DP directing aggressive panic attacks at me

[Sapphire18]

Sorry this is long - basis of it is my partner having panic attacks which are in the form of very aggressive behaviour. Here are the details:

I am looking for advice on a recurring problem with my fiancé. We have been together for 9 years and got engaged a few months ago. It was in the third year of our relationship (when we first lived together) that I first experienced him having a kind of panic attack in which he becomes very aggressive towards me. It has never got to the point of actual violence but this has happened several times and is always extremely scary, upsetting and leaves me feeling really shaken up and tearful. About two years ago it really got to the point where I gave him a sort of ultimatum and he did a stress management course. It seemed to help as he learned coping mechanisms like going for a walk when feeling stressed, and spotting the triggers / warning signs. Since he did the stress management course there have been considerably fewer of these incidents (e.g. once every 6-9 months?) however last night it happened again. The previous incident was 5 months ago.

To give you an idea of what actually happens – it’s usually triggered by his frustration that I am not listening to him / he can’t control or change something. E.g. the previous incident was his frustration at not being able to stop me feeling depressed. Last night it was that he thought I was not listening to him when he was trying to explain to me about a DIY problem we’ve been having.

He uses his physicality to stop me leaving the room when I am trying to end a conversation calmly or storm out in an argument. I have tried to explain I am using the same technique he learned in stress management but he thinks I am dismissing the conversation we’re having.

Last night I told him I didn’t want to talk about the DIY as he was using a very patronising tone with me (and it was almost midnight and I wanted to get ready for bed). He blocked me from leaving the room to go to the bathroom. I repeatedly asked him to move and he refused, saying he wanted to make me understand the DIY problem. I felt trapped and got up on the bed to get out of the room by a different route. He jumped up on the bed and held his arms around my legs so I couldn’t move. I told him he was hurting my knee (which is recovering from a bike accident) and he refused to let go. I repeatedly asked him but he wouldn’t so I pinched his ear and kicked him and hit him. Not hard enough to really hurt but as a warning / to make him let me go. He didn’t let go and got me down on the bed, I calmly told him I would count to 10 and then he was to let me go. I was really starting to panic but I thought if I do I will really lash out and then we’ll both get hurt, plus I am already injured from my bike accident. He let me go on 10 and I went to leave the room but he stood in the doorway and said he wouldn’t let me until I listened to him.

By now things were calmer and we were talking rather than shouting. I told him he must not ever use his physicality over me like that. He was still focused on our disagreement over the DIY and I told him that was so minor by comparison – what I was now concerned at was his bullying behaviour. I was quite assertive that he must never ever do that (but I’ve said that before). I thought we’d de-escalated things and then I can’t remember what happened but he flipped out having one of his panic attacks. When this happens he adopts a really weird tone of voice, sounds really unstable and a bit crazy; he told me I don’t love him, I want him to hurt himself, I want him to kill himself; he threw himself around the room and I was afraid he’d hurt himself or break something; he banged his head against the floor; ripped at his clothes until he was half naked; writhed on the floor and curled up in a ball with panicked breathing and sobbing; demanded I hold his hands to make him feel safe; refused my offer of rescue remedy but then took it. These behaviours are all absolutely typical of when he gets like this. I didn’t know what to do but basically took the attitude I would with a tantruming toddler – being firm yet supportive, and trying to get him out of it without showing any emotion. However I was really torn as I didn’t want him to think behaving in this way is the way to control me or get my attention. I couldn’t seem to do anything right, whether I went near him or backed away. I was desperately trying to calm him as I was afraid he’d wake our housemates and I know when he gets like this he doesn’t care who’s watching and has no shame.

In the end I left him curled up in a ball on the floor and told him I was going to the bathroom but would come back. I was really shaken and panicky and didn’t know what to do. He was begging me not to leave him. When I returned about 2 minutes later he was in bed sobbing, saying he was only asking me to hold his hands because he felt so scared and panicked, and making out I’d been really heartless. I told him he’d really scared me, it was unacceptable and he should be in control of himself. He told me panic attacks just happen – I have experienced them too but I don’t think they necessarily mean lashing out at someone else! Then he was very apologetic, but I couldn’t stand to have him hug me, it just made my skin crawl.

I tried to sleep but couldn’t stand being near him, so tried to go to the spare room. He told me I shouldn’t; that he should; took my pillows off me so I couldn’t leave with them; begged me to stay. We tried again to talk but I was exhausted by now and said we should just go to sleep. He told me I am the one who holds all the power in this relationship, and that he did touch me when he was stopping me leaving the room, but it’s the closest we get to any intimacy these days. Admittedly we do have less sex since moving into a shared house.

This morning he told me he’d been up most of the night having panic attacks, and had to go for a walk to calm down at 5.30am (I did hear him go out then). He was very apologetic, asked me for a hug then got upset when I couldn’t bring myself to. He protested that he hasn’t got like this for ages (it used to happen much more regularly). He suggested we do relationship counselling ‘before we make any commitments’ – i.e. marriage (we’ve talked of this before) and I think it might be a good idea. I am a bit worried at the cost at an average of £50 though, and a little scared at what we might end up saying to one another.

I just don’t know what to do. Whenever this happens I ask myself what I am doing in this relationship. It makes me feel so vulnerable and frightened, and I don’t know what to do. I think he thinks that because he stops short of actually hitting me, it’s ok, or that because he’s panicking when he does it it’s not his fault. When I call it abusive he says I’m exaggerating. I desperately want him to be able to promise me it’ll never happen again but he says he can’t. I am really happy with the relationship otherwise, and excited to be marrying him but I am wondering if this can be overcome or if I should go on accepting that effectively I am with someone who’ll blow up like this from time to time?

Just to confirm, I am not looking for advice to leave him. I am looking for help in managing / eliminating this behaviour and how to address this issue.

I've sat and read 37 pages of this thread tonight. What a hell of alot to take in you poor love. And a hell of alot of support too

You're doing better than I did in my first few relationships posts here. I got utterly freaked out by the word 'abuse' and ran away. Came back and wrote another one, got utterly freaked out and hurt by the way no one would help me answer the issues is posted about, but kept refusing to engage with how I could plan and persuade and reveal to him how his behaviour hurt me... Bloody mumsnetters kept saying things that weren't relevant to me, so I buggered off again. And then came back and posted again... And got upset becuase of how much hatred people seemed to have for my poor broken and amazing love. And again... And probably again. All the while reading and posting support on other peoples threads, seeing their hurt and vulnerability and need to protect themselves from abusive relationships... And i slowly realised that I was in an abusive relationship, I couldn't save him, I couldn't change him, and I couldn't make him treat me better.... Cos he didnt choose to do that.

I got away in the end, and learnt an awful lot about myself and about abuse in the process. I loved him so much, but in the end, I had to save myself from him and let him do his own healing and helping. He hasn't, he's homeless and an addict, and it still breaks my heart. I couldn't save us both from his damage. But I saved as much of me as I could - wished done it earlier as there would have been more of me left, and I saved Ds, who is the absolute most important person.

i don't hate him, though I spent a long time hating him. I hate what he did to me, and I pity him, I pity him so much. But I don't confuse that with love anymore. Poor him, my heart goes out to him for what a damaged waste of such amazing potential, such a waste of a life... But it's his decision to waste it, and it was my decision in the end, not to let him take me with him. I thought for years I was being the strong person and if I was just trying enough I could pull him out of the misery, and hate, and sadness,and anger.... But really, I was strongest when I decided to love myself even a tiny bit as much as I loved him and when I disentangled my heart and soul and identity from his, and set out on my path on my own. A path where it doesn't matter how dmaged someone is, how sorry they are, or how much they love me... If they abuse me, they can't be with me. Ever.

Good luck sweetheart, you've taken a few massive steps, to say no, it's not ok, you don't do this to me, no excuses, ever. That's a massive thing, and I know you're in the thick of it and feeling awful, but I'm proud of you. I know what a big step that is, one small step on the moon is nothing compared to this. Well done.

Everyone on here is scared for you though, hence the shouting. They know how easy it is to give up loving yourself and protecting yourself and saying 'I deserve, no, I Need a love which respects me, and cares about me, and never makes me feel scared or hurt or like I'm not allowed to be me"

I remember a friend asking me how I could stay with someone who treated me like that. Genuinely asking. I was baffled. But I know, deep down, that we have this strong and amazing love, that he's my soulmate', and she said 'well, don't you think if someone loves you that much, they'd not treat you like this?' ... And she never mentioned it again. Stuck in my head though, years ago now. She'd never been in an abusive relationship... I wonder why?

The big brain shift for me was realizing that in a non abusive relationship, you don't have to see beyond his behaviour, you don't have to justify his actions by saying 'my love to so deep I can see beyond the times when he hurts me to know what a good man he is and how strong our love is. It's not being the bigger person, or the romantic person. Unfortuneately, the way he behaves is how he is...

I'm in tears after reading this. So many wonderful and heartfelt posts. I really hope you are able at some point to take them in. What these people are saying is the truth. The reason people are jumping up and down is because they know, they have been there, as have i.

Just wishing you all the best.

Lovely post Misc

I do think the outpouring of advice on this is MN at its best. In millennia gone by we would all have been in mud hut villages, and with the menfolk away catching tea we'd have been there for each other with love and support and wisdom and kindness and, yes, the occasional time we'd take someone by the shoulders and shake them and say NO, he's a bad'un.

Very few of us live like that anymore, so this is our virtual village. And yes, we're shouting Sapphire. We're screaming. In the same way we'd shout and scream if you were about to put your hand in the fire or eat the wrong berry. We've suffered so you don't have to.

I remember with my first abusive ex I stood up and made such a passionate speech at our wedding about being misunderstood and what an amazing man he was and how much I loved him. I did. And I genuinely felt that no one understood. My reward for loyalty was that on the first night of our honeymoon he slapped me, hard, because I was too tired for sex, and I spent the rest of that night hiding in the hotel garden.

IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE LIKE THAT. Love doesn't have to be a rollercoaster. You don't need those massive lows to have massive highs. Passion doesn't have to involve fighting.

Sapphire, three months before your wedding, all you should be fretting about is seating plans and napkin colours.

You have 700 women now, all shouting at you. That must be pretty unbearable. I can see why you want to run back into your mud hut and shout 'but I LOVE him!'

But if 700 people told you they'd eaten that berry and it had made them very sick, very very sick, and sad, and broken, and their children had got ill too...would you think, no, it'll be different for me?

Whatever you decide, good luck Sapphire. I genuinely hope you're the exception that proves the rule. For your sake.

Thank you everyone. I haven't stopped thinking about this even when I'm asleep! I know a lot of people are saying I cannot be in a relationship with him while he does the course but actually Respect has told me it's not like that. They would work with me too, monitoring how he's doing.

I am getting closer to deciding to postpone the wedding. I just feel so low about it whenever I think about it. Just trying hard to separate this from all the practicalities and explaining to people.

I think you seriously need to stop worrying about other people and what to tell them. This is YOUR life and what you do now will affect the rest of it. Pick the wrong decision and it could ruin it. In a few years you might not even be talking to some of the people on your guest list and you could have made the wrong decision because you were thinking about them or trying to save face.

You are in the here and now. You are living with someone who "becomes very aggressive towards me," and you feel it "is always extremely scary, upsetting and leaves me feeling really shaken up and tearful."

He did this too -

"He blocked me from leaving the room to go to the bathroom. I repeatedly asked him to move and he refused, saying he wanted to make me understand the DIY problem. I felt trapped and got up on the bed to get out of the room by a different route. He jumped up on the bed and held his arms around my legs so I couldn’t move. I told him he was hurting my knee (which is recovering from a bike accident) and he refused to let go. I repeatedly asked him but he wouldn’t so I pinched his ear and kicked him and hit him. Not hard enough to really hurt but as a warning / to make him let me go. He didn’t let go and got me down on the bed, I calmly told him I would count to 10 and then he was to let me go. I was really starting to panic but I thought if I do I will really lash out and then we’ll both get hurt, plus I am already injured from my bike accident. He let me go on 10 and I went to leave the room but he stood in the doorway and said he wouldn’t let me until I listened to him."

Controlling you.

"By now things were calmer and we were talking rather than shouting."

Because he had you trapped.

I could cut and paste much more and I think you need to reread your posts and remind yourself of how you felt because the man who is meant to love you wanted to put you in your place.

Do not have children with this person. That would be unforgivable.

I have just read the entire thread. I really hope you take the advice sapphire.

Your boyfriend is doing what he needs to to get you to stay. The counselling the sobbing, the worrying. He may well think the storm will pass and all will revert to normal soon.

My daughter could cancel the wedding at the alter and I would love her all the same. I would be mortified if she married a man like your oh. You parents raised you, loved you and cherished, picked you up when you fell kissed you sad little face and watched you grow into a wonderful woman. They didn't do this for you to make vows to a violent, abusive man.

Til death do us part.

Take your best friend on the honeymoon and have a wonderful time.

Sapphire if you're going to cancel, the sooner the better.

I have been reading this from start to finish and can hear so much of myself in you. I thought it might be helpful to paste some of my previous posts in here to highlight this.

From 2011 when I was pregnant with DD2:
Oh god. She just came in and grabbed DD and took her downstairs having completely ignored her all of yesterday - and claimed she didn't care if flying debris from what she was smashing up hit DD. When I asked what she was doing she just grinned and walked off. I don't want DD caught up in this.

And from the same thread:
After more arguments and shouting on Saturday, I asked if we could try talking things through calmly and through lots of tears, we managed it. I think DP now gets that if I'm acting like a robot and seem uncaring it's because it's the only way I can cope with the current pressures we have on us, but that my family are most important. I suggested DD goes to a childminder we know a couple of afternoons a week to give DP some time out from round the clock childcare - and perhaps an opportunity to get some counselling which is difficult to do with a toddler in tow. Having pushed back on this in the past, I was really pleased that she actually agreed to this and hope that this will improve things for all of us. She has been really great this weekend - even ran me a surprise bath yesterday and has been going out of her way to share the load more equally.

Guess what?! I'm still there, it's still happening but because there are two small children now involved it's much harder to leave than it had to be. I'm miserable and hate my life. I have developed anger issues of my own now too which make me hate myself more. Don't become me.

And can I just add, that the remorse, the apologies, the perfect partner she becomes afterwards make it so much harder to leave. Having someone to help with the kids, to let me go shopping alone, or even go out with friends occasionally, make me take advantage and stay as it's easier than being completely on my own with the children and never having that help. I keep saying - just keep things calm until this big date has passed and then the next explosion will happen and I'll leave. But I still haven't. I am an enabler who is taking advantage for my own selfish reasons.

At the very very least, please cancel the wedding. I think of you give yourself that space then everything else will come out in the wash and you'll begin to see how untenable this situation really is.

Then hopefully there won't be any wedding at all.

Saphire, if it was your parents who sent out the invites and got the rsvps back I dont think it would be inappropriate for your mum to contact people.

You could give her a script of what you want her to say and a work through the list of contacts together.

just an idea that make it a little easier on you.

Sapphire - the whole point of an engagement is to see if you like the person BEFORE you get married!

Marry in haste - repent at your leisure...is the age old saying.

Every day I check this thread in tge desperate hope that the OP will not only have cancelled the wedding but also have moved out and finished this relationship before it destroys her. Instead, every day I see her desperately clinging to the crumbs her partner drops in order to keep her quiet and compliant.

You are worth more than this. He is deliberately treating you like crap. He isn't treating anyone else like this. Finish this charade, as hard as it will be and try to rebuild your confidence which this abusive jackass is slowly draining from you.

I'm going to say one more thing, OP, and it's going to sound like a piss-poor attempt to manipulate you but FWIW it's true for me.

You are not helping this man by staying with him, you are harming him. This kind of dynamic is self-perpetuating and self-reinforcing: the more incidents there are, the more incidents there will be in the future and the more frequent they will become. Each self-righteous rage strengthens his belief that he is right - that he is "the right one" in the relationship - a little bit more, and makes it more likely that there will be another self-righteous rage.

I'm not saying it's your fault that it happens, AT ALL, because it is not your fault, but if you think that you are doing him any good at all by sticking around, you are dead wrong. You're enabling him. It doesn't matter how you react - whether you rage back, or cry, or leave for a couple of days and then come back and insist on a "serious talk" and lay down ground rules etc etc. All of the above are interchangeable because they're all the same thing: they're all engagement.

I also think you're completely wrong if you think you can "work on this" together, because what you're working on simply is not the same thing as what he's working on. You're working towards a functional relationship featuring mutual respect and consideration. He's working on making you realise that he is right.

Every day I check this thread in tge desperate hope that the OP will not only have cancelled the wedding but also have moved out and finished this relationship before it destroys her. Instead, every day I see her desperately clinging to the crumbs her partner drops in order to keep her quiet and compliant.

Same here.

Oh Sapphire, you are too concerned about what people will think. The people who will think badly of you for cancelling your wedding are not worth considering.
A neighbour of mine was widowed. On the third day after the funeral her friends were criticising her for still being sad. Three months later they were criticising her for going out in the evening. Some people will always find something to criticise and there is not pleasing them. You cannot organise your life choices around them.

If the people you have invited to your wedding knew what was really going on, what your relationship is really like, most would be completely understanding and relieved that you have been brave and cancelled the charade! The others, well who cares what they think?!

Sapphire, I am so pleased you were able to tell your parents, that was very brave and I am cheering you on.

As far as wording for cancelling the wedding goes, a not very close friend of mine cancelled her wedding last year, the email notification said 'We have felt during the past few months that this is not the right time for us to be married and so have decided to postpone for the present. Thank you for your understanding'...it gave no details and I have no idea what the reason behind it was. A lot of people in my social circle were also invited and no-one was really that bothered. I'm sure their close friends did know more but the majority of the guests were clueless. It was a topic of discussion for about a day and then moved on to other things.

I also wanted to say something to you about getting married but I've tried to type this OP a few times before and given up, so excuse me if I don't get the wording right, I'm struggling to explain what I mean, but my heart is in the right place.

Basically I think when you marry someone, all you really marry is their character, nothing else.

You think you are marrying a complete person and dreams of a future life, but you aren't really, only their character. Not their job, or status, which they could lose, or their health, which they could lose, or their humour, which might disappear in light of a severe depression, or the good times you could have together, which again, life circumstances might scupper.

You don't get to marry someone to have plans for dc as that might not be possible, and you wouldn't know of it yet. Or plans to have a particular sort of home environment or lifestyle, as again things can happen you have no idea might be around the corner, and take all you have dreamed of building away from you and all you are left with is your marriage commitment and how you and your spouse cope, which comes down to their underlying character.

In my own situation I was in an abusive relationship and left, which is a long story in itself, but then 3 years later I met DH. And we got married and hoped to live happily ever after.

What actually has happened is that my DH lost his very good job in the recession and struggled to find work at the same level and now does very different and much lower paid work. We struggle financially a lot. Our lifestyle does not have the freedom/choices or fun we used to have because of this and is very different to what we envisioned.

We have had 4 miscarriages and also lost a baby very late in a pregnancy. We have had countless intrusive tests and investigations. We didn't see any of that coming and it has been really horrible.

Both DH's parents have been and still are extremely ill, to the extent that a lot of DH's time is taken up by that.

At the moment I am 32 weeks pregnant in a very high risk pregnancy and both DH's parents are in different hospitals which means he gets in from work every single night and has to go and visit one or the other, leaving us no time to do things in the house we had planned before the baby's arrival etc.

We have been under terrible, terrible stress an awful lot of the time in our marriage and all we have, really, is who we are deep inside and how we treat each other, because when you are under real stress, this is what comes out, there is no energy left for 'managing' behaviour.

At some point in any marriage, life will turn up to kick you in the arse. And then what you need is a man with the character to continue to care for you, love and support you, no matter how tired/defeated/worn down they are.

I mean this gently but it does sound like the problem with your partner is that this core you can count on in the rough times just isn't there.

sunday that is beautifully put. Sorry it's all been crappy. But I'm happy that, second time around, you chose the right wingman.

whataremyoptions - please leave. It seems harder now you have children but by staying you are ruining their lives as well as your own. Please leave.

Oh OP, I am wishing you the strength to do what you need to, and the love for yourself to know you deserve better.

@Sillylass - respect has told me it's not a condition or guideline of the course for him to not be in a relationship / not living with me.

@hermioneweasley - thank you, just need to work out what I need to do.

With respect, Sapphire, isn't it obvious what you should do? Why do you now know yet? If it is because you are trying to please everyone else STOP. Just do what is best for YOU.