Sorry this is a long post but I need help. If you don't know what DARVO is it's a strategy of abuse and it stands for "Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender." Google it to familiarise yourself.

My partner(21M) of almost 2 years and I(21F) were both playing Overwatch last night. We don't often play together because we would rather spend time with each other irl but last night we couldn't meet up so we decided to just play and chat online on Discord.

Near the end of a particularly long game (20 mins in) my internet died. It took me 5 mins to get back into the game and by that time we were about to lose due to my absence. We lost. I got mildly annoyed due to this. I wanted to keep my rank up in game because I've played in eSports tournaments in the past and would like to do so in the future so losing skill rating due to my internet connection was annoying. Additionally I was just frustrated because my PC has been acting up a lot lately. It has caused me to disconnect from my university Zoom meetings and as a student with basically no income atm due to the pandemic I have neither the time nor the money to worry about having to fix the problem.

So in voice chat I said something like "Urgh this is so annoying. We could have won that. What's going on with my computer - what's causing this?" I wasn't shouting or anything I was just expressing some mild annoyance. I was probably just going to say this for a minute or two and then leave it.

Meanwhile my partner is practically shouting at me "Oh my god RELAX, RELAX". And said this 2-3 times. NOW I was a bit upset. I was just expressing some frustration and he starts yelling at me to relax. I found this to be quite rude. So I went silent for a few mins so I could "relax" a bit and so I could just type into Google the problem I was having with my computer. He then got annoyed with me for not speaking and mumbled "god sorry but if you're not going to talk to me just leave!!!" So I said "Alright I'm going to come off then. Bye, talk to you later."

He then messages me a minute later "Thanks that was so much fun" (obviously sarcastic). And I replied saying "look you told me to relax and to leave so I did just that so I wouldn't be in a bad mood. I wasn't even that annoyed until you started shouting at me to relax."

He then somehow managed to turn me into the bad guy. This is where I think he was trying to DARVO. He said if I had "just accepted his (completely half assed) apology then it would be back to normal."

Other things he told me:

  • "You're just so unfair on me every time."

  • "Was me saying relax worth not talking to me for a few minutes and angrily leaving and staying still mad afterwards " (??? He told me to leave)

  • "maybe I don't want to sit and listen to you get angry" (but I've had to sit and listen to him get angry countless times - not that I was even angry in the first place before he started yelling)

  • "Wow you're right as always. Always my fault. Just accept some responsibility for once"

  • "Sure maybe I could have said something other than relax but you massively overreacted"

  • "You have treated me unjustly in the aftermath"

  • "You never say sorry. I'm mad. This is bullshit."

So of course I apologized although I'm not sure I actually did anything wrong. I tried to message him this morning asking how he was and making conversation but he's given one word replies and left me on read, apart from one message he sent saying "in case you haven't noticed I'm still mad." Of course he didn't ask how I am this morning 🙄

I previously thought he was a HVM but I'm starting to doubt this now. I can no longer deny he has a tendency to make things about himself if he has done something wrong. There have been so many instances where he did something to hurt me and somehow I had to apologise to HIM.