Your sponsor is right. I had to work really really hard for a long period of time to only take responsibility for things I did or said. To get that product (not saying or doing offensive or hurtful or rude things), I had to not engage with him.
When I didn't engage, he got meaner and nastier and more angry at me. And by then, I knew that I was not the one who had started the argument or fed the argument or kept it going.
His nastiness just kind of stood out like an island in an otherwise placid sea, and that helped me see what was really going on in our relationship.