5 Things Disrespectful People Do To Make You Feel Like You Are The Problem 

If you notice any of these behaviors from someone you know, or even from yourself, it is a massive sign of disrespect:

1. They verbally attack you. The idea behind this communication strategy is to put you down, so that the other person feels ‘one up.’ Attacking also serves to push you away so you won’t continue to engage with them about the relationship, because that makes them feel vulnerable.

2. They blame you. The person blames you for initiating the interaction or for things you have done to them. They might ‘play victim’ and accuse you of attacking them. This strategy ‘externalizes’ the blame. The person can focus their attention on thinking that you are wrong so they don’t have to look inside themselves to see their contribution to the interaction. Blaming others makes them feel they are right and strong.

3. They constantly deflect. You might notice that the person tries to change the subject. Or they try to debate or litigate the truthfulness of things you say. This is a strategy to divert your attention from their real feelings and the real challenge that exists in the relationship.

4. “All about me” The person might suck up all the air talking about themselves and seem rude for not including you. They are caught up inside their own head and don’t read cues to make your interaction a ‘two-way street.’

5. “Crazy making” Crazy making happens when the person says one thing and then says or does the opposite. It feels to you as if they are ‘talking out of both sides of their mouth.’ Sometimes one ‘part of them’ is talking and can seem really sweet and nice, but ‘another part of them’ gets activated and is dismissive. Though you are aware that they are acting inconsistently and you can’t rely on them to ‘be normal,’ they may not be aware of themselves.

Here’s how you can respond in these situations:

First, recognize their approaches are ‘their stuff.’ These behaviors are about them, not about you.

Second, practice compassion by seeing these strategies for what they are. If a person is using one of these approaches, it’s because it’s the only way they learned to communicate. People in their early life may either have been limited as teachers or that others treated them in a way where they needed to develop a wall to protect themselves from getting hurt.

Third, protect yourself by not internalizing their negative words and try to get the conversation back on a constructive track. If you can’t, know they are revealing their limitations to you and end the conversation so you don’t waste any more time.

If you're new here or otherwise unfamiliar with me as a poster, please know that I'm now divorced so I'm not looking for a way to resolve this issue vis-a-vis my ex-husband.  Instead, I'm still trying to process how and why the relationship went south and maybe helping someone else here in the process.

My ex has a different style of communication than me.  His style while we were married was the following:  when he was out of town for days at a time (e.g., at his parents' home, 150 miles away), he did not call, email, or respond to my calls and emails.  This style continues to this day, not surprising now because we're divorced.  But the pattern of what he does remember and communicate about is also consistent.  For example, when my nephew was diagnosed with a very serious form of cancer, while ex and I were still married, ex did not follow up with me to ask how my nephew was doing, even when we were in the car together driving to our daughter's college graduation.  In contrast, when I called ex a few weeks ago to ask him about his ailing father, he did respond and then ask about a plumbing issue in my house (formerly our house), for which he feels some responsibility.  However, he did not ask about my dog, who he knew had been sick and was getting checked out for a possible serious illness (which the dog does indeed have).  

Ex has said to me at least two times over the years that he is unable to form close emotional connections.

So, is the communication problem an outgrowth of not wanting to form close emotional connections or is the inability to form emotional connections an outgrowth of the poor communication style?  And in either case, is the lack of compassion separate or indistinguishable from the communication issues?

I stayed up half the night reading this book.  I saw it online while looking for something totally unrelated and bought it on a whim.  When it arrived, I had a few minutes before making dinner, so I started reading it on a whim, thinking it would be one more marriage resource dead-end that didn't really address my experience or solve the mystery for me of why I find it so difficult to make a good marriage with my husband, who is such a good person, but so challenging to share a life with.  

I. COULDN'T.  PUT.  IT. DOWN!!!  I don't know how this lady wrote a book about ME and MY HUSBAND and OUR MARRIAGE when we've never met, but she did.  I can't believe someone is telling me that my struggle is real because for 14 years my husband has made me feel that our difficulties were primarily rooted in ME and MY problems and MY inability to cope or to understand him or be more graceful or forgiving.

All the comments in the book about "having good intentions" but complete failure to translate that into reliable, repeatable, & trustworthy actions - I can't recount how many times we have had that conversation.  He feels that his good intentions relieve him of any burden of being held accountable for actual performance in any given area, no matter how repetitive the behavior is or how damaging it has been in our relationship.  He would happily stay up all night talking about our relationship, oh how he loves to talk! - but nothing ever changes.

I have never been able to understand how he can be so apparently capable in one area (professional life, he owns his own successful business & supports our family comfortably with his income, we don't have money problems thank goodness), and so mysteriously, aggravatingly, repeatedly, infuriatingly incapable in another area (our relationship).

Every comment in the book about forgotten conversations was ripped from the headlines of our marriage!  He makes me think I am crazy for all the things I remember that he doesn't, but I know I'm not because I don't experience these interactions with anyone else in my life and I never have.  Sometimes I'm surprised he remembers who I am!  I find conversation with him totally unfulfilling b/c he's only in it for the enjoyment of the actual talking - he remembers very little, so if there is a followup conversation, or a new development, we have to start all over.  However he can recount to me all day long the details of his client interactions & professional obligations.

Every comment in the book about a waggling & indiscriminate tongue was stolen from our conversations!  I can't count how many times he has blabbed a confidence or made me the butt of his funny, entertaining conversations be sharing embarrassing, private information, like discussing my menstrual cycles on the golf course.  I no longer share anything with him that I wouldn't tell the grocery store clerk so needless to say, this puts a serious damper on relational intimacy.  In addition, we have a young son who is approaching the teen years, and I know he is going to feel the sting of betrayal by his father in this area, and there is nothing I can do about.  My husband just blabbed the other day about a recently-confessed "crush" that my son has to his entire office staff at lunch.  He has no filter and no clue about what should be held close vs. what is appropriate to share.

All the comments about him being perceived as the happy, interesting, fun-loving extrovert while I am cast as the unhappy, ungrateful nag - that TOTALLY reflects what has happened to us over time in my view.  Whenever I have tried to talk to any of my girlfriends about some of my struggles, they just look at me puzzled and the conversation dies, b/c none of them have experienced such mysterious and unexplainable behaviors in their own marriages and they are always as completely puzzled about it as I am.  They can't reconcile the person they know (as my husband's friend) with the person I describe that I live with.  In addition, because he is somewhat controlling/OCD, I have felt even more isolated and not wanting to share my whole experience because I don't want people to think negatively of him.  

The result of all this and more is that after 14 years, I have built up enough defensive walls in an attempt to protect & insulate myself from the consequences & effects of his damaging behaviors that we have almost no relational intimacy.  Until I read this book last night, I was basically hopeless for us to ever get it back.  We are both committed to our marriage, but I had basically decided I needed to seek fulfilling interpersonal relationships elsewhere (volunteering, friends, etc.) b/c I was never going to have that at home with him.  In my mind, I have planted him firmly in the realm of "unsafe people".  A recently-uncovered porn habit has been the final nail in the coffin of a sex life already on life support.  In the meantime, he is lonely and depressed in our relationship b/c he knows that, although I love him, I am effectively shutting him out to protect myself.

The next layer of this is our son, because I think he has similar struggles.  His school is half homeschool, and our struggles (and his discouragement) on homeschool days are becoming almost unmanageable.  I have the same feeling as I have interacting with my husband - I can't figure out these mystifying behaviors which repeat over and over again, no matter how many creative solutions I attempt to apply.  Because he's never had any significant behavior problems (he doesn't "act like" other children I know who are medicated for ADHD), I didn't think he had this issue, but now I am hopeful that this path could also be helpful for him.

I plan to talk to my husband this evening and ask him for us to read the book together.  I anticipate that he will agree, because he loves any excuse to talk, and then he will go about his usual very well-reasoned denial/justifications about each item or behavior.  However, I am hopeful that the sheer volume of behaviors "ripped from the headlines" of our marriage will overwhelm him as it did me and lead to a willingness to walk down this path hand in hand with me.  I am still willing to try.

Thank you so much Melissa for taking time to write this book.  You are a blessing!

I have been reacting, responding, being of service, bewildered, discouraged, damaged.  My heart and mind have been little more than a whirlwind around my H's presence, his words, his action/non-action, .... who he is/and isn't in my mind trying to make sense of our/my life.  To the point where there seems to be no him and no me anymore....other than accusations and a senseless game of "Who can out-ignore, with hard shells, out-distance, have higher boundaries?"  And there certainly is no marriage partnership.  Two ships that pass in the night.  I have, this past year, given him all the independence from me he seemed to be fighting for.  And I just permitted myself to see what he was willing to GIVE if I stopped asking, expecting praying for.  He has given nothing to a positive growth of our relationship.  In fact, he SEEMS (I have to guess because he does not talkabout anything other than ranting about the governement) to resent me for stopping all my over-compensating that I used to do.  

When he would say something really stupid in front of others, I used to giggle or make light of what he said or act out a "Oh, Gosh!" and play a game of "Oh, you are offensive, you little cute devil!"  I have stopped that.  Now I let his insensitive sarcasm ring in the empty air around him.  I had been conditioning him to be able to say and do whatever he feels like without filter and I would try to make it OK in all our eyes.  

But I lost my own self. I lost my strength playing all those games for him. I am trying like crazy to remember how I spoke, how I held my body, how I thought before I was H's shrewish enabler.  Who do I want to be now?  I accustomed myself to being someone in the background without a will or presence of my own to bring to the table....just an over-compensating helpmate to H and an over-parenter to my children.  I hope it is not too late to give myself the gift of BEING my self.  I feel like a wounded soldier and there are no agencies or groups of support for spouses of "missing in action" ADDers.  Life could be a lot worse.  I can see that it is within my abilities to pull myself out of my own Land of the Lost.  It is something that I am working on. It is not selfish to be a whole person with conviction and voice.  It is necessary if I am going to be a person who has anything of substance to give to my loved ones.