Crooked Talk

Towards the end of my relationship I began to realize exactly how manipulative my spouse was and started calling him on it.  He would not let me use the word "manipulative" though, so we settled on a term "crooked talk."  I said that if he used any crooked talk in talking with me I would call him on it and not let him use those tactics.  In one fight I remember him protesting that I was objecting to literally everything that he was saying.  He was saying that to argue that I was being unfair, but that was when it started to dawn on me that it was true.  Every single sentence he was saying was manipulative and not moving towards a healthy and fair resolution to our conflict.

My counselor would not believe me that my spouse was manipulative, so I made a list of all the tactics I'd noticed at the time.  It's not a complete list, but it's a pretty heavy start.  I include it here so people can see how damaging dialogue can be if both parties aren't really sincere in trying to move towards a mutually satisfying conclusion, but one party is just trying to win at any cost, even the destruction of the partner.

Crooked talk

• Saying he’s really angry about one thing when he’s angry about something else
• Changing what he’s really angry about, switching gears suddenly with no explanation, when I point out how I’m innocent of xyz (i.e. I didn’t do it, or he was the one who actually brought it up, etc. etc.)
• Saying untrue accusations about me (and later admitting they are false and were said just to hurt me)
• Attacking my motivations, saying I want to destroy / emasculate / control him / ruin his life, take away his happiness / identity, etc.  Repeating these things over many days
• Being cold and hostile while I’m weeping
• Saying “I’m just made this way” or “I can’t help it” when I ask for sympathy or compassion
• Avoiding conceding an obvious point by saying “I’m don’t know” or “Maybe” or “I’m confused”
• Not admitting he’s angry (this has gotten better) but instead saying that he’s some other mild emotion – “confused” or “frustrated”
• Getting really, really upset (fake upset?) about something that normally wouldn’t upset him and fixating on that to avoid the real topic (“I’m really angry that you didn’t appreciate me!”)
• Arguing that his rights outweigh my rights, his pain outweighs my pain, and my sins outweigh his sins.  Refusing even to make them equal.  Sometimes ridiculous (him hounding me for 3 days straight telling me I ruined his life, I’m destroying his dreams, etc., is not as hurtful as me saying one simple statement saying to him, “You’re actually the reason we’re staying home from [ministry place].”)
• Jekyll and Hyde – changing completely without explanation
•             He has told me in Jekyll mode that I should discount everything Hyde says
•             But in Hyde mode, he gets very angry that “you don’t believe me”
• When I can prove my point, he does not accept it but instead says angrily, “Fine, you’re right.  You’re always right.”  Then the argument breaks down even further.
• Turning around his own wrongs to be my fault (even if I didn’t do anything yet )
•             “I did this because I was afraid that you would get angry and I would get in trouble”
•             “I broke my promise because you forced me to make the promise in the first place”
•             “I was going to do [what you wanted], but now that you’re asking me to, I don’t want to because you’re controlling me.”
• Making deals and then backing out of his side of the deal, but still holding me to my side
• Wanting exceptions to all the rules for himself, but holding me to the letter of the law
• Being angry for not being praised, thanked, appreciated, empathized with
• Suddenly changing the subject when confronted on his own wrongs
• Untrue causality statements
• Punishing me verbally for the things I did wrong, even if I’ve apologized, often to “teach me” never to do it again
• Claiming that I NEVER apologize or give in, even though I do
• Claiming that I always get my way / control him, even though he mostly gets his way
• Lying that he’s sorry at the very moment that he is afraid to lose me, then retracting
• Suddenly changing his mind when he sees negative consequences
• Saying the only solution should have been that I never brought it up (basically angry that I brought it up and blaming the entire fight on me because I brought up the topic)
• Blaming me / being angry for the time lost in fighting, how long it's taking, or how late it is at night, and fighting about that
• Apologizing for something and telling me he’s changed and he agrees with me, but then later taking it back and reasserting his former statements
• Saying he needs a “long time and many chances to change” but demanding instant perfection from me
• Getting angry at me for my boundaries, and trying to take away my right to leave / be angry
• Bringing up random unrelated bad things I've done in the past to justify his current wrong
• Fixating and harping on one statement or one or two words out of context and using that as a strategy to evade the main point
• Saying things just to push my buttons and not trying to help me not lose my temper
• Egging me on to lose my temper, saying, “You hate me.  Say that you hate me!  You want a divorce. Say it!  Say it!”
• After pushing me to lose my temper and I lose it, suddenly rearranging the whole conversation to focus on the problem of my temper, because “your temper trumps all my sins”
• Trying to blame the fight on an innocuous thing I did early in the conversation and telling me “never to do that again” e.g. never bring up talking about his diet; never bring up anything remotely serious at night, before leaving to go somewhere, in the car, right when he comes home, etc. etc.
• Using verbal strategies not intended to bring the conversation to a solution, but just to score points and “win.”  Trying to push his agenda and not trying to get to the bottom of things.
• Claiming childhood trauma is the cause of everything, and then going into weepy counseling mode and wanting counseling from me – even if I was the one who was hurt in the first place. No matter why we start the conversation we end up with me consoling and counseling him for his pain and trauma.  Nothing is his fault – it’s how he was raised.
• Rejecting any negative emotion from me, demanding that I ONLY say encouraging positive things and never say anything negative – however, not following this policy himself
• Accusing me of “screaming and yelling, blowing up” when I’m talking in a normal voice, upset but still calm
• Accusing me of traumatizing him but not seeing how he hurts me
• Accusing me of things that he is also guilty of, without shame or conflict over his hypocrisy – “You ALWAYS hyperbolize!”
• Demanding that I always speak in a sweet tone of voice, but not watching his own tone of voice.  Refusing to accept things I say in a nonsweet tone.
• Demanding that I never move my hands when I talk. Refusing to accept things I say if I have moved my hands.
• Demanding grace even though he’s not apologizing -- “You are all law and no grace!”
• Immediately cheerful and happy after fights are over and wanting to have sex even though I don’t want to
• Forcing me to be physically affectionate when I don’t want to
• Forcing me to sit on his lap when I don’t want to
• Getting angry with me if I don’t want physical affection, and punishing me eventually
• Not showing guilty feelings about his own behavior except when there are negative consequences for him
• Not realizing he’s guilty about anything without my spelling it out for him, and proving it to him over many laborious hours
• Not accepting my no but bringing up requests over and over again
• Saying yes to my requests but not really listening or doing them.  Sometimes he says “okay” and then immediately does the opposite.  Then gets very, very angry when I react unhappily.   e.g. While he’s drinking from my water bottle, I say: “D, don’t throw away that water bottle when you’re done.  I want to keep it.”  D:  “Ok.”  (Throws bottle away literally five seconds after he’s said ok)
• Will never allow me to say, “I can’t take this any more.”
• Agreeing on something together and then deliberately pursuing something opposite (we agree on a townhouse, he starts looking at big houses, we agree on a price range, he starts looking outside that price range, we agree on a certain house and he rents a totally different house) – then protesting innocence (“Can’t I even look?”  “I wasn’t serious, just curious”) even though he’s done this often in the past and I know that at some point he’s going to start pushing for it for real
• Getting angry when I get upset at him for not listening, and then saying that he is actually physically incapable of remembering what I ask, and that he needs lots of repetition.  Not acknowledging that he’s not listening. 
• Ignoring my repeated requests until I blow up and then getting mad at me for blowing up
• Not recognizing what he’s really angry at and taking it out on me. 
• e.g. He broke a glass in the bathroom and made a mess.  He was upset and came to talk to me about it.  I asked him if he cleaned it up.  All of a sudden we are in a huge fight because he feels I was not empathetic enough and he is furious at me.  I immediately try to be empathetic but it’s not good enough.  A few hours later I am weeping my eyes out and wondering what I did to deserve this.  I believe he made me pay for his bad feelings at breaking the glass.   And I wasn’t even there when it happened!  He sought me out and then took it out on me. 
• e.g. We often had huge fights after working out at the gym.  Finally he admitted that he feels really angry with me for no reason because he feels aggressive and in a bad mood after he works out.  But during those fights he could always find some fake reason to be mad at me, and I wouldn’t be able to understand why he would blow up over such little things, often things I had been doing for a long time.
• Holding onto anger for a long time (up to a year) and then punishing me for them, to "teach me a lesson to never do that again"