Is Your Partner a 'DUDD'?

POV:

You've had a really busy day, Mumming, running errands, working, whatever. The house is in a bit of a state because you haven't had time to tidy it up and your partner comes home. You feel a little 'guug' in your throat as he pulls into the driveway. He comes in and goes to the kitchen, which is kind of a mess, and he starts tidying up loudly and sighing. He's banging pots and clanking things so loud that it kind of seems like he's doing it on purpose....

You find yourself tidying up the lounge quickly, you're walking on egg shells and thinking carefully about what you're going to say to deescalate his mood so he doesn't get pissed off.

That.... my lovely, is what I call a DUDD partner. 

Right... what's a DUDD partner you say? Well, besides the obvious it's this...

DUDD stands for:

D - Distorts reality, conversations and events. He twists what happened, denies things he said, rewrites the story or changes the facts. He might say things like "you're imagining things, remembered it wrong, made it up" etc.
U - Undermines you, your sense of self, your value, your wisdom, your opinion. He consistently chips away at your confidence.
D - Dictates without ever directly telling you that you “can't” do something. His moods, anger, guilt, sulking, intimidation or the consequences that follow teach you what will happen if you don't do what he wants, so you start changing your behaviour to avoid his reaction.
D - Diverts blame and responsibility away from himself and back onto you. Like... all the time. 

You can explain the loud kitchen tidying away quite easily. And in an isolated event, it's not a big deal..."He's had a bad day at work" or "His mental health isn't great at the moment" or "Oh that's just his ADHD". An isolated event like this, I get it. Dick move to tidy up loudly to make your partner feel bad but ok if it's a one off.... kind of but not really. 

But it's not a one off is it? Let’s look at some more examples of how you may be explaining your 'DUDD' partner's behaviour away...

“He does seem to pick fights a bit, his Dad’s the same, I think it’s just a personality trait” or ”We're both just stubborn, neither of us is good at communicating”.
Except he's not communicating to sort it out, he’s arguing to win. You are not an equal partner whose opinion he respects, you're an opponent to be worn down. And notice nothing ever actually gets solved? It just goes round and round in a circle, until you're too tired to hold the point, so you give in and maybe even apologise just so it’s over. He is arguing to win, not to solve.

"He's not really into my friends, so it's just easier to stay home". But it wasn’t like that initially, he came to that conclusion over time, it was a sigh about this one. A bad mood after coffee with that one. A comment about your sister that made the next visit more trouble than it was worth. Maybe he makes a drama every single time you go to see your friends or family. “Your Gym sounds shit, you should just go to mine, yours is too expensive”. This is intentional and it's called isolation. 

"I know I can be a lot, I probably brought it up the wrong way." A lot of what? A lot of not wanting to be spoken to meanly? A lot of trying to hold him accountable for the mean things he’s done? A lot of wanting a fair relationship and fair social time? A lot of wanting a holiday or special event to go smoothly without him causing any drama? Because from where I’m standing, that's not a lot, that’s bare minimum. You are not ‘a lot’ you are not ‘too emotional’ or ‘overreacting’ you are just bringing things up that have upset you and within minutes the problem is turned around to be about YOU. It’s now YOUR issue, and it probably ends with you apologising so next time you stay quiet. That’s intentional and it’s called blame shifting.

“He's not good in the kitchen, he can't even use the air fryer”. Except he’d learn to use one in 2 mins flat if he had to for work right? And he runs a whole department at work, he remembers clients' names, deadlines, building code and every grudge from 2019. But the dishwasher, the air fryer? Far too hard to use. And interestingly he only doesn't know how to operate something when the result benefits you. That is intentional and that is called weaponised incompetence. Do it badly enough times, and he never gets asked again.

The WILDEST thing about having a partner like this:

Is that you (or your Mum, Friend, sister etc) can explain each of these situations away, quite easily. And in isolation, they’re not a big deal. But… the problem is, they’re not in isolation. No, they're not. They’re a pattern, a cycle. A regular up and down, push you away, pull you back in dynamic. Create an argument or blame you for something to push you away and make you feel bad, and then love bomb you back in. Sometimes within a matter of minutes, although he may drag something out to make you feel bad for days on end. Have you ever had a bad argument one night and then he wakes up in the morning and acts like it didn’t even happen? Yep. That’s a DUDD partner.

Ok this one is perhaps the most common:

"He can't really help it, it's his ADHD. His mental health's been rough." Last time I checked having ADHD / Anxiety / Neurodiversity / Bad Mental Health doesn't give anyone permission to be an asshole, to pick fights, to bring his partner down, instead of lifting her up. None of these things give someone permission to create drama, upset their partner, and then love bomb them back again. Over and over again.

There are people with ADHD, Bipolar, autism specrtum disorder etc that deal with challenging mental health every single day and they still consistently choose to be a good person. Sure, they have bad days, but they can take accountability, apologise and still choose to lift people up, listen to understand, and be kind. Using 'bad mental health' to excuse a partner's pattern of bad behaviour is absolute BS, it does nothing but enable him to continue.

NO WOMAN wants to accept that they have a DUDD partner. I didn't. 

I call it DUDD because it's easy to explain and demonstrate, but there is actually a technical name for what you are likely experiencing:

If he is arguing to win not to solve, if he is isolating you, blame-shifting, weaponising his incompetence so everything lands on you, using his 'mental health' to excuse his behaviour, monitoring you (your phone, your emails, your location etc) if he is gaslighting you, "No I didn't say that, you're making it up," if he makes you ‘earn’ time away from the home, if he is doing some or all of those things, then there is a very high chance that you are experiencing something called Coercive Control.

It's can be hard to get your head around what coercive control actually is, (which is why I call it a DUDD) because it covers a lot but here is a good definition:

"Coercive control is a repeated pattern of behaviour that makes you change what you say, do, wear, spend, who you see or how you live because you've learned there will be consequences if you don't."

So... is your partner a DUDD?

I'm not talking about a partner who has a bad day and says something mean.

I'm talking about a pattern.

Does he DISTORT what happened and make you question your own version of events?

Does he UNDERMINE you, your confidence, your relationships, your opinions or your sense of who you are?

Does he DICTATE what you do without actually telling you what to do? So you change your behaviour and what you do, just to keep the peace?

Does he DIVERT the blame back onto you, so conversations about something he's done somehow end with YOU apologising? How much of your life are you changing to manage his reactions?

I spent years explaining things away. Looking at each incident individually instead of standing far enough back to see the pattern. I wished I had noticed earlier. If you're not sure, start taking notice of what he does. 

Notice what happens when you say no.

Notice what happens when you disagree.

Notice what happens when you make plans without him.

Notice what happens when you hold him accountable.

Notice what happens when you do something he doesn't like.

And most importantly, notice how much of what you do is designed around preventing what he might do.

If you think your partner might be a DUDD and you're struggling to understand his behaviour, join the club! Your partner doesn't need a label, but you do need support from people who actually understand what you're dealing with. 

That's exactly why I created the SJ Collective, a private membership for women navigating DUDD partners and ex-partners.

Come join us. We get it. ❤️