I have no psychological training but is it possible that whenever a certain personality type feels vulnerable or insecure, they have to start a fight in order to feel normal again.

It that even possible?

Do any of you have a person like that in your lives? That only seem to operate through confrontation?

I have had people like that pass thru my life. My theory:

Raising hell makes them feel important and alive. They could care less how it is affecting others. In fact, if confronted, they often act like drunks in a black out that can't recall their bad behavior.

Yeah, yeah, it's like they are completely unaware that they are hurting others.

And when later confronted with the evidence, they can't seem to be held accountable for their bad behavior. And they never apologize.

There are just some toxic, nasty people in this world. The only way to deal with them is just not engage.

Check out Shrink4Mmen.com, even if you're a woman.

You will read a lot about your theory that vulnerable people have to raise hell to feel okay.

That is a great site for guys who have abusive exes. Dr. T. is fabulous and really understands guys who have to deal with crazy women.

Yep I have an ex like that....isn't happy unless he can be rude, arrogant and confrontational and always tell you that YOU are wrong. I think it is all about weakness, feeling powerless, sad that hings don't always fall in line just as they'd like. Complainers is what they are. And I agree, they are toxic and I am happy to not have to converse very much. AT times I think to myself....I was married to him how many decades?????

I have a relative that will basically start a conversation by calling me a stupid a-hole & belittling me, then when he's gotten me all PO'd and defensive, he calms down and acts like he's the rational one and sometimes actually helps; a power play for sure but I'm not sure what the psychological term for that is. I will add that he's an alcoholic.

is this what he does to you?

official psychological term: Alcoholic

There are times when I think that rolling your eyes is an entirely appropriate response.

Block him.

An ex is an ex for a reason.

If you have grown up mormon there is a good possibility that you are not familiar with alcoholism and what it can do to the people in the alcoholics life (you). I know i didn't.

I went to Alanon for 4 years to learn how to deal with an alcoholic. Only to learn that lots of mormons act like addicts when it comes to their religion. that was a shock. I learned so much about how to deal with the irrational people in my life. It's not always how you think it might be. It was a lot of work for me, but the best free counseling ever. Best of all i learned how to fix myself, and be comfortable in my own skin. I think everything i learned there made it much easier to leave the morg and all of the sick thinkers that flock there.

Usually it's a relative. I'm a believer in consequences for that kind of behavior: 1. block their email.
The silence is golden!

My MIL is the queen of this kind of behavior. She would make up so much crap behind everyone's back. Then when she is confronted with it, she would act clueless, and would come up with some lame excuse for her behavior. I think misery loves company in her case. She is a very negative lonely person and no one usually wants to be around her because she is so mean.

I swear he's really losing it lately, as he's gotten much worse. He called me in a rage accusing me of:

1. crying a poor mouth

2. cheating on the sale of my house

3. kicking my narcissistic mother out of the house I bought from her

4. spreading lies about my mother

I believe that she spread these rumors to him, and let him run with them. They have always been very close, and allied against me. It was just more subtle when we were maried.

The final outcome of all this was that he extorted a large sum of money from me, under the guise that I owed him for half of our son's college, which he had never asked me for previously, as he was the big wage earner, and I was at poverty level after the divorce. In the telephone calls he raged at me that I owned my mother more money, even after I had paid off a lien, and bought out all my siblings. Who put that bug in his ear? I believe that he's sending her a big chunk of it.

I was so traumatized after all this happened that it has taken several months to feel myself again. And to answer your question, yes I do think that creating a crisis is a psychological drug to some people. He has always been that way.

Look into "personality disorders". There are many people with dysfunctional personalities. Unfortunately they do not have much hope of ever changing, but knowing what problem they have specifically can help you deal with them.

Divorces and splits are never easy and for the most part tend to be, even if only a little, acrimonious whilst going through the process.

From what I have seen, this acrimony tends to soften and wane over time and for the most part, couples with children who have split up get to a place where they can be happy for the other person to move on and work collegiately on matters involving the children.

Except when the couples or one of the couple is a Mormon.

When Mormonism is involved the acrimony not only is harsher, but it lasts and even builds and rarely, if ever, goes away. I accept though, that this view is based purely on my own observations of people I know directly or indirectly.

I don't know if it's a certain personality type or a certain personality disorder but it does seem pretty universal. Many, many people, when they are feeling insecure about themselves or don't want to face up to a mistake, will go on the attack in hopes that people won't notice they are actually the asshole, not all the people they're pointing fingers at.

Recently, there was some drama at my dance studio between the owner and my instructor. What the drama was about was irrelevant. My instructor was venting to me (and I'd witnessed the incident -- my instructor was "right") about the situation and here's what I told her.

"Look, you have to remember when M calls you out and tells you all these horrible things about yourself and questions your character, integrity and everything else... she's just projecting. She screwed up and wants to blame someone else. She's pushing all her flaws and insecurities off on you. What she tells you about you is what she actually thinks about herself. So next time she tees off on you, maybe you can muster up some pity instead of anger because it's pretty damn sad that someone that smart, beautiful, creative and intelligent thinks so poorly of herself."

Is it possible that the ex sent you the nasty e-mail because they are missing you, and this is the only way they feel they can connect with you in a way that has some "passion" to it?

Many people will start fights with others for that very reason.

My ex-wife is like that. Fighting with others makes her feel alive and normal, because when she isn't doing that, she is depressed, drunk, miserable, suicidal.....take your pick.

See also: Karpmann's Drama Triangle.

Some people have no other coping skills than to always have three roles in any interpersonal interaction. Someone has to be the persecutor, someone has to be the rescuer, and someone has to be the victim. People who interact in this way manipulate others to fill one of those roles so they can charge in and rescue or be the victim and get rescued or whatever it is that serves whatever need at the moment. It has virtually nothing to do with you. So perhaps your ex sent the email because he needed a fresh victim, was playing persecutor, and couldn't find anyone else nearby who was willing to play the game.

So much stated here reminds me of the behaviour of my ex. For years, I've dealt with the practical and psychological consequences of being involved with him. He is now married to a long time friend of his, and they have two children but I am still the the focus of his projection and cruelty.

My frustration is that he never cares about the consequences of his behaviour. I believe that he thrives on creating chaos and I am the easy target.

This is exactly why my TBM ex-husband is blocked on my e-mail with every known and guessed e-mail addresses he might have used. Also, when I joined Facebook, the first thing I did was to block him so he couldn't find me to harass me on that site. It also prevents him from showing up as a friend suggestion in the "People You might Know" section.

I'm sure everyone here is on the right track and agree with the advice to learn more about personality disorders. But I wanted to throw my 2 cents in. My DH has ADD and I've read a lot about it. One thing people with ADD do is use a fight to help them focus. When their life is feeling unstructured or chaotic, they will pick a fight with someone because the heightened adrenalin from a fight has the same chemical reaction on their body as ADD medicine. It helps them feel focused enough to pull their life back under control.

Until I figured this out, DH ruined EVERY vacation, holiday, day off by picking on me and picking a fight with me. The unstructured time off left him spinning in space so in order to get it together again, he'd start a fight with me. I really hated him for this because I'd work so hard planning a holiday or a vacation and he'd reduce me to tears, ruining everything for me. Every single time. Worse, the kids have all these memories of their parents fighting tied in with Christmas and birthday and Disneyland memories. After he was diagnosed with ADD about 8 years ago, I did a bunch of research and found out about this phenomenon. He still tries to fight sometimes but he's learned to just take his medicine some times and I've learned to blow him off other times. But it's really infuriating how he will still try to ruin everything, just to get his adrenaline fix.

My point is, maybe your ex is using you as a drug - whenever life is spinning out of control, they've learned fighting with someone helps them focus and get things together. Maybe it's ADD or maybe it's something else. But they can get their drug fix from you, because you are the ex and an easy target, without the same consequences as someone closer to them. Good luck - it sucks, I know.

Hmm, ADD, that is pretty interesting and this caught my attention. Much like you, every single holiday, every vacation, every special occasion of our marriage was ruined by a fight. And family get togethers were always fraught with difficulty and drama.

I once got yelled at because she took offense at the content of a Broadway play I took her to while in New York. I have few memories of her that are not spoiled by a fight.

Obviously, I've done my share of yelling back, so I"m not exactly innocent in all this. Post divorce, I've been nice. I took her out to dinner a couple weeks ago to catch up. And then out of the blue, this nasty-gram.

Sheesh. I've really got to move on.

I see a lot of similarities in what you say...

I worked with him in the early days and guess what he did....ruin that
holidays....
education....oh he tried, with some limited success
concerts....when my mom was ill we had tickets for a concert. I was keen to see this artist live. After a draining visit to the hospital this was meant to be my respite...30-40 minutes into the set he started a scene saying that we needed to leave to avoid the crowds. I got out to avoid annoying those around us. I remember standing at a busy road intersection and he kept shouting at me about my reluctance to leave the venue.
friendships....yup!
I am now a harlot of sorts because I am on my own yet he married the friend who he'd kept visiting when we were together ...
the list of the rubbish is endless................

Thanks for the post.

**Oh, I was going to say--what I learned to describe it as is "sucks the joy out of life on a daily basis." I read that in Ann Landers years ago.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2011 04:56PM by cl2.

When they aren't kissing your ass, they're pushing your buttons and trying to pick a fight with you. Then they chuckle to themselves when they've succeeded. My ex is a loser, but at least she isn't an asshole. I would hate being married to or having to deal with an ex like that. You have my deepest sympathies. I suggest having as little to do with that person as possible, and don't be fooled when he's kissing your ass because that's just him setting you up like a football to kick you again.