TLDR: Found out that I was toxic, emotionally immature during pasts arguments. How do I forgive myself?
TW: Self-harm
Me (29M) and my girlfriend (27F) just had a civil discussion regarding our past arguments. They were pretty intense. And I’ve realized that I was toxic during those arguments. So a week ago I apologized for my stupid behavior.
The toxicity involves me, a few months back; critisising my partners behavior when I’d think her feelings were invalid and/or coming out of nowhere. I’d tell her that I was tired of her projecting her insecurities onto me. Of course she took it into mind and told me she would better herself. All while I would get really defensive whenever she would critisise my behavior. Unfair. And I feel really bad for shutting her down everytime my behavior was questioned.
We realized that I have a tendency to feel attacked, as if someone wants to do me harm. She even told me during one of our previous arguments that she never would want to hurt me. I was that defensive.
Something that bothers me as well is that I can never remember what was said during our arguments when days pass. I hate it. It’s so frustrating.
Today she told me that she couldn’t recognize me whenever we would argue. That I could say stuff that were insensitive. She told me that I would look at her in a weird way. I have no recollection of this but I do remember someone else telling me the same thing some years back.
I started crying. How ironic. I didn’t want to admit to myself that I could be emotionally immature. Maybe even abusive. I was so disappointed and angry with myself, so I locked myself in the bathroom and started punching myself in the face repeatedly. It calmed me down. But I still hate myself.
I had always seen myself as the victim.
I had a pretty rough childhood. My father would beat the crap out of me. My mother was very emotionally immature and I would always have to fulfill her expectations of me to be seen a son that was good enough (I think she is narcissistisc). So I had to cut ties with her. I promised myself to never become like my parents. I stopped caring about their approval. I felt less like a disappointment. I even started loving myself. I’ve been through therapy and have been going to a doctor and a psychologist for half of my life. Was on Lexapro until this winter. I had to quit because of the side effects. I just recently started with Wellbutrin.
I had always seen myself as the calm and logical one during arguments since I had to take the adult role during arguments with my mum.
I realized a while back that I was drawn to destructive and emotionally unstable partners because it felt like home. I promised myself to find an emotionally stable and nondestructive partner. And I did. My current girlfriend.
I now feel horrible for having done this to her. I hate myself for it. I feel like I don’t deserve her. I can’t help but think: What if all destructiveness from previous relationships (parent or partner) actually came from me? What if I’m the narcissistic one? Am I manipulative? Who am I? Am I just being defensive? Why am I like this?
I want to better myself, but I don’t know if I’m going to be able to forgive myself – even if my girlfriend does.
4 comments
If you had an abusive household growing up this is pretty pat for the course. Just stick with therapy and do your best to treat your partners well. I’m sure most of your toxic behavior is subconscious so you really gotta make an effort
Please contact your local mental health center or church and see if they can refer you to a counselor. They can help you develop skills in how to better resolve disputes with your significant other and how to process you feelings.
Make a list of what you think you can do to respond better in these situations and keep it with you always (on your phone maybe)? When a dispute starts with anyone, force your self to look at the list and follow those principles.
Yeah this is really emotionally immature. I struggle with similar defensiveness. There are reasons for it, some more valid than others, but it’s not helpful. You really gotta slow down, tell yourself “we’re not fighting,” LISTEN instead of formulating a response, etc. If you cannot get yourself into a mental place to listen, then you need to call a time out and remove yourself from the situation. This can be difficult depending on how the other person responds. But YOU are responsible for YOU. If you can’t do it right then, continuing to get worked up when you know it’s irrational is going to make it worse for both of you.
Other people responded to the other parts and I don’t wanna repeat. Therapy yadda yadda yadda. I recommend the book Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker if you don’t want to do that right now. I’ve heard mixed reviews on it and you may personally not find it useful but I felt it had some gems in it
Finally, and I say this only because you have a past that includes abuse and that can make someone not the best judge of what someone should or should not say to you. What does she mean when she says you look at her weird/funny? She knows that you don’t really get to police someone’s facial expression unless they’re like, egregiously pulling a face to make fun of them like a child, right? Apologies if I misread/misunderstood (I wish the OP was still visible when replying on mobile). This one really grinds my gears, though, and if I did quote it accurately then it’s something I find to be very manipulative in an insidious way. Just because you are framing yourself as “the bad guy” doesn’t mean her behavior is perfect. It is very seldom that a totally healthy person has a relationship with someone with these types of issues. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in my life, actually.
I don’t say this to add more guilt, but this catastrophizing shame spiral can be self indulgent and incredibly exhausting for a partner. Right now you’re doing the emotional equivalent of punching yourself in the face. It’s not productive, but as bad as you feel, it is more comfortable to focus on how bad you feel than actually engaging with your behaviour and working go fix it. Like being drawn to destructive partners, it feels like home.
When you start thinking like that second last paragraph, you need to learn to put the brakes on your train of thought and take a breath. Identify the problem behaviour. Make a plan to deal with it. But a thing you did and who you are is different. You can pick up narcississtic habits from a parent and not be a narcissist. You can behave badly and not be a bad person. That’s a really common thing to struggle with coming out of abusive situations (I forget the term for it, sorry) and you should bring that up with your therapist.
This kind of wallowing in guilt (even/especially when it’s genuine) pulls attention onto you instead of the person who deserves an apology. If it’s a habit, it can become a really toxic thing where she feels she can’t give negative feedback because you’re going to do physical/emotional harm to yourself.
We can’t 100% control how we feel, but ruminating/wallowing is a choice. Sometimes you have to take a deep breath, realise what you’re doing and make a conscious effort to stop. Sometimes you have to redirect your thoughts repeatedly, even dozens of times an hour. Think of that like working out. Practice builds that muscle. Whatever your coping mechanisms are, and if you don’t know you should think about getting a new therapist, you need to use them. Table for now the idea of forgiving yourself and just focus on not dwelling on what a piece of shit you are (or whatever your self talk narrative is right now, I’m paraphrasing you, not saying it’s true). Forgiveness will be a lot easier when you’ve accomplished some change and growth.