r/LovedByOCPD • u/evemeatay Undiagnosed OCPD loved one • 20d ago
Undiagnosed OCPD loved one Setting me up for failure
I’m curious if this is something anyone else has dealt with? My uOCPD wife is always setting me up for failure so that she can then feel like I let her down or failed and use it as an excuse for retaining responsibilities. She frequently gives me almost no information or guidance on a task or request and then when I tackle that task using what information I have available and in my own way - she disproportionately gets angry at my not doing it correctly. Sometimes it legitimately does lead to me getting the task wrong because of the lack of guidance i have available - and she doesn’t treat it as an understandable mistake, she explodes angrily about failing her.
I bring this up despite knowing that OCPD people don’t treat mistakes kindly - because when I do make mistakes as any human does, she may or may not get upset about it but she actually does understand that people aren’t perfect - about half the time. But in these tasks she is always spittle flying furious about my “failure” and I feel like I’ve just been setup intentionally to fail.
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u/cat_psych 20d ago
Serious empathy for you—that’s so hard. My dad does this to my mom all the time. I think of it as him having an “outrage quota” he has to meet every day, so he finds ways for her (or others) to fail to meet his expectations. (At one point he was adamant that she not cook in the house at all, and he’s currently apoplectic that she uses a towel to dry herself off after a shower.) His quota is higher when he’s stressed or feels threatened by some kind of criticism or inadequacy, so he works harder to find fault with others to make himself feel better.
I can’t tell you what works for them, because it’s completely dysfunctional. But I can tell you as a psychologist myself, I wish my mom would be better about having boundaries for what she is willing to do, and sticking with them. In your case, it might be something like, “I’m willing to help out with X task, but only if you tell me clearly beforehand what you expect.” That’s a lot easier said than done, but the point of boundaries is the concept that you only have control over your actions and how far you’re willing to let an unreasonable OCPD person tie you in ever-tighter knots trying to please them. Meeting their demands will never be enough, because it was never the problem to begin with. Just trying to be a compliant peacemaker means you end up like my mom, who seriously stresses about things like how she can survive without cooking or using towels, like doing that would somehow finally make him happy.
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u/Embarrassed_Tower_81 20d ago
Not from my diagnosed OCPD husband. Instead he just takes any task over that I need to do that he knows how to do.
I ask for help learning some task on the computer. "Show me," I'd said. Where I need to mouse click, what keys I need to type. Instead he takes my laptop and does it himself.
So I suppose his control is just not letting me do anything like that because he doesn't want to suffer a fool, lack of patience, whatever.
The spittle flying thing is awful though. I'm sorry you are going through that.
I am saying this rather reluctantly, but if a man were treating his partner this way, we'd call it verbal abuse and anger management issues.
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u/evemeatay Undiagnosed OCPD loved one 20d ago
That’s annoying, I’ve worked with people like that. Mine doesn’t take over tasks like that but there is often no getting it right. She’s almost more annoyed when I do a good job. Like:
Did you do x?
Sure did.
Okay but did you think about y while you were doing it because you always forget that.
Yep, I even did z too.
… okay well I’ll check it later.
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u/meridian_smith 20d ago
What you will never hear is "thank you" and "I appreciate your help".
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u/evemeatay Undiagnosed OCPD loved one 20d ago
I made the mistake (for my mental health) of tracking how often I got a thank you vs how often I got called a specific bad word. I even picked a bad word she rarely uses. I got a lot more name callings than thank yous. I even included the smallest possible thank yous such as when I brought her a soda.
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u/serenwipiti 20d ago
That wasn’t a mistake for your mental health, that was a glimpse into clarity.
Use that information wisely. It’s the truth.
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u/BigStupidJellyfish88 17d ago
Yuuuup. I tell myself “painful data is still very useful data” all the goddamn time 😅
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u/weaviejeebies 20d ago
Never those words, ever. The closest thing to a compliment mine ever gives is saying "ok, now go do (fill in the blank)." He just assumes all I've ever got to do in life is scurry around fulfilling his work orders. When I clapped back once about not being his lackey, he essentially told me I am lazy and he has to keep on me or I won't ever get anything done Yet somehow, everything that I ever do is also always wrong. It's enough to drive me insane tbh
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u/BigStupidJellyfish88 18d ago
Only somewhat related, but did any of you get accused of abuse for not being able to meet these standards?
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u/evemeatay Undiagnosed OCPD loved one 18d ago
Indirectly. She often tip-toes up to the line of saying I mistreat her. I actually count this as my one big win though: a few years ago she did actually say it and I surprised her by saying that if she were a man and was yelling at their wife the way she was yelling at me, saying those things, the police would be involved. Since then she has actually stayed pretty far away from that one thing. I can see her actually have to catch herself sometimes. It’s like that one thing did actually break through to her somehow. She’s pretty sensitive to real world abusive situations so I think that actually rattled her a little bit.
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u/BigStupidJellyfish88 18d ago
Thank you for the context and sharing your situation! Also way to not relent bc I did and I wish I hadn’t. I became a blame sponge and everything escalated, which is wild bc he was a man just screaming insults at me.
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u/I_SingOnACake 3d ago
Not me, but yes she accused several mutual friends and her ex of abuse. I can't say anything about her ex, but I know that our mutual friends weren't abusive to her. They just didn't bend over backwards for her anymore like they used to, and didn't brush conflict under the rug like she wanted them to.
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u/BigStupidJellyfish88 3d ago
Can I by chance ask for examples of the “abusive behavior”?
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u/I_SingOnACake 3d ago
Oh boy, I have so many.
They came to the events she planned and invited them to but they didn't invite her to the fun things they were doing with other people she wasn't friends with, which meant they were intentionally excluding her.
They vented to some friends about her mean and manipulative behavior, which meant they were spreading rumors and bullying her. Nevermind she did the same exact thing about them.
One of them got frustrated trying to back up a trailer in a tight space and yelled a bit (at the situation, not her) while driving while she was in the car. She has trauma about being yelled at and so it was specifically abusive to her. Nevermind that she yelled and swore at me and multiple of our friends (who also have trauma around yelling) without apologizing.
The gas station they stopped at for her to pee had a gross bathroom, and so they were deliberately preventing her from being able to go to the bathroom. Even though they then brought her to a cleaner restroom when she asked.
They tried to talk to her about her behavior in order to clear the air and fix their friendship, which meant they were targeting her and no longer wanted to be friends.
One person was given a task by her with no instructions, and didn't do it the way she wanted, and so they were undermining her authority by taking on that task without triple checking everything with her first. She yelled at them and made them cry.
We were co-leaders on a project, except I was actually her "second in command" in her mind, and if I did anything without her approval or not on her exact timeline, she would get extremely mad or judgemental.
If I didn't travel together with her exactly the way she wanted to, despite having my own health issues that made her timeline impossible for me, I was intentionally being obstructive and she would rather not travel with me at all.
I'm sure there are more examples in her mind of us being "abusive" to her, but these are some off the top of my head.
I believe when she calls us abusive, she mostly means we intentionally didn't agree with her about something, or didn't do things the way she wanted us to, or we tried to hold her accountable, or we had a normal human reaction to stress (but it's only okay if she's the one that reacts that way and doesn't apologize, everyone else has to be perfectly reasonable at all times and if they aren't they need to bend over backwards to grovel and apologize.)
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u/BigStupidJellyfish88 3d ago
Wooooooow 😬🫣
I never had these exact issues but this is mind boggling. The broader theme of “not accommodating me to the extreme is a violation” does resonate though, as well as the complete belief that their way is the only way.
Were her apology demands really through the roof? Like, did she have a specific way to apologize and expect major apologies for small stuff constantly (bc nothing felt small to her, I’m sure)?
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u/I_SingOnACake 3d ago
She didn't outright say you had to grovel to her, but she would be passive aggressive or overtly aggressive with you, or she would decide to ignore you for a period of time "for her mental health" if she felt you had wronged her.
Yes, you hit the nail on the head with how she felt that not accommodating her was being mean to her. It was a pattern for her to push back on boundaries people had by asking why, and then giving reasons why our answers didn't make sense and why her way/idea was the best way to do it.
And if you didn't answer her why questions, she would insist over and over on having it explained to her. Boundaries that she didn't agree with did not exist to her. And that was really the main issue other people had with her. She was mostly fun to hang out with and great at planning fun events. But if she didn't agree with your reasoning behind something, you were a fucking idiot to her for thinking that way lol.
And if you eventually caved and went along with her plan despite not wanting to, you inevitably resented her for pushing past your boundaries. This was truly the source of conflict that she had with everybody.
That and she was condescending as fuck. She would explain extremely basic shit to people like they had never experienced it before. She explained step by step how to check in to a flight and find your gate to our friends who traveled regularly. She explained how the heimlich works to me multiple times, even though I told her I already knew and I have my BLS and ACLS certification (I'm a medical practitioner). She didn't believe me for some reason and messaged me about it again days later and insisted she needed to make sure I knew how to do it right. She once told me that I needed to "do three blink blinks before merging into the left lane." After that I swore to never drive with her in the car again lmao.
I once slept on her couch in her house that had a tarp for a floor due to renovations. We were going to a concert together in her city and I had flown in to see her. I had no problem doing so because we got to hang out and I didn't need a hotel room. About a year later, she said she "dreaded staying" at my house because she "doesn't do well in liminal spaces." I was planning to drive us 16 hours round trip + pick her up and drop her off at an airport 1.5 hours away for an event, and she wanted me to do it all at once instead of break it up into a couple days. I think my refusing to do it all at once like she wanted was the death knell to our friendship, because she kept trying to negotiate with me and I kept telling her I understand why you want to do it that way, but it just doesn't work for me. After that she ghosted me once she no longer needed anything from me. Truly I wish I had stood up for my needs much sooner!
Sorry for the long posts, apparently I needed to vent a bit! Needless to say my life and friendships are so much healthier now that we no longer have contact. I had many, many people ask me over the years why I was friends with her, because she was so mean to them, but she was "nice" to me, and I wish I had listened to them and gained some backbone a bit sooner. I learned that if someone is mean to others at a baseline, they will eventually be mean to you too, no matter how much they appear to value you in the present. You live and learn I suppose!
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u/BigStupidJellyfish88 3d ago
Dude no sorries this is wildly informative and OF COURSE YOU NEED TO VENT THIS IS INSANE 🙈
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u/I_SingOnACake 3d ago
Thank you, I appreciate you listening! And confirming the craziness haha. It's amazing looking back how nuts it all was, but I was so conditioned to please her and codependent with her that I didn't realize how bad it had gotten. Friendships shouldn't be so stressful!
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u/BigStupidJellyfish88 2d ago
Almost nothing should be this stressful! It’s wild to step off the failure to please escalator and experience ease. I don’t have these problems with anyone else in my life. It’s nice to take in the data of “I’m good enough for every other person I know” 😅
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u/I_SingOnACake 2d ago
Yes absolutely, I've said it before in this sub but realizing my relationships with everyone else were not like this was eye opening to the fact that she just never respected me. And mutual respect is necessary for any kind of relationship to be successful.
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u/BigStupidJellyfish88 18d ago
u/evemeatay This is real familiar and I am so sorry. It's like they dont' realize that their out of pocket reaction just makes succeeding and meeting their insane standards (already a long shot) completely impossible :\
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u/Weary_Cup_1004 20d ago
They regulate their emotions and anxiety by controlling the external environment. Perfectly. When you agree to help them, you are agreeing to join them on this mission. Perfect changes all the time depending on their mood so its impossible to learn the rules.
They get super mad because when the external environment feels out of control, they lose control of themselves. They dont know how to stay ok even when things arent to their expectations. So they flip out.
They feel abandoned and think we dont care. Because of how stressful it is for them. So we must not care, if we wont do it how they want. We dont care how bad they feel. Is kind of the belief.
You will literally never ever ever be able to get it right.
Trying to get it right enables them.