My boyfriend and I have been together a year and it has been an extremely rocky relationship. My cat, we’ll call him D, began to hate my boyfriend around the time I looked after my mums puppy (the puppy wanted to play with D but D hated the puppy as it would jump on top of him etc, a learning curve for myself. D will never be in that situation again).
But around this time, I had told my boyfriend repeatedly to stop picking D up and stop winding him up etc. My boyfriend has been used to dogs in the past so I brushed it off thinking he meant no harm.
D hasn’t been the same since and this was 4 months ago. He shows his belly to visitors all the time, wants all the belly rubs in the world, but he is a shell of himself while my boyfriend is here.
A few weeks ago, my boyfriend blew his nose at an almighty volume while D was in the bathroom. I think louder than he usually does too. About 30 minutes afterwards I went in and D was cowered in the corner, unresponsive to even me and didn’t want anyone or anything near him. It looked like he was really unwell, acting this way when my boyfriend picked him up in the past too. I said to my boyfriend not to do that while D is in the bathroom, but he didn’t really take it seriously, instead getting a little defensive, saying “he didn’t think”.
He said it was funny when he sneezed, to which I said no it absolutely is not, D was petrified, so my boyfriend changed to saying D’s jump when he sneezed was funny. He then pretended to chase my cat, and my cat bolted away terrified.
But me and my boyfriend recently split up, and D was back to his usual self, even when my boyfriend came back (we split up because he wasn’t working and I paid for everything for the first year, but he has just got a job), until yesterday.
But yesterday, before I went to work, D was purring like mad being the goodest boy. Then I come in from work and D is watching my bf’s every movement, looking absolutely terrified and his spirit, gone. I then noticed scratches on my boyfriends hand, which I have noticed in the past too and bf has brushed it off with a reasonable excuse, like picking berries etc. but this time, he said “I don’t know, I hit my hand off doors and stuff all the time”, I really didn’t believe him though.
My boyfriend is a jealous person and 100% has rage issues. When we argue he will get in my face, insult etc. he has also assaulted a neighbour while drunk across the street, because he kept playing music really loud. The guy is a small guy while my boyfriend is a big guy. I can deal with this because if he did hit me I’d leave immediately, I don’t think he would do that, but I’m not willing to let him terrorise my cat. I don’t believe that he’s hitting my cat, but I do believe he’s winding him up and trying to overpower him or something. I don’t know. He 100% knows winding D up is wrong at this point though. I threw him out yesterday and now he’s making out I’m mentally ill and all sorts of things, I do have issues but he certainly does too. Am I overreacting? Help pls