I am left feeling exhausted, disempowered, and defeated after every argument with my DP. I will be grateful if anyone can shine a light on what I can do differently.
My DP and I live together and have done for over a year in a very small one bedroom. We get along very well most of the time. The problems start whenever there is conflict, usually petty things. I am just left so hurt my DP's response.
Every time I confront him about something I am unhappy about, he goes into utter defence mode. He will get angry, and say all sorts of nonsense just to prove that he hadn't done anything wrong.
Some of these situations are really really small and others less so. This is much less about individual situations and more about his response to my confrontation. What should not be a big deal leaves me feeling so unloved and empty.
For example, we were watching a movie on a laptop and when it ended I wanted to see the credits but DP did not and wanted to look something up on the computer. We only had a couple of minutes of the movie max and when he clicked out and I clicked back onto the movie he pulled my hands away and held my hands so he could go back to looking something up without me stopping him and I didn't get to see the movie credits. I later told him this upset me because I didn't get to see the credits and because he used his strength to stop me doing so, I didn't stand a chance he is a strong guy.
Later on that day I told him ' i am upset about earlier that I did not get to see the credits, I feel I didn't stand a chance when you used your strength against me and it made me feel disempowered'
I know it is small and an apology would have been lovely but I don't necessarily always want an apology. It wouldn't bother me if he spoke it through with me and gave me his point of view but he didn't, he got angry and defensive.
'its always me, I'm always doing something wrong"
"you're such a hypocrite you looked up something in the middle of a movie 3 months ago"
"I don't have time for this, you attack everything I do"
"its never you is it, you are just a perfect person"
He will go onto rant for ages telling me everything I have ever done wrong which is remotely related and it's exhausting. He will then be mad about the conversation for max 48h, often less. He will only stop being mad when I do a gesture which could be seen to be in place of an apology. I get over arguments after 5 minutes so this reaction is ridiculous to me. I am just desperate for his mood to stop. I am left being in the wrong for upsetting him.
I have told him in the past over a nice dinner how his responses make me feel and he's told me he understands but it doesn't change the way he reacts.
I have started to confront him less to prevent these reactions, but this doesn't feel right.
I also want to say he is a very lovely guy the rest of the time and we love each other very much. Any advice on how I can handle these situations in the moment will be appreciated.