she must find her own help. it could be that this is how she controls you. are you strong enough to write 911 on a piece of paper, hand it to her and leave the environment for awhile?  she either really needs and wants help or just wants to torment you.

if she gets that violent, call 911 and ask that she get a psych evaluation before coming home. it used to be that she could be there for at least 3 days.

any of these things will reveal if she is truly in need or manipulating your feelings.
I am only making comments as a totally unrelated person, not knowing either of you. Something in what you write reveals why you are here. I would say maybe conflicted.

that's okay. one more thing... therapists can be wrong, and they also can give you advice that may not be what you really need. see them as people who may know some things, but ultimately it is YOUR life and decision you make will have lasting consequences when the therapy sessions are over. and by the way, a good therapist should have a treatment plan that you can discuss. you should not have to go forever unless you want to.

Al Anon, for families and friends who care about someone who drinks ( I am not assuming she drinks, but hear me out) has zoom meetings now. Finding one and just listening may open your purview to hear what others have dealt with and coped.

Since everyone knows some one who drinks... if any of it ever bothered you, you qualify. If you had any alcohol influenced moments in your upbringing, family or friends... that too will qualify you. You can attend anonymously and not even show video of your face if you choose.

Keep coming back here. There is hope. Write your story in whatever subject or forum that interests you. keep writing. your answers will come as you share your thoughts. also, comfort and hope will come from others here who hear you.

https://al-anon.org/

[BettyGray]

This is a long post, hopefully you’ll take time to read it.

Tragedy or Hope,

I found Al Anon very helpful during the hardest part of my marriage. I don’t think my DH has a PD, but he still has definite fleas from two parents who (aren’t necessarily PD, either, but) have lots of tendencies in the PD direction ...

I fought going to Al Anon, but things got so bad, and my own PD family wasn’t an option for emotional support.  At the time DH was detoxing from alcohol, and in AA, but there was plenty of overlap between having PD parents and dealing with an alcoholic. The support in meetings was unconditional. It may take trying a couple of different meetings to find the one that feels right. The sense of community, welcoming, and having a routine healing place when home felt too out of control. I stopped going once things improved, but I was glad I had that experience as part of my journey. It’s also free (even though there was a voluntary donation cup), and even though NOT a substitute for real therapy, it can be therapeutic for those who can’t afford therapy.

In regard to grey rock strategy ... hmmm... I back up others’ suggestions that medium chill might be better.

Has your partner been to therapy or a psychiatrist? I don’t know your story, but she sounds as though she could have a range of issues. Could be PTSD or C-PTSD (alone or in addition to a PD). She seems too young for peri menopause, but hormones could also be at play. 

I have been with DH the better part of 25 years, married for 22. The bulk of  that time, I had been working on my own issues stemming from a 2-parent PD household with 3 siblings fulfilling their roles of 2 GCs, lost child, and me, the scapegoat. Major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, C-PTSD, I have been diagnosed with all of them, and have been suicidal on and off for decades.

My behavior through all of the healing depended on a range of factors: work, whether I was in/out of therapy or on/off medication, my toxic FOO. Drinking certainly destabilized me, having no emotional support from FOO, etc.

As I grew older, I became extremely quick to rage. I learned later this was due to C-PTSD. Birth control pills made me equally nuts. My whole system needed an overhaul. I would have a couple of weeks where I felt normal, then the other 2 weeks of the month were complete hell for me and DH. I said horrible things to him. I became violent (mostly just trying to slap him - he is much stronger than me). I screamed so loud I am sure the neighbors heard us.  It was a dark time. Suicidal thoughts were there, not to be used as leverage, but stemmed from an overwhelming sense of despair and having no other options.

How did my DH  respond to my behaviors? Let’s just say we fought. A lot. DH is an empathetic person, but has his own fleas  from a dysfunctional family. Like you mentioned about yourself, he has a bit of a martyr complex, which is really just codependency. “Saving” me was a way to avoid dealing with his own emotional damage.

So our fights kind of went like this:

He did something hurtful to me that  I thought was unfair. I spoke up - suddenly that sweet person turned on me. His knee-jerk reaction was self-protection. Suddenly I was the attacker and he the innocent.

The worst was that for a long time, he would double down on his stoicism, and become cold when I was the most vulnerable. This just angered me more. He just didn’t seem to care I was pouring out my heart. Plus, his staying calm was an easy way for him to pin me as the crazy one. After all, I was hysterically crying and begging him to just support me.  This could go on for hours or days. Emotional exhaustion, weirdness, apologies (from me) followed, things calmed down for awhile, then the next trigger would come and it started all over again.

This was right after I went N.C. from my PD FOO, so I was in about as fragile state as possible. We were both about a year or so into sobriety. His sobriety meant he suddenly had to deal with all of the suppressed emotions he had hidden through decades of drinking. He had no coping skills. All those years I had been looking for support from someone who truly didn’t know how to give it the way I wanted. Wake up call for me - I could stop wasting my energy wishing for the unlikely.

It wasn’t until I got really close to suicide that things changed. At that time, I couldn’t control my emotions, didn’t trust myself, felt utterly hopeless, & was just sooo tired of trying. Everything seemed so hard. What was the point anyway?

I was in such a bad place that my therapist called DH to pick me up from our session and take me to the hospital. I think this really stirred something in him. I refused to be committed so my T compromised and referred me to a psychiatrist, who took me in right away.

Let me ask you this - has your partner talked about suicide in general or specific terms? When she talks about methods of killing herself , you should worry. That’s what scared my therapist- I had gone from suicide as an idea to suicide as a reality.

I went back on medication (after a 9 year break) , which helped immensely.  I also went off of the pill, which further stabilized me.  Basically I took all of the possible destabilizing elements out of my life and slowly things got better: NC with my FOO, alcohol, hormonal imbalance. I also cut out one-way friendships, where I was doing all of the work. Stopped taking crap from clients. Ditched the people pleading mentality and had more energy for my healing.

DH and I went to therapy together, I went alone, he went alone for a while. The most revealing and helpful thing that happened in our therapy sessions was learning how differently our brains dealt with emotions.

T pointed out that when I get triggered, my brain goes into emotional overdrive. This shut down the more rational part of my brain.
When DH gets triggered, he goes in the opposite direction, shutting down emotions in favor of a more rational response. Neither of us could help this - it was hard-wired into our psyches. How could we help one another if we were going in opposite directions?
The goal was to try meeting halfway, but I was in a worse spot, so it was going to require him to learn new skills.

We all enter relationships thinking we know how to communicate our emotional needs. We think we can talk through things , be honest, listen, and that’s all it takeS. The reality is so much more complex than I ever knew.

Our relating capabilities are drawn from our traumas. Childhood spares no one of hardwired behaviors and the subsequent results of our upbringing.  What I didn’t understand for a long, long time was that unless we learn about the other’s trauma and triggers, as well as our own, we cannot truly meet halfway.
Our brains may work very differently, we have to accept this from a biological and neurological point of view..

Ironically, I have become the more stoic and balanced one. I think this happened through decades of therapy and grit. But now that I am stable, he doesn’t have to “save me.” In the end, I saved myself. So your partner has to want to help herself, as well as improve her relationship with you.

Some things for you to avoid:

1. Trying to “fix” her. Sorry to overgeneralize, but men have a tendency to want to fix instead of just listening. Most of the time, we just want to vent - to be heard. Trying to “solve” our problems for us is not only infantilizing & codependent, it minimizes the pain being we are expressing.

2. If she tries baiting you into a fight, do your best to not engage. These days, if I sense a conflict brewing, and DH raises his voice or gets defensive, I just say “I refuse to let this escalate. If we cannot speak in a productive manner, I will not participate.”  In a way, I have turned the tables on him, staying calm in the face of conflict.  It’s about control. A few years ago I would never have had the composure to stay in control of the fight/discussion. Now I can - about 98% of the time.

3. Realize the power of habits, good and bad. If your fights are predictable & cyclical, it’s easy to fall back into a pattern; in a way, the fight is having YOU, not the other way around. It’s too easy to get sucked into destructive patterns.

On the other hand, if you create healthy habits for communication, they will be the natural setting for resolving conflict. My therapist suggested keeping a timer handy. Each party had a designated time (2 minutes or so) to talk. The other could not speak until the timer went off. This curbed interruptions, off the cuff and hurtful remarks, triggered reactions, and
forced the other to listen.  Whatever works for you.

4. Me vs. You.
Make your partner realize you are on the same team.  You both need to feel safe enough to be vulnerable. The one thing  that  I wanted more than anything when  conflict broke out  was just a hug, a “there, there,” - to feel safe.  That would have deescalated and prevented so many fights. Instead, DH felt attacked by my raw emotions, so rather than being sympathetic, he protected himself, not me. I felt unsafe. That broke my heart.

5. Try, try, try to not take it personally. This can seem impossible, especially when there are harsh, cruel words spoken. Once I realized that people lash out for their own reasons, it became clear their outbursts usually have very little to do with us. We lash out at those closest to us because we can. They will still love us.

Hopefully your partner apologizes for anything hurtful, expresses remorse in some way. If she says you hurt her and gives an example, apologize for that behavior and promise to do better. Getting defensive and giving a half apology when she is being honest will only drive you further away from one another. Likewise, tell her you expect the same. Listen to each other. Remind her you have the same goal, a stronger relationship.

6. Learn her triggers. Learn yours. If you sense a pattern in what moves her to anger, the better chance you have of  working through  them.  Is she triggered by someone disrespecting her?  By certain events?  If there is a repetitive, hair-triggered  reaction to conflict, then you have a learning opportunity. Write down the things that she does that evoke strong, negative emotions in you. Reverse and write down what makes her angry.

Triggers are clues to what needs attention, what needs healing.  The goal here is to  diffuse  super charged emotional  situations in service of a mutually beneficial? productive, outcome.  Learning  what sets  off the  conflict. makes it easier to  avoid.

Underlying issues don’t just go away. Until  they are examined, they cannot  be solved.  My triggers  were:  gaslighting,  condescending words or attitudes,  dismissing my  experiences as invalid, my emotions as  “crazy.” I was disrespected in my toxic family, so disrespectful treatment  (especially from a spouse) really made my blood boil.  His triggers stemmed from his history  of  being a parentified child  (he feels too much responsibility for everyone else), so anything he perceived as an unwarranted demand  could set him off, no matter how benign. If the moment was ripe, a criticism could trigger  a really strong defensive reaction with no basis in  reality.  No meeting  halfway  when you have  walled yourself off in self-protection. Suddenly, we are children again,  and no adult conversation is possible.

It’s wonderful you are in therapy.  It shows that you care about yourself and the relationship.  Whatever you can do to grow on your own is good. One thing that helps us maintaining our own sense of self, apart from our partners. You must cultivate the relationship with yourself first. It is your path to walk, with or without her.

Sorry for such a long post! I wish you well in your situation. None of this stuff is easy or intuitive. There is no guidebook to aid us in figuring out how to deal with such complicated interactions. Unfortunately, we have to figure out , on our own, to get through this challenging stuff. Often we have to  live inside of painful situations in order to get to the next level.

Your ultimate goal is peace of mind.  If you feel there is hope for improvement and enough worth saving,  the  growth is worth the pain. If, however, you’re in a cycle of abuse that is destructive  and not productive,  you could be in red flag territory.  Take good care of yourself. Look out for fear, obligation and guilt. They’re the opposite of how healthy relationships should feel, whether with our families or partners:

- Safety instead of fear

- Willingness to foster and nurture positive relationships, not hang on to the obligation to
negative ones

- Integrity over guilt. Guilt can be used as a crutch to keep ourselves stuck. How productive is guilt, really? Isn’t it just a way to beat ourselves up and indulge in a cycle of negative emotions?

  If we feel guilty, is it because we are guilty? Of what? Or is that just what others tell us, which we sometimes mistakenly believe?

When we live with integrity, we are less likely to feel guilty and angry with ourselves.