Waiting for me to mess up

[toe2toe]

Hello everyone,
I am seeing if anyone else here is in the same boat. I swear it, my uNPDw relishes the opportunity when I mess up. Without going into too much detail, I made a bonehead mistake and tried to hide something from her. The reasons why I did this are numerous. If you know you know. I was confronted about my blunder and it went something like this... you let me down, you did this and it negatively impacted my thoughts and trust towards you, it is like you have not changed one bit from the feller you told me you were going to change. uNPDw says, "look at me, i've changed, i've done this, and that, and oh yeah, this too". You on the other hand haven't changed a bit. "why are you in counseling anyways?".

Now, I did not have my head on straight during this time. I most likely should have walked away, but I didn't. I fall for the same stupid reasoning: maybe this time it will go different.

Does/Did your uNPD partner ever pounce at the opportunity when you screwed up? How did it go and what did you do?

Many, Many Thanks

[Poison Ivy]

Yes, he did. He expressed to me that he felt as though I criticized him too much, so whenever I made a mistake, he'd jump on it. I didn't want to criticize him too much, but because any comments I made to him were perceived as "too much criticism," communication about problems was very difficult.

[SeaBreeze]

Yes with ex-uNPDh/OCPD. His constant critiques of, to name a few: how loud I laughed, how I left a pan to soak overnight in the sink, how my car ended up with mysterious scratches he noticed on his latest inspection (one time it was just spider webs that I triumphantly cleaned off with my wet thumb *lol sigh*) ... In his mind that equated to the same as me "b*tching" him out when I pointed out that he shouldn't cuss at me because I took the wrong turn, snap at the kids because he had a stressful work commute, furiously and demonstratively scrubbing aforementioned pan in the sink when I was soaking it to make cleanup easier, interrogating me like a wayward teen over aforementioned scratches on the car, etc etc. He really could not see the difference and often accused me of being a hypocrite when I critiqued his "critique".

I freely admit to a lot of little white lies to keep both myself and the kids off his radar. Actually damaged the car once while he was out of town and paid out of pocket to have the body work done before his return home. (If he'd found out, it would have only justified his regular car inspections.) Paid a speeding ticket he never knew I got. Cleaned up a dog poop accident to protect the dog from being disciplined for pooping and a teenager from being disciplined for forgetting to let the dog out.. Etc. That may sound cowardly of me, but at a certain point I began to feel empowered by quite simply leaving him out of the loop on matters that did not concern him! However, when I did need to involve him or couldn't really hide something, I learned that MC, no JADE, and the three C's helped lessen both his reaction and my stress levels.

Since leaving ex, it's amazing how many normal daily things, and yes the occasional mishap, just aren't that big of a deal and no longer a source of stress.

[1footouttadefog]

Not saying I don't mess up occasionally, however my pdH loves to talk back on a couple of things so did 40 years ago. 

I now just say we both know that 40 year old story you can perform the restoration to yourself.  When you get done we can finish talking about what you did just now.

I also like how my pdH will equate something minor to something that is a much bigger deal.

You stole the collectible coins your daughter's inherited and took them to a pawn shop......but you fed the dog 10 mins late past night and besides they will inherit what I traded it for so it's really for them.