Actual childish or child-like behaviour in arguments

[arcticfox]

Has anyone experienced these literally childish behaviours or speaking patterns?
I remember being really confused a few times when my spouse has all of a sudden somehow acted like a teenager, or even a toddler. Like very, very literally.

One morning he was in a terrible mood, not talking to or looking at me, trying to vacuum the place and throwing the vacuum around, stomping his feet and cursing out loud to objects (chairs, shoes etc) that were on his way. I was leaving for work and he was just glaring at me with a scowl, so I asked what was wrong. "Nothings wrong. Why do you assume something is wrong. That's so sad."
"Well, you seem to be upset."
"I'M NOT UPSET! WHY ARE YOU BEING SO NEGATIVE. YOU JUST CANT READ PEOPLE, CAN YOU. WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I WOULD BE UPSET" (continues to violently vacuum making loud noises)
"Well, you are throwing the vacuum around, you're not looking at me, you refused to talk to me earlier and now you're raising your voice and literally scowling at me?"

He then proceeded to stop, look at me and pull ugly faces. Like a small child would do. "Well would THIS face be better, hmm? Or THIS?" I swear it would've been hilarious if it weren't so disturbing. To see a grown adult pull faces like a child. One of the weirdest things I have ever seen. He was not joking or anything, he was dead serious and angry. I was half expecting him to blow a raspberry at me.

I just decided to leave and said "Well, I have to get to work. I hope your day gets better". He looked at me, still pulling a face, and mocked me by repeating my words in a childish silly tone "I hOpE yOUr DaY gEtS BETTER". Reminded me of someone who's about 13 and hating their mum for telling them to clean their room.

I really don't know what to make of this. Any thoughts? As far as I know he doesn't have any childhood traumas or anything.

[escapingman]

I am so sorry you have to deal with this, I can relate to this so much. I have had arguments with my STBX in the past where she has gone on to dancing around on the floor singing the child song "liar liar pants on fire" being dead serious. Other times she has jumped up and down around me making monkey sounds and scratching her armpits like a monkey. The only way to deal with this is to just walk away and leave them in their misery. Medium chill is explained in the toolbox so please look at that.

[SeaBreeze]

My uNPDh seems to be in a perpetual state of moody adolescence. I think his growth/maturation was stunted sometime in his teen years and he's never really grown past it?

[arcticfox]

EM, I laughed out loud when I read your response and pictured someone actually chanting Liarliar and making monkey noises. I mean it is horrible and tragic and I'm so sorry you've had to experience something like that! But there is some shared humour in there validating thatI'm not alone in dealing with this. That really helps me cope with the absurdity of these situations. Thank you for sharing this.

user, thank you for the ideas on how to handle these things! This was a while ago, when I still had the illusion that I was in a relationship with a fully functional adult person. I do still feel like you, that people should be able to ask "what's wrong" when something clearly is, but I wouldn't do so anymore with my uBDP bc I'm pretty much Out of the FOG and understand it won't lead to anything productive. Baiting is an excellent term for what I think he's doing. In the future I'll  just leave or MC, and if I can't leave I'll take the general approach I would with a moody child. Though this could maybe backfire, because it triggers him more if he feels he's being "talked to like a child", especially when he's behaving like one. Go figure.

Seabreeze, I can relate to your experience  as well. Nowadays even on the best days my bf is somewhat like a moody teenager.

[Empie2204]

Dear friends, I remember a similar situation.
It was at the time I still believed things can change. My h was upset about something and I tried the only possible solution for his dilemma: logic.
As you know, logic doesn't apply with them. Even if it's favorable, they make it negative.
He had a severe meltdown and I had the epiphany: God, it's a toddler tantrum!
I was so sad to discover that and that was the beginning of our end.

[Kat54]

Definitely can relate, and I'm sorry you are going through this. I always said I had three children in the house, not two adults and two kids.
My uNPDex would get into fights and physical fights with our 2 kids like he was one of them and even lie about it. It made them crazy and I wouldn't see what happened so at first I always believed him. But then eventually realized he perpetually lies and he did hurt our daughters arm from twisting it. She was ok but I had come in the room right after it happened, she was sitting on the couch crying holding her arm saying dad twisted it to get her up off the couch.   So after that I never believed a word he said.  The beginning of the end. 

[losingmyself]

I remember my H, while we were on a road trip with the kids, he got more and more agitated about the smallest things, and when we got to our destination, he sat down on the park bench with his hood up and his hands in his pockets, and pouted like a 3 year old. Another time, he got angry with me because I tried to help him and I didn't do it right so he was starting to yell, and I just walked away. Said "Nope" and left. He threw two fluorescent light bulbs across the room. The glass stayed there for a few days till he figured out I wasn't going to clean it up. I still find pieces of glass in the carpet, and if he's there, I point it out.
I have learned enough about his childhood to know just about when his emotional growth stopped. There's no fixing it.
Now I just avoid him, and ignore his pouty moods.

[eleven_11]

I had to deal with childish behavior with my likely undiagnosed BPD ex, one of the reasons why I joined this forum myself.
Her displays of childish behavior were not as "funny and grotesque in a tragic way" as those I read in the post and comments here, but she would suddenly go out of the room and sit somewhere without talking to me and not even answering me if I talked to her, pretending I was not there, and this could last for hours. Or if I made my point about something in a tone that as not fully tender and calm, she would burst into tears like a child, and it was terrible because I had to choose to either apologize and try to calm her down, swallowing my frustration and the very reason I was trying to make my point about something, either I had to just leave to avoid falling in that trap. But the trap would anyway come later, where I was accused of being a terrible person for stepping away while she was crying. My argument and what I was trying to say at the very first start was not even on the table anymore.
Other times the childish attitude came in irrational reactions, for example one time I helped her scanning some films, but after scanning a few I didn't have time to do more and she got  angry and started acting sad and grumpy saying if we didn't scan them all what was the point of even scanning the first ones.
While I was in that relationship I didn't know anything about BPD and I was just trying to understand these irrational behaviors, now I am seeing how they all fall in the same pattern. I also see how many of the positive things that made me fall in love with her in the first place also belong to that childish attitude as well - a constant sense of amazement and surprise, a genuine, innocent look on the world, the ability to act free and joyful in the most random situations. Unfortunately it's a nightmare dealing with the negative ones, it makes you feel impotent and lost, especially if you are not aware of the deep issue behind it.

[NarcKiddo]

You might find some helpful insights if you Google Transactional Analysis theory.

My therapist mentioned it to me and it has helped. My husband can behave in a very childish way sometimes (as can I) and he, like me, had a very dysfunctional upbringing. Both of us have fleas at the very least. I'm not here because of him but obviously I notice tendencies.

Anyway, the basics of the theory are that if adults can adopt parent, child or adult state. Someone in child state quite often pushes the other person into parent state. That's fine if, for example, one spouse is upset or injured and the other reacts somewhat as a parent to nurture and comfort the spouse. But not so fine if the tantrum "toddler" pushes the other into angry "parent" because they're unlikely to get a satisfactory outcome in those roles.

I know from myself that I cannot bear being in child state because it was so dangerous to be an actual child around my mother. In the early days of our marriage my husband would quite often take parent state (there is quite a big age gap) and I reacted badly to that. My mother parentified me so I easily slip into parent state and while I don't like it, it is at least a role I am familiar with and can do. So I started to take parent state before he could, pushing him into child state. After a while he would just put himself in child state if he was in a bad mood and I had to deal with the tantrum. (I had no idea this was happening, but looking back I can see that is what was going on).

Since discovering transactional analysis I have been observing my interactions more closely. I have noticed that if I pretend the other person is a work colleague and react accordingly I am generally in adult state. When I do that with my husband he quickly reverts to adult state and life is much easier. Even uNPD mother can be managed a bit more easily by this method. Not necessarily because I can push her into adult state but remaining in it myself makes things much easier on me.

If I were faced with a vacuum tantrum such as you describe I would either wave a cheery farewell and simply leave the house or, if I had time and wanted to offer him some help to get back to equilibrium I might say goodbye but follow with a neutral question such as "do you need me to get anything from the store on the way home?". If he snaps out of the tantrum to answer the question, great. If I get a rude reply to the question I'd just keep a calm tone, say "OK then. See you later: and leave. I've found that asking what is wrong while the tantrum is happening never ends well.

[FiveForFighting]

ArcticFox:
I can relate to many of the examples here. I can certainly say that my uPDw does exhibit toddler, child-like behaviors during communication or dialogue. I actually cannot call what we participate in dialogue. Its more like monologue. Its a one way transmission of needs. Anyway, she will often make an assumption, attack, levy some kind of criticism then will immediately announce that "I dont want to talk about it. Im just letting you know" Another of her favorite go to's is "I dont care about you/your..." when trying to talk about some area where Ive fallen short. The aggressive sigh/huff while sitting in the same room during a silence period during one of our monologues is yet another good example. Finally, raising the level of her voice during a monologue as she tries to get her point across until she basically yelling.... to which I have to raise my voice to be heard... then she follows with "dont yell at me. Now, youre being an a$$h0le"   

[Dollydrops]

I'm amazed reading this, my H is definitely on the list of stunted emotional maturity.
The passive huffs and sighs which get louder and if ignored the slamming and stomping begins. We are supposed in their eyes to be psychic and work out in and instant why they're upset.
The teenage like sarcasm and ' ha ha ha ha's' when they can't find the adult words to answer with, and mine even would leave the room go upstairs and lie on the bed in fetal position which only stopped when I'd go close the door on him and leave him there to ride it out himself.
I should have known right in the beginning when he decided my name was going to be ' tweetwart' from then on. It made me cringe but he still used it until I laughed at him one day.
After reading up so much on disorders I wasn't surprised to see infantilism on the list of traits because of course that's the level they were stunted at and the best way to deal with it is to laugh and walk away.

[Matilda]

Oooo boy I could write a book. At this point I do laugh sometimes. It's so ridiculous. 

If I dare call him a "child" or say he's acting "childish" or say he's "immature" he starts in on me about "name calling" 

I'm sorry you have to deal with this. It's hard to be in an intimate relationship with someone with low EI when you have normal or high EI. Very frustrating. But you're not alone.