I think my H used to provoke me.
What would happen is he would do or say something crazy making. I would respond by talking calmly to him about my feelings.
He would do something to up the ante, such as saying I could take it or leave it, I was insecure, he was going to go sleep at work or move back into his friends' house...etc. He would accuse me of not loving him, etc. Having a boyfriend. Anything to provoke me. Then when I became angry and upset he would use it as justification to have the affair with his married ex-girlfriend. He would tell her about how 'difficult' I was and to earn her sympathy. Really sick. I don't feed into this any more. Instead, I go to places where I know that people act normally towards me. I can recognize this behavior in him and I know it is pathological.
Don't throw stones at a b*tchy woman's behavior without examining your own first.
Obviously, I allowed myself to be provoked.
But when I went for exam at the hospital following my anaphylaxis, the psychiatrist did not seem particularly alarmed by my description of having thrown glasses in an empty room to smash them when I felt angry after being 'disenfranchised' by my husband. To be clear, once before I realized what was going on, and was provoked by him in one of these sitautions (he wanted to go on a climbing day with a woman he used to be intimately involved with - had two relationships with her actually not just one so there was this on again off again thing with her in terms of history, and chance of it being on-again, we were living together but not married or even engaged at the time, but clearly in a committed relationship - he started in with other stuff and I even asked him to take me to a pscyh hospital because I was so unseated, and he refused and said he would not let me go either. I was told later this was medical neglect.
Whatever, when I did not behave in a way that he could use to justify his cheating on me, he felt the need to create the situation.
The more I think about this, the more troubling it is to me. He has been away for a year. I am not really sure someone with such deep-seated issues can change.
Normally I am a very quiet person. I give others the benefit of the doubt. I don't expect perfection. It is when I have felt particularly trapped and stuck and with someone who creates a dichotomous situation where there is a huge schism between what I am told is reality and what is true, and I am backed into a corner, then I get upset. It takes quite a lot for me to lash out at someone personally. It wasn't until my husband violated my physical boundaries and put me at risk of being pregnant without my consent that I became absolutely enraged.
I really think I should leave this relationship.
Am I stupid to stay with someone who pushes my buttons so badly so that he can continue to ignore his own issues and justify when he strays?