MrsKnockers81
A bit of a back story: I divorced my ex a little over 9 years ago after 14 years of marriage. I won’t go into the specifics as to why, but suffice it to say he was a lying, cheating jerk.
Early on during the marriage I tended to not be all that assertive until I finally had my fill and grew a backbone. He hated that. He did not like hearing the word “no” from me or in doing things my own way.
So fast forward to a month after we were officially divorced. He was in his new place and I was in my house (formally the house we shared) with our sons, but he still had a ton of his stuff there.
Stuff I didn’t want even though I paid for a lot of it, but stuff I knew he really wanted. He finally reached out and demanded, not asked, demanded I send him his stuff. Just toss it all in boxes and send it over to him. (His exact words.)
Mind you he was only about 10 miles away from me at that point and could’ve easily come over to do it himself. He didn’t want to do that because he’d have to see me. Something he was actively trying not to do.
Cue the MC. Now a lot of what he had were collectibles. No details, but some of it was fairly expensive and fragile. So I did as he asked. Correction, demanded. I tossed it all into numerous boxes.
Now some of the truly expensive items, I did take great care in packing them, only because I knew my sons would probably eventually want them. But for the stuff I knew my ex really wanted and care a lot about, nah. I just tossed it all in a box without a care in the world.
Now I did inspect everything and, while I just dumped them in boxes, nothing was damaged by me. I also took pictures of it to prove it. So once I closed them all up, I told him to either to get himself over to pick it up or get someone to do it for him. He got someone to do it.
Now I was not at the house when this person picked everything up, but my sons and sister were. They did not know how everything was packed. They only showed him the boxes.
They told me that the person who picked up the boxes quite literally just tossed them into the back of his pick-up without a care in the world and then sped away. Later that night I got a call from my ex who started calling me a b-word for destroying all his stuff. I told him that everything was fine before I closed the boxes up and I had proof of it.
I then said that maybe next time be a bit nicer to me when making “requests” and reminded him he demanded I that I “toss it all in boxes”, but he didn’t tell me to be gentle in doing so. I hung up on him and proceeded to enjoy my celebratory glass of wine that evening hoping that he was enjoying the shattered remains.
dragonchilde
Now this is a truly malicious compliance. Spirit ignored, letter conformed. :) Well done!
MadamePouleMontreal
Spirit conformed too. Ex’s spirit was that this was a low-effort request and that OP could easily just do it without thought. If Ex had acknowledged they were asking OP for a lot of work—acknowledged to themselves and to OP—the interaction would have gone quite differently.
Since the spirit and the letter were both that this was a low-effort request, OP put in low effort. What Ex secretly wanted was for OP to be a saintly mind reader and to voluntarily put in a large amount of effort that would never need to be acknowledged.
It’s very possible that the marriage had involved lots of Ex secretly wanting things and not communicating them directly, and lots of OP accommodating them without acknowledgement.
Now that they are no longer married, OP no longer needs to play that toxic game. Secret desires aside, the spirit of the request was that OP would not be putting much effort in. So they didn’t.
Osmiant
Perfection *chef's kiss.
itsmepcandi
Copied from a response directly to op - I would stop responding to the abuse sympathizers. U dont have to defend urself. U did nothing wrong and did as he asked. This sub is called malicious COMPLIANCE. Which means u did what they asked.
Ur responses look like trauma responses. IMO. As u (at this time) have only responded to them and not to any of the people who validated ur actions. U did right. Stop responding defending urself and start responding to hype urself up as the wine did.
Wiechu
As a dude - i totally support this. There is this thing 'could you please' and although I'm Polish and my GF literally admitted she uses a filter on me being blunt, I would rather use the 'pretty please' in this situation. For the record, if somebody is wondering: GF is Australian and proper etiquette is a thing for them. I am Polish and not exactly good at taking hints.
We have a very loving relationship and while I learned to treat 'dragging a bit' as 'I am not doing well at all' she learned that Polish is very minimalistic and I sometimes sound like I give her orders which I absolutely do not (e.g. 'send this to Dad' in Polish is considered an encouragement while in English it is considered an order). And yeah, communication and explaining it is the key :) we are still happy together :)