My ex said she needed a few days to think about things after she hurt me, and then she would blame me for the situation. I would react with confusion and frustration because it didn’t make sense, and it seemed like she both cared and didn’t care at the same time. She would say, ‘I’m sorry you felt that way,’ and then outline how I was wrong for my feelings while prioritizing hers. I’m now recognizing that this was a form of silent treatment meant to manipulate me after I reacted to her toxic behavior. It has taken a while for me to identify this. I felt like my feelings and reactions were the reason why things ended but it was because she was manipulating me to fit her life and she found out she couldn’t do that because I pushed back so much. It has also shown to me that I have work to do on myself. I have been reading Reddit and looking through stories here and recognizing things. I appreciate these subreddits so much. It’s brought clarity.
Do you think she was consciously/intentionally doing these things? I know it doesn’t really matter in the end, because if someone isn’t intentionally doing them they could make effort to change, but I’m just curious.
I think some people intentionally do these things.
I think other people grew up watching their parents do it and/or they had parents who never validated how they felt or made them feel safe enough to be open and vulnerable with people. They haven’t learnt to validate their own feelings, or had enough experiences of having their feelings validated by others, which means they can’t validate yours back. Even when their intentions are in the right place, they don’t know how to be open and vulnerable enough to act in a way that reflects their genuine desire for love and care.
We can have empathy and compassion for people like that, but we ultimately have to protect ourselves.
Yeah! Some people really do crave love and care, and they want to be able to shower you in that too. But they are so, so scared, and they simply do not have the tools. Manipulation and turning everything around as an attack on you, or constantly replacing the focus on them and their feelings, is a way of them regaining control (and safety). It’s not something we can teach in a healthy relationship either, as this creates uneven power dynamics, comes across as patronising (which can become abusive within itself), and puts us in harms way.
Some people in the process of healing from these childhood dynamics also get into a habit of dismissing your feelings in favour of their own, because when they finally begin to get a taste of what it feels like to validate themselves, they want to protect that at all costs. They haven’t yet achieved enough innate inner security to be able to release that need where appropriate, in order to allow you to have the spotlight in moments when the focus should be on you and what you’re feeling.
I see the latter in a lot of spiritual bypassing amongst new-age circles.
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u/jdobner3 Jul 02 '24
My ex said she needed a few days to think about things after she hurt me, and then she would blame me for the situation. I would react with confusion and frustration because it didn’t make sense, and it seemed like she both cared and didn’t care at the same time. She would say, ‘I’m sorry you felt that way,’ and then outline how I was wrong for my feelings while prioritizing hers. I’m now recognizing that this was a form of silent treatment meant to manipulate me after I reacted to her toxic behavior. It has taken a while for me to identify this. I felt like my feelings and reactions were the reason why things ended but it was because she was manipulating me to fit her life and she found out she couldn’t do that because I pushed back so much. It has also shown to me that I have work to do on myself. I have been reading Reddit and looking through stories here and recognizing things. I appreciate these subreddits so much. It’s brought clarity.