All of this is fascinating, unpacking the why behind a relationship dynamic or uncovering motivations, but it is a lie. You’ll feel like you are Solving The Problem, but all it does is give you more information; information you’ll bring to your your significant other’s attention, hoping they’ll be as interested and amazed by these revelations as you are. But they won’t.
People can change, but you can’t change people. More information won’t help you because all information your ‘partner’ receives is filtered through their perspective, which is fundamentally dedicated to protecting his or her sense of self.
And knowing the problem, knowing how to solve the problem, and implementing that solution are three different things which are challenging in their own ways. Figuring out the why helps in identifying the problem, but it doesn’t do anything on its own, yet it provides a potentially false feeling of accomplishment and progress.
The only thing you can control is yourself and your responses, your ability to set boundaries or walk away.
It is appallingly easy for unsafe people to believe that someone else is the problem, that they are ‘making’ them mad, or ‘choosing’ to be defiant. Hostile attribution bias is the number one predictor for abusive relationships, and it is also a cognitive distortion. You can’t change someone’s cognitive distortions, you can only challenge them, and that is incredibly dangerous with an abuser.
To define and categorize and plan and implement solutions is one coping mechanism for dealing with an abusive experience, but the truth is that there is nothing someone can do to solve their ‘partner’. ‘Helping’ them is a form of trying to change them. You have to accept that this (unsafe) person is who they are – not as they could be, or should be, or might be – and then make your decisions based on that.