Hi All. Long time lurker but have never posted before. Sorry this is so long but I don't want to miss out anything in case it is relevant!
DP has his own business - he's very driven, works very long hours.
There is a certain period in each year which is a critical period for the business, and any error could mean the entire business could go under. His family has invested a lot of money over the years which creates an additional source of pressure.
Two years ago, during this critical period certain things went wrong, and the business almost went under. His family put more money in to keep it afloat. Through a lot of hard work he managed to turn it around, and the business was going really well.
The most recent critical period - everything has gone smoothly. Just before the end something comes up which threatens the success of the period. He told me, and I arrived at his place after work expecting to see him incredibly depressed/ distraught. Instead his brother was there, and he seemed fine. I assumed it hadn't been that much of a big deal. In fact, he was obviously masking/comparmentalising it.
Before his brother left, DP made a bit of an arsey comment to me (but fairly innocuous) which I got a bit annoyed by. We then went in to go to bed, and he turned on the TV. I asked how long he was going to have it on for, and he said he didn't know. I said "Fine, I'll sleep on the couch then" (in an arsey way) and grabbed some pillows. He picked up the remote, threw it at the wall (it broke) and started shouting at me. He then got up from the bed, put his hands on my bum, and propelled me out of the room, shouting that fine, I should sleep on the couch then.
I was really shocked, and upset and scared. I decided to leave, went back in to get my stuff, and he started shouting again (mainly about how unsupportive I was being, IIRC). He followed me out into the corridor and stood in front of the door out of the flat, still shouting (I was crying). I then shouted at him to let me out, and continued shouting a bit more and then moved out of the way of the door, and I left.
When we later talked about it, I was still really upset. But at the time he was still so stressed about the business, we didn't speak about it properly. We did speak about it again later, I got very upset and he did also get quite upset at one point, and cried when he saw how much it had affected me and said he was sorry.
Last week in the supermarket, he got quite frustrated (in my opinion, out of nowhere) and snapped at me. I had a really disproportionate reaction (I cried). It just reminded me of how upset and intimidated I felt during the previous argument.
I am not at all good with conflict, and I would say probably quite sensitive. My usual reaction to any stressful conflict situation is tears (very frustrating!)
My family has never really even raised voices.
His family, who are lovely and really close, used to have huge, quite out of control family rows, where they would all get involved, bar his mother. These rows don't really happen much anymore, as everyone has grown up and calmed down somewhat.
He's also had a number of occasions where he's lost it in the past including at work with his business partner (during the same stressful period). With an ex-girlfriend he once kicked the wall during an argument, and she then refused to go on a weekend away with him.
He then saw a psychologist to talk about his anger, who told him that he was under a massive amount of stress, so his reactions were normal in the context of the stress he was under. By all accounts he is a much calmer and more controlled person than he used to be.
His position is that yes, he was maybe a bit unreasonable in the incident where he threw the remote, but that I can't expect that he is never going to become frustrated (and potentially react in this way) when he is under extreme stress.
He also thinks my reaction to the argument in the supermarket was ridiculous. He told me that my tears don't mean anything to him, but that I mean the world to him (which I found an odd statement). He also seems concerned that I think he is some kind of monster (which is obviously not the way I phrased it!).
He's told me about this aspect of him in the past, and thinks now that I've seen him lose it under stress that maybe I can't handle it, and that I really need to think about whether I can deal with it.
I'm concerned that if it continues, it will eventually eat away at our relationship. As much as I can rationalise intellectually that it's due to his stress, I'm not sure I'll be able to not take it personally, and will feel hurt, upset and possibly angry/resentful at his taking it out on me.
The other part of me thinks that, because I'm not used to conflict and don't deal with it well, that part of my reaction was because this was the first time I'd experienced him acting like this (having only having heard about it before), and that if I'm able to accept that it is due to stress I can handle it better in future when/if it happens again. I appreciate this is not supported by my reaction in the supermarket.
Would love your thoughts, as I'm just not sure where to go from here??