The Problem of XKCD 386

[lydy]

Over the past year, I've entered into a very fraught and unpleasant relationship with the wife of a friend of mine. Some of you know the back story, and some of you don't. What I want to talk about here isn't the back story so much as my own reactions, and try to parse what I have been doing and why.

The bottom line of this relationship is that it really isn't good for anyone, as far as I can tell. Engagement has been punctuated by bad behavior on both sides. (I would argue that she has behaved worse than I have, but I would, wouldn't I?) The weird thing is that we can't seem to disengage. It is my perception that she continues to poke at me and that I continue to respond. It seems likely that she would argue that I continue to give her provocation, and that she is responding to that provocation. Since other people's motivations are at best a matter of speculation, and my own motivations are the topic, here, let's set aside exactly who's doing what to whom and look at why I keep on responding. The thing is, for a year, we've been doing exactly the same things. One useful although very incomplete definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. And I have totally been doing that.

My first assumption was that I have been doing it because in style and personality, this person strongly resembles my father, with whom I had a very complex abuse history. So, deep childhood programming. This explanation seems profound and useful. But here's the problem with it: this is not my first rodeo. I was able to sever contact with my father. I came to realize that every time I talked to him, I lost about three days of my life to misery and stress. After a great deal of thought, I decided that determining whose fault that was, and trying to fix it, was more labor intensive than I was willing to deal with, especially since it wasn't clear that there was a fix. What I concentrated on was the fact that the relationship as it stood was too expensive for me to continue to pursue, and that there wasn't any clear resolution available on the horizon. Finally, I realized that I didn't see any particular profit in resolving the relationship. He no longer had anything I really wanted or needed. While it might have been nice to have a loving and supportive father, that not only wasn't in the cards, but I was now old enough that it was no longer a driving need. So, I severed ties. More than ten years after, he died. I felt a little bad, but I never regretted my decision.

Twice in my life, I have left romantic relationships, not because I no longer cared for my partner, but because in my estimation, the relationship was permanently broken. Given everything I knew about me and my ability to change, and everything I could see about them and their ability to change, there did not appear to be any hope of significant happiness together. Love wasn't enough. And so, I left. In both cases, the man I left was very angry about it, and has not forgiven me. I'm sorry about that. But I stand by those decisions. We weren't good for each other, and there was no reason to believe that this would change in the future.

So, I know that I can walk away from a relationship. It is clear I have the skills to evaluate a relationship as non-profitable, and take my emotional investments elsewhere. I think this is a good and valuable skill, actually. (There are, of course, people who disagree and think that one should simply stick it out. I think they're crazy.) Which brings me back to the wife of my friend. Why the hell can't I seem to disengage? Why do I continue to respond? What is going on here, with a person I don't particularly like, which seems so addictive, when I was able to go cold turkey from people I actually loved?

I think that I may have a bad case of XKCD 386: "Someone is wrong on the internet!" There are two pieces, here. The first is that I feel most strongly about responding when this person has either stated things which I believe are counter-factual, or when she makes judgments about my character which I find abhorrent. Again, not my first rodeo. The first, in particular, was very much part of my dad's arsenal. In fact, one of the reasons I gave up on him was because he tried to tell me that I had had a happy childhood. There have been several times where she and I have experienced an event, and her account of it varies significantly from my memories of it. I am somewhat vulnerable to gas lighting because of my own mental health issues. So, I try to keep careful track of situations where my memories and someone else's are at variance. It's a baseline worry of mine, getting the facts wrong. So dealing with someone for whom facts appear to be malleable is especially challenging for me. It takes special effort, and double checking with people whose memories and character I trust, to keep everything straight, especially if there is any stress in the situation. In general, I rely on my conversation partners to help me keep track of what did and didn't happen. And I cannot rely on this person, and I feel a sense of personal betrayal when she misrepresents the facts. (I have done extensive checking with other people who were also present, and they confirm that my memories much more closely track with their own than this person's stated memories.) The thing that is unique, here, is that most of this is happening in public or semi-public fora. Either in person, with other people present, or on LJ. And there we have XKCD 386.

I've talked a bit in previous posts about how we construct reality. How it has a communal nature. What we understand comes not just from our own experiences, but from the information other people give us about their experiences. We know ourselves partly by our reflection in other people. We are partly contingent upon our context. And our community is built out of overlapping and layered contexts. We know oddly complicated things about people, like this person is easy to get along with in small groups but becomes a boor in big groups and that person is likely to tell the truth in ways that hurt feelings even though they don't intend to and this other person rarely talks about their personal life but seems to have a vibrant relationship with their SO and a pretty functional relationship with mostly everybody else and we have detailed models of how these people combine and what kinds of experiences we are likely to have with various combinations. Our understandings of each other both within our community and as individuals is based on an endless amount of fine detail, much of it anecdotal. And when someone lies about me, or about my experiences in public, I get very uncomfortable. I can feel my own grasp of my context and the context of my friends deforming slightly when I read her weird ideas on who did what and why. And I dislike that discomfort enormously. I do worry, sometimes, that people will be led astray by her statements. I should be able to trust my friends to resist making rash judgments based on statements which don't really seem to fit with the rest of the fabric of our reality. Most of the time, I do trust them. I think that usually, it is my own discomfort that I am addressing.

I keep on trying to write a conclusion to this noodle. The problem is that, having identified the problem, I still don't have any particular desire to stop. The satisfactions I get from engaging are sufficient, and the discomfort I get from not engaging is not something I seem to be able to ignore. My preferred solution, that this person stop lying about me and mine on the internet, isn't an available option. I don't get to control other people's behavior.

Comments

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

It would be easy for me to get drawn into correcting the person in question's (POQ's) misapprehensions.

At one time I would have been, but I get the impression that she's done this too widely and has lost credibility with anyone whose opinion I care about, so there's no compelling reason for me to waste my time and energy justifying myself. I've got better things to do.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

See, you are much more sensible than I. I applaud your reasoning.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Engaging in argument with the POQ would be not only unproductive, but giving her what she wants. She's deliberately trying to provoke argument and conflict, trying to get our goats.

I don't think getting what she's after is likely to help her. She's blaming others for a situation for which she's largely responsible. Her defensive responses drive people away and then she complains about how people are against her. Continuing the argument only feeds into that cycle. Plus: waste of time and energy.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I agree entirely that engaging her is giving her what she wants. I have not engaged her for quite a long while now, though it hasn't stopped her from trying to engage me, as recently as within the last week. It's not going to happen.

lydy, is it at all helpful (toward doing what you--it seems to me--know would be best) to recognize that engaging her, answering her, responding to her, gives her what she wants? From the way everything has gone, it appears to me that the one thing she cannot bear is to be ignored. In fact, because this is not a f-locked post, she is probably getting something she wants by reading this.

We are all familiar, I think, with the concept that neglected children often decide that negative attention is better than no attention, and so they act out.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

In many ways, I've stopped worrying about what she wants. Maybe I should care about this, but I don't, quite. At the moment, I'm trying to figure out what I want, and ways to get it. If she also gets what she wants, that seems rather beside the point to me. I have no particular interest in engaging her on most topics. It's just that I get antsy when she makes public and false statements, and I have no patience for being hectored when I can't respond. And so, this. The risk, of course, is that by doing this I am allowing myself to be drawn into the abuse cycle. I can't decide if I'm doing that or not. I hope not, but I could be mistaken. I feel like I am doing this for my own reasons. But, it all gets so tangled and deceptive, doesn't it?

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I understand, please believe, about wanting to correct public false statements and about being hectored when one can't respond. (Been there.) And I have a very strong visceral reaction to people telling me what I think, or that I don't think what I have said I do, etc.--especially, but not exclusively, people who don't really know me.

The only value I see in caring about what the other person wants in such a situation is that one may be letting the person manipulate one, be letting one's buttons be pushed or triggers be...uh...triggered.

At least in this situation there is, as far as I can see, no one in our "community" who has spoken on this at all believes her rather than you (possible exception is the husband, at times). The understanding within our community is that one cannot believe what she says, and that understanding has come from people's firsthand observations and from her own contradictions of herself. Some of the people whom she has attacked are among the most respected and liked members of the community, so people know for themselves whether such attacks are in any way justified or valid. (I am not claiming the status of "among the most respected and liked members" by any means, but I think I am well enough known that there cannot be a single person who would believe I was once a Scientologist!)

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Upon further reflection, there is another important factor which I failed to include, here. The person with whom I am in conflict likes to hector me in fora where I cannot respond. She posts things and then deletes them, excoriates me on her LJ and then bans me, sends me LJ private messages, but blocks my response. I really, really hate that a whole lot. When I asked myself, just now, why the hell I felt it necessary to post this, I realized that it was because I was chafing under this attempt to silence me. I'm saying, "You can't make me shut up, so there." Not the most mature response, I admit. I thought about deleting this, but I actively dislike deleting things one has posted, even if one has made a damn fool of oneself. So, I'm leaving it stand.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I can understand that impulse. I've written responses without sending them just to get the thoughts off my chest.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Yep. The phrase I learned from friends and loved ones is, "I have a delete key and I'm not afraid to use it."

I've developed the habit of removing all addresses from the Send fields at the point I realize my response is getting heated or annoyed enough that I'll need to review it before sending. That ensures I can't accidentally send it with habitual keystrokes.

[soon_lee]

Seems to me that this is bullying behaviour.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

I could be wrong, but I believe that the term "verbal abuse" may also apply.

Splashing

[guppiecat]

I think of this as "splashing in the bathtub". If I'm not in the tub with them, have no plans to get in with them, and don't have to clean it up, it's none of my business.

Sucks for the friends of mine in the bathroom, but I've seen enough to know that anyone there is there by choice.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am not the lydy, so I may be off base here. But in your shoes, I think one of the things that would make this so hard to let go of is that you have stayed friends with the friend in question, and he has not displayed a consistent attitude towards his wife's allegations.

If a random stranger posted something scurrilous like, "lydy is heading up Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign," I think it would be much easier for you to laugh and roll your eyes and think the crucial thing: "No one whose opinion I care about would ever believe that."

But your friend has spent the last year waffling on believing his wife and not, but also still being your friend--so you can't say, "No one whose opinion I care about would ever believe that," because he is still your friend, so you still do care about his opinion.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Yep, I think that is also a significant piece of it, one I missed entirely. Interesting. Thank you.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that there is no real reason for you to disengage before you are ready. The whole tone of your post seems to imply that disengagement is the desirable end (and I see that, especially given the "permanently broken" issue). At the same time, if you don't have any particular desire to stop, why push yourself to stop? You know you have the skills to stop when you're ready, and you're still getting something out of the exchange. Also, I think mrissa is onto something--it might well be that cutting off the wife would feel like cutting off the friend, who is clearly a part of your heart.

All of which is my way of saying, I hope you are cutting yourself some slack around this, and not beating yourself up because you somehow "should" stop.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

You know, I'd be happier if I understood exactly what it is I am getting from all this.

Currently not beating myself up, just noodling away, trying to understand things better so that I can actually get whatever it is I'm trying for and not get a lot of grief as well. Carol, below, posits that I'm working on my own abuse issues, which is almost certainly part of it. But whether I'm trying to make things come right, or just that I'm sensitized to certain behaviors, I'm not certain.

Life, complicated. Bah. Humbug.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Actually, I thought that you were positing that you might be working out residual abuse issues with your father. Otherwise I would not have said anything. But I was pointing out that you might not be the only one working out past experiences. We may have a Perfect Storm here ...

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I am certain that this has to do with my fucking father. Exactly how those pieces fit together is less clear to me. It could be anything from a careful replication of a dysfunctional relationship to an attempt to make things come right this time to an attempt to wreak revenge on a substitute to an especially sensitive spot that seems to want scratching to, you know, some other damn thing I haven't thought of yet.

And yes, this could indeed be a Perfect Storm.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Arghh. Getting tired, reading comprehension less than it could be.

It would be unsurprising if my argument partner is also working on abuse issues of some sort. However, I'm not sure it really matters to my own concerns. My question isn't why she can't let go, but rather, why can't I?

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that you have a good grasp of why you're doing it; since you want to know why you can't stop, I hope that your understanding of why you do it gives you helpful threads to follow to unravel that knotty problem.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Given that this is not f-locked, regarding your discussion of your reactions in this situation possibly being related to your experience with your father I will say only this: humans in general (I try not to say "all," "none," "always," or "never" about humans) tend to keep creating situations that replicate unresolved issues from the past, to try to resolve them. Complicating, or maybe exacerbating, that, humans tend to replicate familiar experiences, even if the experiences are negative, rather than take a risk with something unknown. I think this applies near-universally to the current situation. (Contact me privately if you want more discussion of Carol's two-bit psychology theories.)

[lydy.livejournal.com]

So, I'm trying to win an argument with my father? That wouldn't be the craziest explanation for what's going on.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

Coming back to this later, and I think this is a very good point. There's a certain type of relationship with women that I used to enter into repeatedly, that i realize was trying to replicate my relationship with my mother, but more happily/successfully. I don't do it much these days, but I recognize the shape of it.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Bunches of useful-to-me stuff here, but if I take the time to think more and write now, Jack won't have invitations for his 37th Annual SundayBeforeThanksgiving Brunch, clients won't receive the work I want to send them, an invoice won't get sent today, and I won't get on the road west early tomorrow morning.

All to say: Thanks! Later! Onward, and All That Jazz....

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

This mess hit Walk Away and Take Your Losses a week or three ago.
There's, I don't know whether to call it an idea or an attitude, in Judaism I don't see in Christianity. "Enough" A tiny handful of commandments do not have limits you don't have to go past. You've done your quota by that much, and you can stop now.

If you're not on fora where a flagrant loudmouth with no credibility is shrieking about you . . . so what?

[mle292.livejournal.com]

You're not a harridan, pameladean is not someone who lies by omission, skylarker is not a harpie, and cakmpls is not a Scientologist.

I can imagine why it's frustrating. From everything I've seen, she's spending the social capital of someone that many people care about. It's like you're running a corner grocery store, and someone comes in to spend money that they stole from your grandmother to buy firecrackers and then throw them at your face.

All I can say is that you've got to cut off grandma's money and firecracker supply.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to say that I adore this image so much. It's wonderfully apt.

[skzbrust.livejournal.com]

Probably a useless question, but: Does it feel like an addiction, in the sense of wanting to stop but feeling powerless, or like habituation, in the sense of you getting something you want out of it? I think my distinction won't hold up to close examination, but I hope you can suss out some meaning.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

It does not feel like an addiction. It does not feel compulsive. Mind, I could be mistaken. Instead, I feel that I am having somewhat complex reactions to a difficult situation. There are ways in which I find it stressful and unhappy making, but there are ways in which I feel a certain amount of satisfaction in responding. Sometimes, I feel as if I am carving out a place to stand against a style of bullying before which I have previously been helpless. So, weirdly, sometimes it feels empowering. But, yes, it's complex, and sometimes I do things that are vastly counterproductive. Sorting out what is going on for me has actually been helpful. I'll post more on that after I've done some additional processing.

[iraunink.livejournal.com]

No words of advice, just sending a hug and good wishes your way.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I'd like to thank all of you for your comments and insights. I've been kind of crowd-sourcing this problem, and I have certainly learned some things that helped. I think that Mrissa's comment that I care about what the spouse thinks is very spot on. A lot of the times, when I attempt to correct the record, I realize it's been in the hopes that my friend will see it and have that counterpoint to the pravda his wife gives him. I think that he is somewhat subject to believing her lies, and I hope that the counterpoint to that helps him sort things out correctly.

I realized after soon_lee stated that this sounded like bullying that although I have been comfortable using that term to describe her behavior towards other people, I had somehow missed that it also applied to her behavior towards me. Which, you know, probably says very interesting things about my own emotional and mental acuity. On the other hand, it also instantly became clear that I am responding to her in that context.

I believe that one of the things I have been getting out of these interactions is a sense of empowerment. This is a form of bullying which I have had to tolerate in the past, and felt very helpless in the face of. This round, partly because I have no close ties to the person in question, I have felt free to respond in ways that worked for me. And one of those has been to stubbornly refuse to back down. I don't think I'm actually trying to re-live prior abuse and make it come out right this time. It's possible, but it doesn't feel like that. It feels more like the way one touches a spot that used to be sore, in wonderment that it doesn't hurt anymore. You know, the way you stretch an arm that used to have a restricted range of motion, just enjoying the restoration of that movement? It feels more like that.

Obviously, finding the appropriate balance, avoiding escalating things, making a bad thing worse, is important. Indulging in my sudden and new-found power is fine, but sacrificing other people in this is not. So, complicated. Just like always.

Really, who the hell invented people, anyway, and what the fuck was he thinking?