I am violent with my life partner. I rage. I don't mean to. He lies to me. Intentionally triggers and gaslights me. Plays dumb; his jedi mind tricks he once called them then gaslit me about that ever since. He lied about having a warrant in order to control me and make me think I was going to get arrested. Lied about having HIV for the same reason. I shouldn't be violent with him but I'm schizoaffective n autistic. I lose my shit. I always apologize; he never has. Some of this is bullshit! And some of it is Karma. He told his father I touched him inappropriately. I thought he was going to tell the cops I molested him, as he made me accept that he was going to. I'm not a violent person naturally. I have freak outs where I am overwhelmed and I become highly dysregulated. I've been hospitalized a lot for it. It drives me nuts he does this, and he continues to do it, under the pretense that it is strengthening my prefrontal cortex. I just want the person who loves me, who I originally met. He's changed; he's using me. I changed; I've grown. It never ends. Something has got to give...
The real gaslighting here is how he has convinced you that your defense is violence so that you judge yourself for it and forever believe you deserve the pain his love brings. That is how he binds you. Freedom is sweetest when experienced by someone like you, but you cannot and will not see that from under his shadow.
I have been genuinely and incorrectly violent; I definitely have done regretful things. I feel I have no recourse and he is leading us into homelessness again. He literally has willpower of a monk and he uses it for what I think he thinks is making me better able to resist my anger, but he absolutely also has some mental illness, and there are times some of the things he does hurt, severely, emotionally. I've whacked him with a pan and broke his guitar. He's straight up let me believe a lie that radically changed my behavior for months, to both our detriment because he saw "value" in it. He CANNOT take responsibility for anything, and refuses to see any professional. I have grown my agency because of him. It was not worth the amount I've cried.
You do know that partners are optional, right? This sounds like a broken relationship to me, though maybe you left out the reasons you stay together.
My SO has bipolar 1 with psychotic features (she hears voices, sees fractals constantly, and has had multiple full-blown delusions departed from reality), ADHD, and to top it off, is an addict and recovering alcoholic.
A week into our relationship (in 2017), I was ready to walk as I was being gaslit to believe that I had cheated on her by having my female supervisor's phone number in my phone. By the time I was at the door with my things, she realized the delusion wasn't real, and she apologized.
Things like this pop up from time to time. Our pretty next door neighbor suddenly must be my secret girlfriend. The reason I'm buying new clothes is to impress girls. Etc., etc.
The thing is, each time these delusions (or any symptoms that manifest in an adversarial way to me) take hold, there is an understanding that I am not required to bring her back to reality. I have to take care of me first.
Fortunately, I'm a romantic sap, and she credits me with a sort of magic that I can knock her out of weeks-long delusions with a few words and my pure innocence. But she always remembers that day I was about to walk. She knows I am always willing to walk from that stuuf. Not as an open threat. As a reminder that my mental health is my number one priority.
If she was doing what your partner does to you, she would hate herself. We work because we care. We fuck up and hurt each other sometimes, but the core premise of this relationship is caring, patience and communication.
If the base of your relationship is deceit and control, you may not ever feel safe enough to take care of your partner's needs.
Just consider that its possible that this relationship you're in isn't doing you any favors. You can always end relationships if they aren't healthy.
(HUGZ)
I UNDERSTAND what it sounds like. You would need to read my book to understand the full bredth of our circumstances, which include me being BOTH schizoaffective AND the guy that told his ROTC cadre that his nonexistent sister got him pregnant. Yea, he only interned with the CIA when he attended RIT, so he's deliberately being impossible so I am forced to meet my tentative mother-in-law in secret because we cannot tell if he has gone overboard with the Buddhism or if this is advanced psychosis.
Regardless, he seems to indicate he wants to go on a two hundred mile death excursion to a monastary, on foot, with his already difficult vows, so there's karmic impetus to try to help him; the help being directly something that is conditioning me out of my traumas and maladaptations to meet him where he is and help a man with thought disorders. Even if this sweet, compassionate man is lying through his teeth to me (and he does at times), helping him as he is helps me in my bigger picture goals of maybe being of use to society besides being this on the internet.
I can be other things too! I think.