Angry/abusive partner - how can I help him??

[somethingamusing]

DP has huge anger issues and it either gets sorted out or I have to walk away...

I don't really know where to start, please bear with me.

DP and I are madly in love and generally very happy and planning the rest of our lives together. He honestly is a lovely, kind hearted man who would do anything for me.
However.... he can't cope with any disagreements or arguments, he just gets so angry and is incapable of having a reasonable discussion about anything. Usually this ends up with an evening/day of silence and sitting in separate rooms. On the worst occasions though, he will say the most hurtful things to me, attacking my insecurities and making me feel awful about myself and our relationship. Whenever he calms down (whether its later that day or the next day) he will apologise and break down in tears and tell me he doesn't mean any of it he is just saying anything he knows will hurt me and he doesn't know why he does it and he can't stop himself at that time. I do believe him that he doesn't actually mean what comes out of his mouth - often he doesn't remember some of the things he said and some of it is just so farfetched.

I know most of you lovely lot will tell me to leave him and I can understand that. But I don't want to and I won't over this. I want to help him.

He has had a very difficult life due to a number of reasons mainly his parents and his upbringing (I can't disclose details but it really is shocking and sad). He has never confronted any of his demons and I know this is what has caused all of this pent up anger. On the rare occasion he has opened up about this he admits he needs help. I have gotten fairly close with his older sister and she tells me that he has had this problem for as long as she can remember.

And this is where I need your help - what can I do? I think he needs some form of counselling/anger management but how do I go about doing that? He would respond much better if I approached him and said 'here, this is what you need to do and this is what happens' rather than 'you need to get help' iyswim. Do I go to a GP? Or are there any organisations? Do you have to pay for counselling (not a problem if so)?

Thanking you all in advance.

"On the worst occasions though, he will say the most hurtful things to me, attacking my insecurities and making me feel awful about myself and our relationship. Whenever he calms down (whether its later that day or the next day) he will apologise and break down in tears and tell me he doesn't mean any of it he is just saying anything he knows will hurt me and he doesn't know why he does it and he can't stop himself at that time"

At no point does the OP say he "boo hoos" and tried to excuse his behaviour by mentioning his past.

The OP could have been describing me, The vitriol would just spill from my mouth, totally undermining and hurting my poor DP. It has damaged him, im sure of it but i too, just could not stop, i would even be screaming at myself as i saw my DPs face crumble under the torrents of abuse, i couldnt stop because by hurting him, i was ultimately hurting myself. It makes me feel physically sick to think that i did this, but i recognise myself in that paragraph. I don't do this anymore, sometimes I can feel myself "going off on one" but i am able to stop myself, it took me yers to get on top of that.

Does that make me a bastard? Not worth helping? Was my DPs self esteem worth more than mine? It wasn't worth less and i was so so wrong - thankfully he stayed with me and we are happy together again.

It took me the best part of two years to get help, the PND wasn't diagnosed until DD was 2, in that time i had attacked my DP with a knife, scalded him in the shower and almost sent him mad himself..

Perhaps he should have just left me!

rootypig - ok go on then, humour me and diagnose that ops new boyfriend suffers from pnd.

Well, to be blunt LEM, had you not been the mother of his child, and had you not just given birth, he may well have left you.

And to be more blunt, had you behaved like this for no apparent reason, other than it being you, and he got to know you as a ranting venom filled biatch, he probably would have! And had he been my friend, I would have told him to leave you to the professionals to sort out!

LEM - did you ever follow up your abuse with a day of silence and sitting in separate rooms? I bet not.

That is controlling behaviour. And as people have said on here many times, when someone is telling you who they are, listen

Kiri no i didnt i reckon he wished i did!

I think you are very brave to come on here and admit that LEM.

Having said that, if I was a friend then yes, I would be advising him to leave. No-one deserves to be treated like that.

What a refreshing title to the thread, and good for you op for wanting to help your Dp not just walk away. I really hope you can find some anger management and counselling that helps.

I don't think it is really necessary to decide in how far your dp is to blame for his behaviour.

The only things that matter are:

it is unacceptable and has to change if your relationship is to have any future

he has to take steps to sort it, not you

I would have thought some starting points would be:

he finds out about anger management and accesses it

he revises his life and thinks about managing any stress points (I;d definitely agree with earlier poster that managing alcohol and caffeine intake is essential)

he thinks seriously about accessing counselling for past traumas

he works out a plan for how he is to manage it when he feels himself slipping- whether to walk away or something else; maybe even an agreed sign that means he can walk away without you getting upset; maybe talking to you in advance when he feels a bad time coming on

however this has to be a technique that cannot be perceived as intimidating by you

nor can it be something like an agreed sign that means you are expected to change your behaviour so as not to irritate him

it must be firmly agreed that you are talking about his problems here and that he is responsible

My stbxh was emotionally cold, distant, hurtful, insulting, controlling for 15 years. He went for some counselling, it was speculated that he may be on the autistic spectrum, we read books about how to manage a relationship between 2 such very different people, but essentially he had shut down his ability to 'feel' after a bereavement at a fairly young age and was told that he may be able to open up, but only with a lot of counselling etc.

In the meantime our children and I were still bearing the brunt of his upsetting behaviour. I ended it, he hasn't had any therapy/counselling etc as he is quite happy being who he is now. He doesn't see any need to be any other way and would only have been changing for my benefit. He's much better with the DCs now that he doesn't have to try to be 'better' for my benefit and only sees them in small doses.

If he's happy with other people and its only you who bears the brunt of his cruelty, maybe you're just not well suited, or maybe he'd be better off alone. If you are going to stay together he needs to change for himself and by himself. By all means support him, but don't expect it to be instant or easy.

Pearly, unfortunately, the problem with most women is that they do want to help their partners. They really don't want to leave them.
And that is why lots of women last ages in abusive relationships. Because they think they can help their partners. That their actions will make them better.

The reason why most people who have been through similar situations say to leave is that wanting to help someone isn't going to work if it is one sided.
He hasn't gone to the OP asking for her help in getting better.
She has decided he needs help.
And that is why it won't work. :(

Not brave just truthful

I meant brave in the sense of putting it out there for people to read, because once you know something, you can't not know it - even if the comment is deleted.

I think part of the problem is women in particular are encouraged to stay in bad relationships, work at them, try to sort out problems instead of feeling confident enough to say dirty, no not for me.

Being in a good relationship that's going through a bad/difficult patch and working through it is different to being in a relationship that's just bad, full stop and no amount of effort on the part of one person is going to sort out any problems if the other party is happy as they are, thanks very much.

I mean sorry, not dirty.

I loathe abusive men; Leave, it will not improve - bet he doesn't spend too much time thinking about how he can behave better - he's just seeing how far he can go and get away with it.

You do realise deep down he thinks you make him do it; don't you?

L.T.B.

(spend the time and effort on yourself to find out why you accept such appaling behaviour )

Actually, LEM, I would certainly not have condemned your partner if he had left you. It's not wrong or shameful to leave a partner who is abusing you even if s/he can't help it as it's because of illness. Sacrificing yourself doesn't cure the other person. Severe MH issues need professional help, and 'being a selfish entitled bully' isn't a MH issue but it IS incurable.

So it's ok to abuse your partner if you have PND, but not for any other reason. OK then Quintessential, glad we sorted that out

Again, you're all talking to yourselves. The OP won't be back and it should be obvious why. She came here for support and got ranted and snarled at. If you want to say LTB, fine, but making the OP feel utterly crap about herself really not the way to do it.

No Rootypig. I dont say that anywhere. Your imagination is overactive, my dear.

Quint and Solidgold your comments to be about not blaming my partner if he did leave are absolutely fair. It was an awful time, I posted alot on here at the time (ironically told to ltb because i was only putting my skewed and messed up version of events!) and received alot of support. Anyway, thankfully, he didn't leave and things got better. I got counselling and medication and was able to move on. To be fair i wasn't battling demons like the OP's other half. Now im struggling again somewhat and my DPs understanding of things enabled him to step in quickly and drag me to the doctors get me help. I don't know i would have recognised the slip myself if that makes sense. But yes, he wouldn't have been wrong to leave, far from it.

This is what i am trying to say, that when someone "needs help" they often don't recognise this and continue with the damaging behaviour, hurting others and themselves. There will be a time before help is sought that the situation appears hopeless and going separate ways seem like the only solution (and sometimes that is right) but the OP came on here saying that she wanted to help her partner find help. she didn't say she wanted to help him herself but just support him and find out what help was out there. Everyone said, no, HE has to do this, not the OP. It just may be that he is unable to take that first step, as i was when it all first manifested itself.

I would have hoped that the initial response to a thread like this would be something along the lines of suggesting potential avenues for the DP to find help. GP, private counselling alongside advice ensuring that the OP protects her own mental health and realises that actually, if the DP isn't willing to get help or if it cannot be resolved it is OK to leave. It is OK to leave, i couldn't cope with it and would walk away, my DP is stronger than i am - but we are happy together now, I am glad he didn't throw that away, for BOTH of us.

It may be that the right course of action will be for the OP to leave, but she wants to give her partner a chance - so even if she helps him to access help and moves on, thats something. It may just be that with help, the DP will be able to work through his issues and they can be happy together. Yes, he is behaving in a disgusting way and past abuse and MH are no excuse - but they may be a reason.

"My dear"? What is that about? Quintessential I'm happy to disagree, but there's no need to be condescending. Nor to engage in the typical strategy of undermining a woman, by making out that she is engaged not in a world of reality and logic, but off on flights of fancy and imagination. Which I am not.

You said: "LEM - I think there is a massive difference between helping a new mum with pnd, and a man who is abusive and manipulative just because he can blame his past, sob and make the abused feal sorry for him."

Which imo amounts exactly to my evaluation of it, which I exaggerated for rhetoric effect: "So it's ok to abuse your partner if you have PND, but not for any other reason."

You are saying that the OP's partner is manipulative, postulating that he is in control of his behaviour and his remorse is not genuine. Who are you to say that? Who are you to say that he is not in the grip of a difficulty as serious as PND?

Many posters here make good points about the OP's partner needing to get help for himself. That's a good shorthand for evaluating a person's commitment to really changing - and I think it's good advice. But that does not also mean that there is no role for the support of a committed and loving partner, and there is no need to couch it in bile and vitriol. Though I am a proud and vocal feminist I have to say that I agree with LEM when she says that it seems that her behaviour was forgiveable because she is a woman and the OP's partner's is not because he is a man.

He needs help. Dont know where you live but if in or near London (maybe Countrywide, not sure) contact Mind, the mental health charity. They may be able to offer counselling, free if you can't afford to pay. Good luck. x

If he is aware that what he is doing is wrong (with the apologising you describe), then why isn't he making the effort to do something about it? For example, I'm aware that I'm not very good at dealing with difficult issues/ arguments and my instinctive reaction is to sulk/ go off in a huff. So I have made the effort to address this in my relationship with DH, because I know I need to communicate and deal with conflict in a more mature way.

Also, if his elder sister had the same upbringing, is she like this too? If not, why not?

Jus popping in to say.....been there done that.....it didnt work....op have something saved over for yourself, in case it doesn't work out.....keep your friends, go out.....have some money left over.....sometimes with the best will in the world, things don't work out and you need a plan b for those times. Xx wishing you all the best in the meantime.