Deactivate Other Incompatible Plugin Upon Activation

Question

I'm building two mutually incompatible plugins. When either one is activated, the other must be deactivated. I'm using the code below to accomplish this.

It works fine the first time I upload and activate the second plugin, but if I try to activate the inactive plugin in the admin panel, it just deactivates both plugins. (Though I get a confirmation message saying "plugin activated." Liars!) I am then able to activate either one of the two plugins.

Any ideas what the problem is?

function deactivate_other_plugin() {
    if( is_plugin_active('plugin_folder/plugin_file.php') ) {
    deactivate_plugins('plugin_folder/plugin_file.php');    
    }
}
add_action( 'admin_init', array( $this, 'deactivate_other_plugin' ) );

Answer 1

Ok, based on the comments, I decided to just prevent activation and send an admin notice instead.

add_action( 'admin_notices', 'lsmi_admin_notice' );
add_action( 'network_admin_notices', 'lsmi_admin_notice' );
function lsmi_admin_notice() {
    if( class_exists ( 'Location_Specific_Menu_Items_By_City' ) ){
        global $pagenow;
        if( $pagenow == 'plugins.php' ){
            deactivate_plugins ( 'lsmi-by-country/LSMI_Country.php' );
            if ( current_user_can( 'install_plugins' ) ) {
                echo '<div id="error" class="error notice is-dismissible"><p>Error. Please deactivate LSMI by City first and try again.</div>';
            }
        }
    }
}