Using P as punishment

[stillandagain]

Again, reading in a journal made me want to post a question:

Is it common for PA's to use acting out as "punishment" to their SO?

As I have said before, my first H was a PA, and frequently told me that he used P because (1) he was angry with me, (2) I wasn't home, (3) I worked too much, (4) etc. You get the picture.

My current PA H has recently admitted that I was "part" of the problem - our relationship issues. We are in a good place with the process of that reasoning and blaming.

So, is this "common"???

[WifeOfNewLifeMan]

My husband told me after discovery, that some of his excuses were anger at me. But, he pointed out this was an excuse, not a reason, and I certainly agree.

[rosie]

I used to feel as if my husband would purposely (subconsciously) instigate anger, eg: pick a fight between us and then use his anger at me to justify acting out. He is passive aggressive by nature and I think he punishes me in various ways, but I definitely think he would use his anger at me or my disappointment with him, etc to justify acting out and at times, as a way of getting back at me covertly.

In my experience, they will do anything to justify it. They externalise their negative feelings and cast them onto you in order to avoid self-blame. This is part of addiction in my opinion.

I always felt as if I was not his partner who he strived to make happy, but rather, his blocker to P - the thing he really wanted, and he showed me in many ways (including this one) that this was the case for many years. I was a roadblock and the person who copped the blame for most of his acting out.

There is a difference between you being 'part of the problem' - which I categorically reject - you are not responsible for anyone elses behaviour - and 'triggers'. At times of high stress in our relationship, HR would act out more - in fact, I would say that discord between us is his biggest trigger. That is a far cry from me being part of the problem. The problem was that HR was unable to self-soothe without using porn or other addictive behaviours.

[Hibiscus]

After dealing with this for almost 25 years, I can say there were definite patterns in how my husband behaved and treated me. The further he fell into the hole, the worse his behavior would become. His agitation, avoidance of myself and our child, and seeming desire to pick fights would escalate.

If you were to ask him for an explanation of his behavior when he was deep in his addiction, he would have told you it was me being a b*t*h, work pressures, too tired...or the all purpose "you're crazy, I don't know what you're talking about". The mind set was that everything external and beyond his control was dictating his behavior and attitude, or leading him to decide he didn't give a damn, because no one else did. Now that he has been in recovery for 6 months, he sees the pattern more clearly. It's still a work in process, but he has had some very clarifying moments when he has realized his negative behavior was a result of pushing everyone away and trying to justify his choices. Just as significantly, he's now seeing the direct effect it has on me and our daughter.

We had a recent incident that was an eye opener for both of us. He was keeping something from me and I was seeing and feeling old patterns reappear. I tried to bring up what I was noticing and he acted like he didn't know what I was talking about. This went on for about 3 weeks as my stress levels increased, I developed major insomnia, and pulled away from him in an attempt to protect myself from what felt like the inevitable.

In the end, it turned out to be a work related issue - not P. Once again, he felt like he could handle it without me noticing and protect me from the stress of the situation. Instead, my stress grew to gigantic proportions as my mind went to assuming we were heading for another P discovery. It was a major lesson for both of us. He was shocked to discover that my anxiety started the DAY the work situation presented itself, and that in trying to protect me, he actually caused me to feel more stress and fear. I learned to completely trust my gut when it comes to being in tune to my husband and our relationship, but that it's time to let go a bit and not always assume it is a P problem.

As so many people have stated on this site, there is so much more to recovery than just eliminating P. My husband tried that approach for years, though half heartedly. He fully admits he just got better at hiding it and never fully accepted that it was the main cause of our worsening relationship. I don't fully understand what shifted for him this time, but his eyes are more fully open. He's really seeing the damage and the patterns and I'm so thankful.

It may have taken 24+ years, but we've finally entered "phase 2". I guess we're slow learners, but we're proof it's never too late for anyone!

[HopefulsRock]

Stillandagain... Myself, if she was angry at me would definitely have been one of my subconscious thoughts or excuses to act out, like go ahead I deserve it sort of thing... but it's just that an excuse. Heck, I used to try and turn everything around and blame her... anything to protect my dirty secret and save my precious ego but I now know and I think we all do, how utterly rediculous that is. Like any drug addict you'll find that things are never there fault when they're not in recovery and still using! Hope that answers your question?

[TooSensitive]

Hello Still, heh-heh, I am wondering if it was my journal you were reading that prompted you to post this question? I had recently written about “rewards and punishments” in my journal, so it made me wonder…

My h would never openly talk to me about his addiction, so anything I think is really just my own perceptions, based upon my feelings, as a result of my observations and my understanding gained through reading volumes of information. But without his input, all I am really doing is guessing at best. I will say that I don’t think I am that far off base.

When my h a/o, it has felt like a punishment to me at times. Either b/c he was angry at me b/c I pushed him into recovery, when he didn’t want to be in recovery; or he was angry at me b/c I was trying to “take away his candy”; or in my disappointment of him, “I” made “him” feel badly about himself, along with his ongoing self-induced guilty feelings, and in not being able to handle those negative feelings, in his mind, he blamed me for why he was feeling what he was – which also allowed him to justify what he did (thx for touching on these things, Rosie). If it was my fault he was feeling those things, then he had a right to punish me, in his mind (though outwardly, he never blamed me with his words). And he was also “deserving” of doing whatever he felt like doing, besides the fact that he was using what he did as a form of escaping from having to feel his emotions. Oddly, he never seems to feel deserving of those things which are considered healthy, like being the one to pick where we eat out, or having a birthday party thrown in his honor, or receiving gifts. So I guess to make up for that, he allows himself to feel deserving of p and lust. He gives up control willingly, if it has anything to do with having his healthy needs met, and in fact, pushes his needs aside and away, even when I am trying to figure out what those needs might be and anticipate them in trying to meet them in a loving, caring way.

He will fight for control, if it has anything to do with that which is unhealthy. He has fought hard to hold onto his addiction; and he has fought hard to gain control of me and of my wellbeing in the past. He has found ways to punish me, so that I end up being knocked down, b/c when he is successful in doing that, it makes him feel superior and in control, and that feeds his ego, albeit in a negative way. It also eliminates his fear of abandonment, b/c if he knocks me down, I am not strong enough to leave him.

That is also how it seems he defines love at times. As in, if he is capable of hurting me, my pain is proof of my love. If I didn’t love him, I wouldn’t feel hurt, right? If I didn’t love him, he would not have the ability to hurt me, right? He responds to things that are unhealthy, moreso than those that are healthy, though I think we are on the verge of turning the tide on this. But typically, when I am mentally healthy and doing well, that is when my h is more apt to a/o. When I am not mentally healthy, like when I am feeling depressed, that is when my h is far less likely to a/o. This is the pattern I have noticed, anyway, and have since told him about.

Sometimes, he punished me for trying to get too close. He would punish me by creating distance, by pushing me away, and by breaking any connections we might have had; and his punishments themselves would always end up pushing me away regardless.

He is the one who ends up punishing himself, more than anyone else, though it doesn’t feel that way initially, when it is me who has just been punished. He has at times punished me severely for doing something “nice” for him (b/c he felt undeserving, and he also refused to allow me to please him, b/c that might actually make me feel good); it isn’t just limited to the times I’ve “attacked” his addiction. I had to learn how to duck often, b/c I never knew when it was coming, until I figured more parts of him out. Sometimes, it was thrown at me with no warning, and it would come as a complete surprise, at times when it should have been a happy moment in both our lives. I learned how to see it coming, when it involved his addiction and defending and protecting that; it took more time to learn how to see it coming, when there was no good reason for it, other than he can be a total jerk and a complete sh*t at times (he’s gotten much better at being appreciative and receptive to the things I do for him, and he’s also gotten better at staying “engaged” with me). Not only did I need to learn how to see it coming, I also had to learn how to avoid allowing the things he did to knock me down; I had to learn how to feel good about the things I did for him, even if he was refusing to show me any appreciation. I had to learn how to feel good about myself, even if he was doing things that had the potential to make me feel bad about myself. I could not keep allowing him to use my pain in such negative ways. He should have been using my pain as a deterrent, not as fuel to feed his twisted ego.

H has resorted to punishing me in many different ways, and it wasn’t limited to his sexual escapades. He has mistreated me in so many different ways over the years; covert sabotage and gaslighting are but two of his specialties.

Punishing me, however he had to go about doing that, was self-serving for him. Being able to punish me made him feel superior to me, too. There is so much tied into this that involves psychology and the addict’s own unhealthy ego. Punishment of this nature is dysfunctional and immature. It is not the same as punishment given to our children, in an effort to teach them right from wrong, and that there are consequences for making the “wrong choices”. I guess in an active addict’s mind, it is us who are not making the right choices, b/c our choices do not align with theirs. I guess that is why they feel the need to punish us at times. Pointing out their wrong choices to them sometimes requires them to make us suffer the consequences for doing so. How dare we! Sometimes, in an act of defiance, designed to maintain control, it becomes a matter of, “I’ll show you!”. Without being able to delve deep into my h’s mind, I know that for him, control has definitely been part of the psychology behind what he does. I am not guessing at that part.

Sometimes I was a threat to him, in the way of possible abandonment, if I was doing “too well” – b/c that meant I had the strength to leave him, if I chose. Sometimes his “petty jealousies” (by his own admittance, though he never elaborated on what those were) got in the way. At first, me “being me” was part of what attracted h to me. But eventually, me “being me” was what turned h off. I possessed certain traits and characteristics (like the ability to let my hair down and live my life fully) that h had previously admired in me, but eventually loathed, b/c he lacked the ability to be the same way. Instead of doing his own inner work to improve himself, to make himself become who he really wanted to be, he chose to try to eradicate those things in me. That allowed him to avoid doing any of his own inner work; that allowed him to avoid facing himself; that alleviated his fears of abandonment; that removed any immediate threat to his current existence. When he was successful at knocking me down, that made him feel superior, and that fed his ego, albeit in a very unhealthy way.

So, as you can see, my h’s punishment of me was never limited to p or lusting over other women in general. In my mind, h’s punishment of me, no matter what form that took, was in essence bullying, and was in fact a form of sabotage toward not only me, but also, toward himself. His sabotage was inflicted upon me, and it was also self-inflicted. Hence, his punishment of me ended up also being punishment of himself.

The bottom line is that they can try to inflict punishment upon us all they want; but we end up empowering ourselves, when we no longer allow what they do to make us feel punished. But that doesn’t happen until we have been able to heal ourselves to some degree. Harder to do, if we are still with them, but they haven’t yet stopped trying to punish us.

[cbh]

I used to feel as if my husband would purposely (subconsciously) instigate anger, eg: pick a fight between us and then use his anger at me to justify acting out. He is passive aggressive by nature and I think he punishes me in various ways, but I definitely think he would use his anger at me or my disappointment with him, etc to justify acting out and at times, as a way of getting back at me covertly.

In my experience, they will do anything to justify it. They externalise their negative feelings and cast them onto you in order to avoid self-blame. This is part of addiction in my opinion.

I always felt as if I was not his partner who he strived to make happy, but rather, his blocker to P - the thing he really wanted, and he showed me in many ways (including this one) that this was the case for many years. I was a roadblock and the person who copped the blame for most of his acting out.

There is a difference between you being 'part of the problem' - which I categorically reject - you are not responsible for anyone elses behaviour - and 'triggers'. At times of high stress in our relationship, HR would act out more - in fact, I would say that discord between us is his biggest trigger. That is a far cry from me being part of the problem. The problem was that HR was unable to self-soothe without using porn or other addictive behaviours.

One of the most insightful and enlightening messages that I have read in a long, long time. "I categorically reject"... priceless, priceless, priceless. I've contemplated therapy numerous times over the years, most frequently so as of late, and have deliberately -- albeit subconsciously -- put off taking the first step. Why? Well, to be fair, I can't say for sure "why," but I do know that I have a strong distaste for some of the "theories" floating around in the therapy world regarding porn addicts and their partners. I do not feel that I am co-dependent, I do not feel that I am an enabler, I do not feel that I am part of the problem, and I do not feel that I alone am a trigger... thus, my fear of being told (or actually even convinced due to the fact that I feel very emotionally vulnerable at this state in the game) otherwise has kept me from seeking "real" help.

Just my two cents. Thanks for the post rosie!

[TooSensitive]

Cbh, I understand how you feel. I feel the exact same way as you about being labeled co-dependent, being an enabler, being part of the problem, and being my h’s only trigger. They need to take responsibility for their choices and not try to blame us for those. The therapeutic world should not be trying to blame us, either.

Two years ago, I went to one therapy session with my h, when he was still seeing his first therapist. I was REELING in the aftermath. The therapist tried to insinuate that I had leftover childhood issues that were causing me to feel insecure about something I should not be feeling insecure about (my h’s fantasy world). After that session, I knew it was the therapist who was my h’s enabler, not me.

It created even more problems between my h and I. Things came to a head again between us. After a few months, he came to me and said, “I need your help, b/c I can’t go on like this, with things so bad between us.” He asked for my help, so I gave it to him. I handed him a printout of all the CSAT’s in our area and told him he needed to pick one. I told him it was our only chance.

Reluctantly, and with much resistance, he finally picked one, ended his relationship with the first therapist, and began seeing the CSAT. It wasn’t a magic bullet, and things first became far worse before they started to get better, but that was due to my h “bucking the system” and continuing to make what were clearly wrong choices. He refused to allow the CSAT to influence him in a positive way at first.

In my vulnerability two years ago, I was not strong enough to stand up to the first therapist in his insinuations. I don’t recall whether or not I even told my h how I was feeling in the aftermath of that one and only session we had together with him. But my h knew by my anger and my distance that things were terribly wrong from my perspective.

As I gained strength in my healing (which did take a long time), I began to stand up for myself and for my own beliefs. I was chatting about addiction in general after an event I attended alone, with a different therapist I had just met at the event, who started to talk about “co-dependency”. I surprised myself when I uncharacteristically interrupted him, went up on my “trauma model” soapbox, and nearly took his head off in the process. He had pushed one of my buttons, and I made no bones about my reaction as a result, which was involuntary, to say the least.

I know how hard it can be to stand up for ourselves when we have been feeling weak and vulnerable, cbh. I have not always stood up for myself. But when it comes to my own therapy, I have. If my therapist is not the “right fit” for any reason, I would not hesitate to sever the ties and move on. I would keep moving on as many times as I needed to do, until I found the “right fit” for myself. I could never remain in therapy with someone whose values did not align with mine, or someone who tried to push their own misguided values upon me, if their values were different. It’s fine if they are different, but if they are, I don’t want to know about them, when it comes to my therapist. But it is so much easier when your therapist’s values do align with your own, and you know it. Now that’s validation!

I hope you do seek out that help for yourself. Yes, you may find that the therapist is not the right one for you. Keep searching until you find the one who is, and don’t stop until you do. You owe it to yourself. We all do. None of us have to take anyone else’s crap, esp. crap from a therapist.

I’ve learned that therapists are not “God”, and therapists are not always right, either. Some of them can also be completely insensitive at times. I guess we have to remember that they are people, too, which means they will not always be perfect, either. If they are not perfect or perfect enough for us, it is our right to be our own best advocates and simply move on.

Before wasting your time and money, perhaps you could have a phone conversation with the therapist first, to get a sense of their philosophies on the subject. Just please don’t deny yourself help, if that kind of help is what you feel you need at this time. My own therapist was the right fit for me back then, and she was the one who helped me regain a sense of myself, become stronger, and rebuild my self-esteem.

My life remains a rollercoaster, like all the other partners here it seems, but at least the ride isn’t as intense as it once was. I’ve learned how to manage myself in so many ways that I could not before, but I feel strongly that I would not have learned how to do this, without my therapist’s help. I know how lucky I was in finding her, b/c she was the “right fit” for me.

When I told her about that horrible session with my h’s first therapist, she validated me by saying, “The therapist may be an SA himself”, which was exactly what I was thinking, as I sat in his office that day…

[burnedout]

I probably have used P as a punishment, now that I think of it, not just toward my wife, but anyone who I thought wasn't treating me right. It's just so easy to retreat instead of calmly standing up for yourself and saying, "What you're doing right now is bothering me." It's not an excuse, but I think what may have triggered my relapse yesterday was when my wife yelled at me about something. So it was kind of an, "Oh, yeah? Well, I'll show you!" reaction, many hours later. A lousy one, definitely.

[JenMac]

I probably have used P as a punishment, now that I think of it, not just toward my wife, but anyone who I thought wasn't treating me right. It's just so easy to retreat instead of calmly standing up for yourself and saying, "What you're doing right now is bothering me." It's not an excuse, but I think what may have triggered my relapse yesterday was when my wife yelled at me about something. So it was kind of an, "Oh, yeah? Well, I'll show you!" reaction, many hours later. A lousy one, definitely.

HI B,
I wonder if this is just somewhat of an excuse, something you use to allow yourself to give in? Is it an excuse to act out with the hope that you won't feel guilty because you feel justified?
Just thoughts that came to me....
If it rings true, it may be something you need to build into your plan for the future.
Jenn