Incessant lectures

[Purpleflower]

My SO has taken to lecturing me when I disagree with him. It is so tiring. It will be a rational discussion and he will say what he thinks and then I will say what i think and if he does not think the same way, he will lecture me for 2 or 3 hours. He even told me the last time that my idea was "demonic" and that I should tell him I am sorry for having that opinion. Does anyone have any advice on how to escape or deal with this? I don't have 3 hours every day to sit around and listen to him talk incessantly. GRRR....

[Starboard Song]

I think this may be a case for boundaries, except it is hard when he's RIGHT THERE WITH YOU. I'd suggest you try to give him a time limit. After about 5 minutes, you tell him he's made a lot of good points, and you'll think about it, but you don't want to get stuck on the topic. He'll keep going. And maybe after a couple more minutes -- and this is where it is so hard with a spouse -- you just say, "I really won't talk about this anymore. If you are going to, I'm going to go upstairs and read for a bit."

If you can be totally relaxed and ease about it, you'll have more power. Sounding almost bored is ideal.

Will this worK? I dunno. I've never had to do it within my own house. But it works when "go upstairs" can be "get out of your hair" and I can just leave / walk away / hang up.

Good luck.

[SparkStillLit]

My SO actually does this. He more like..."pontificates", but it still goes on for ages. Definitely come up with a few statements like "you make some good points" or "yes I understand you feel that way about it" stuff of that sort, then an escape statement: you're going to go read, you need to start dinner, start laundry, feed/walk the dog/cat/horse/goats/giraffes, you need to use the bathroom. Whatever gets you out of there.

[BettyGray]

Great advice so far. Yes it is harder these days with staying in all the time.

The hardest thing is learning how to control your own triggers and reactions. I found it nearly impossible to not get sucked into these situations for the longest time. I can't even pinpoint at which  juncture I was able to cut it off before it got out of hand, but I know until I was on medication (after a long break) that I couldn't stop getting upset and frustrated. Now I am able, most of the time to just shut it down and/or walk away.

Are you able to stay cool-headed when he starts in? If you're able to take a deep breath and NOT react, it will give you a moment to collect yourself, stay rational and walk away.

I have found that ignoring this sort of behavior is best for me. They're his issues.

He was getting triggered by me, I was getting triggered by him, no amount of talking really got through, so I eventually was able to not put myself through it anymore.

My DH is a verrrrrry long-winded talker. He admits that he speaks "in paragraphs " but it's difficult to get a word in once he gets going. He gets super annoyed when I interject or interrupt. I'm like - just make the point already!!

Sometimes, now, I just stop listening. That's it's own boundary. It takes so much energy anyway, and I am not going to be heard anyway, so what's the point?

Good luck!

[SparkStillLit]

Before my T and I came up with these escape methods, I used to keep some knitting handy and I'd knit during these....monologues. I can't pay attention when I knit. Plus, knitting is soothing, and he's no idea that I'm not paying attention. I might mumble "mmm" "I see" or whatever, but no input from me is actually wanted, so that suffices. Too, sometimes these rants were on things designed to trigger and upset me, so the less said the better. Again, I couldn't really pay attention or be involved while knitting.
I don't knit stuff that I need to count during these things, because if you make me lose count I'll breathe dragon fire on you, and THAT won't end well, but just easy stuff.
It actually stopped the "try to wind Spark up" rants, because I wasn't responding in a satisfactory manner.
I imagine anything would work. Embroidery? Cross stitch? Does anyone do those things anymore? Let's all of us take it back up, we can start a weird "go back to your origins" (and avoid PD nonsense) thing.

[Matteblak]

This is one of the things that I have struggled with the most. In a joint session with our T talking about communication, I said that her paragraphs have all commas and no periods. Oh, And she's an expert on everything, including my profession.

But it's talking about the other people that breaks my heart. I long ago quit trying to come to my own defense, but there's something inside of me that refuses to let her say wicked things about people who are just normal every day people. Things she would never say to them if they were within 100 yards. But I hear hour long lectures about how multiple groups of people are actively working to ruin her life.

It is though she knows she's lying, but if she can just beat me in the submission until I agree with her, it will make all the things she saying true.

Please forgive me if this rant was off-topic, but when I hear the word "lecture" all the hair on my neck stands up.

[SparkStillLit]

Updh does that about OUR KID. I say (this is directed by my T) "I don't want to hear that about our kid" and I leave the vicinity.
He flies off the handle, but I just don't care anymore. This has become a hard line for me. It was and is one of the things making me physically sick. I kept thinking our kid was a PD.
Our kid is horribly traumatized. By this and other outside things. I will not hear anymore mind bending nonsense about it.

[blunk]

Oh my goodness, the lectures...about anything and everything. Nothing I did, said, or thought was ever right or good enough. The worst part of it was that, due to splitting, he would assume the worst case with regards to my motivations. Like if I forgot something he wanted at the grocery store, it didn't just slip my mind, it was because I hated him. This, unfortunately, caused me to try to JADE for much too long. And the sad thing was, even then, I knew that nothing I said would change his mind about me, but it was like I couldn't stop myself, I had to try to make him understand. In my mind it was the rational thing to do, and if I were having a conversation with a rational person, that would have been true.

It wasn't until I found this site, and started to utilize some of the tools from the toolbox, that I was able to reduce the length of these lectures...I never was able to stop them, until the divorce was final and I was able to go NC.

[Matteblak]

Blunk, I'm right there with you. JADE is an element normal, human back and forth...clarification, seeking mutual understanding, filling in missing/forgotten information...all things that we do with others all the time. And then we come home to a weird place where none of the rules of the English language work quite the same. Stay strong.

[Boat Babe]

Yes,  crazy making right there.   

[Purpleflower]

Yes, I just need to stop caring about his reaction. I try too much to get him to "see sense". I am learning that this is futile and will just have to take care of me.

[SparkStillLit]

See sense. It's never going to happen. They just take your words, give them a whizz around in the salad spinner, and spit them back all crazily jumbled around until you're "....wait....WHAT???....how did we ever even get here???...."

[blunk]

See sense. It's never going to happen. They just take your words, give them a whizz around in the salad spinner, and spit them back all crazily jumbled around until you're "....wait....WHAT???....how did we ever even get here???...."

I remember that feeling well Spark! What's worse is that I would lay awake at night wracking my brain, trying to figure out the "logical" connections that got us to that point in the conversation. Crazy making for sure, until I accepted that there was no logic involved.

[Matteblak]

So last night was our scheduled "quality time." As I tried to participate, she told me to "shut up, this is my quality time and I will talk about whatever I want however I want." I would NOT call what followed a "conversation."

[Boat Babe]

They start with a false premise: you're cheating.  Then they take an event, almost always a non event to anyone else, and apply the false premise to the event and build a tower of twisted logic above it. Cue: DARVO for hours and hours, stopping you functioning and sleeping.  Cue: JADE.  Rinse. Repeat.

The ONLY way to deal with this insanity is to refuse to engage. Obvs easier said than done.

[LemonLime]

Someone once explained to me that normal people take a fact and then respond with an emotion.

PD's take an emotion, and then create "facts" to make that emotion sensible.
So they feel first, then create a narrative that justifies their feeling.

My PD would rage at me, and then throw out a bunch of unrelated and ancient stories that she seemed to feel justified her emotion.
Only the stories were from forever-ago.  And had nothing to do with what she raged at me about.
I think after raging she felt some cognitive dissonance, and in order to relieve that she tried to build a case for how I deserved the rage.

I only got out of the cycle when I FINALLY realized that nobody deserves to be raged at.  For any reason.
Of course now we have to be VLC because she does not accept that she has no right to rage at me.

[ShyTurtle]

What you describe here is one of the controlling behaviors which led to my leaving my upd ex. There was no logic, no boundaries, and no respect within him. He infantilized and demeaned me in this way. It was a total domination of my precious time, which he felt entitled to. Any attempts to set boundaries and limits on him - he drove over like the dispensable cars at a monster truck rally. The only option to save my sanity was for me to get out of there.

[Boat Babe]

Someone once explained to me that normal people take a fact and then respond with an emotion.

PD's take an emotion, and then create "facts" to make that emotion sensible.
So they feel first, then create a narrative that justifies their feeling.

My PD would rage at me, and then throw out a bunch of unrelated and ancient stories that she seemed to feel justified her emotion.
Only the stories were from forever-ago.  And had nothing to do with what she raged at me about.
I think after raging she felt some cognitive dissonance, and in order to relieve that she tried to build a case for how I deserved the rage.

I only got out of the cycle when I FINALLY realized that nobody deserves to be raged at.  For any reason.
Of course now we have to be VLC because she does not accept that she has no right to rage at me.

That's really interesting and makes sense to me. Thinking about it, I'd say that all humans probably do this, the first part anyway. We start with a feeling and go from there. The difference is that nons have a level of self awareness and emotional intelligence that PDs lack and are thus able to respond rather than react to the feeling. Mindfulness and therapy has helped me greatly with this.

[LemonLime]

Someone once explained to me that normal people take a fact and then respond with an emotion.

PD's take an emotion, and then create "facts" to make that emotion sensible.
So they feel first, then create a narrative that justifies their feeling.

My PD would rage at me, and then throw out a bunch of unrelated and ancient stories that she seemed to feel justified her emotion.
Only the stories were from forever-ago.  And had nothing to do with what she raged at me about.
I think after raging she felt some cognitive dissonance, and in order to relieve that she tried to build a case for how I deserved the rage.

I only got out of the cycle when I FINALLY realized that nobody deserves to be raged at.  For any reason.
Of course now we have to be VLC because she does not accept that she has no right to rage at me.

That's really interesting and makes sense to me. Thinking about it, I'd say that all humans probably do this, the first part anyway. We start with a feeling and go from there. The difference is that nons have a level of self awareness and emotional intelligence that PDs lack and are thus able to respond rather than react to the feeling. Mindfulness and therapy has helped me greatly with this.

Agreed, BoatBabe.  I think that's a good point that all humans do this.  And it's a sign of emotional intelligence and maturity to have learned how to respond rather than react.   And to look back and realize our own part in a disagreement.   And maybe that's really the true crux of the PD's dysfunction:   They are adults who have not progressed beyond the mindset of a 5-year-old.   We expect a 5-year-old to be reactive, not responsive.   It's a normal developmental stage.  But an adult who reacts like a 5-year-old is dysfunctional to say the least.

[BettyGray]

So may great comments here!

"See sense" seems to have sparked a few reactions in us. Yes, we've all been there. The first step is to stop expecting them to see sense. Logic doesn't matter in these situations. What is obvious to us (and would be to rational human beings) is something they cannot access. Especially when they're upset or emotional. It's like they're missing that part of their brain.

You might as well be trying to convince a flat-earther that the world is round. Not gonna happen.

So direct that energy elsewhere. Knitting is a fantastic suggestion. Immersing ourselves in something physical has many positive benefits. It creates a safe space, a soothing, repetitive motion that engages us in our physical bodies and keeps us grounded. Plus, they have no idea if we're really listening or not. Especially if you throw in a few "uh huhs", "really?" or "hmm" comments.

I draw or scrapbook every night - I'm always involved in some handiwork. It's my meditation. I think that is why adult coloring books have been so popular - soothing, positive memory associations. If he starts in for any reason, I am just doing what I normally do. I also have a robe with a hood. If he is annoying me too much, I pull up the hood, which creates another barrier. He can't see my reactions, and I can filter out some of the bad energy that way.