Another irrational fight over nothing - please help me to rationalise

[LockdownBlues]

I've been with my boyfriend for 12 months. We've been spending most of our free nights together either at his house or mine, so at the start of lockdown we moved in together to my house.

Things have been lovely, but over the last few days we've had some blazing rows over irrational stuff. We have a history of huge arguments - DP suffers from self esteem and abandonment issues due to the breakdown of his previous relationship. His ex was a narcissist and a compulsive liar (I've seen plenty of evidence, not just taking his word on this), so he's incredibly sensitive.

Our rows over the past few days have always started off with me being a bit grumpy / short with him over something totally inconsequential. He then over reacts, tells me he thinks I'm criticizing him (I'm not), and tells me he feels everything he does is wrong. He has a fiery temper, so every argument has resulted in him shouting, and packing his bag to go back to his house, but backing down when I beg him to stay.

This morning, we were tense after the past few days of arguing. It was our last morning together before he goes away for work for a week - so I guess we were both feeling the pressure. We were lying in bed together having a cuppa before he left, but he was engrossed in his phone rather than talking to me. I asked him to put his phone down - I think I nagged him a bit, but he accused me of having a go at him. He stormed out, I begged him to come back, and we had a huge argument about whether I'd had a go at him or not! He's now left for work, and I'm gutted that once again we've had a massive row over nothing.

I feel like we've both wound ourselves up into a Catch22 situation where if I say anything in the wrong tone, he assumes I'm 'having a go at him' and we then argue about it and it turns into something MUCH worse.

I'm gutted - he's gone away to work now, I won't see him for a week.

Is it just lockdown blues?

What is your own definition of abuse and or an abusive relationship.

Why are you so keen on trying to rationalise this, do you really not want to accept that you chose this man for now really badly here?. How do you see this panning out for you?

His behaviour towards you is deliberately designed to put you on the back foot so is abusive in nature.

Do you really believe his ex was abusive as well?. I think you’re being hoodwinked here.

Abusers are not nasty all the time but their nice/nasty cycle is a continuous one and you are in the thick of it.

Now he is actively gaslighting you and that is an example of psychological abuse. The longer you are together, the worse it will become for you,

What were you like prior to meeting, compare that with the person you are now.

I think he can't see the difference between me being short/grumpy and me criticizing him. So he over reacts.

I’m not sure I know the difference, can you explain what you say more explicitly?

I can be snappy or sarky if I'm in a bad mood - so I won't be critical, but I'll have a grumpy tone. e.g. "No I don't want to go that way", "Can you grab that for me please", "can you put your phone down and talk to me?". In my mind - that's not 'having a go at him', it's simply being a bit short.

The other thing I do is I will labour a point too much - I do this with other people too so I know this is a real thing that I do. It infuriates him.

But we're talking about me complaining about his phone use, or me explaining something to him, or me deciding something different to him. These triggers are hardly huge crimes

You are wrong . These are huge crimes to him and you know what the punishment will be - days of arguments and escalating abuse that end with him flouncing and you hysterically begging him to stay.

So if you want to make things work with him you need to never ever say anything he doesn’t like. Make sure you monitor your works and action all the time. When you are about to say or do anything , analyse it first and work out if this will anger him ( or as you like to call it, trigger him).

You need to stop having opinions or views or choices that are different from his. Never ever comment in his behaviour or actions, he doesn't like that. You must let him do and say what he wants at all times.

You also need to think carefully about all the things you do that he doesn’t like and stop them. Friends or family that you see, what you watch on TV or read online, what you wear, your hobbies or your job.

You need to be totally focussed on him and what he wants at all times, even when you are not with him. When you are on MN you need to be writing and thinking about his needs and what you can do to make him happy. Don’t be pissing about on style and Beauty talking about skincare when you should be thinking about him.

So let’s simplify this:

1. You’re incompatible as you say you’re short with people and he’s someone who reacts badly in disagreements

Or

1. He is an abusive person who won’t allow you to raise any issues about his behaviour without gaslighting you to make it all your fault.

Neither sounds like a situation I’d want to stay in. Relationships should be kind, forgiving of our foibles and ready to discuss issues in as calm a way as you can.

I can see that his behaviour is abusive yeah. I know he was abusive with his ex - but I know she was abusive with him too. I'm not saying she deserved it, but I do think she caused him a lot of psychological damage and that's why he is how he is now. She traumatised him and their DCs - I won't go into detail but what she did was unforgiveable. He has rationalised it, it's me who is still horrified by it (even though it happened before I met him).

I suppose that's why I give him the latitude that I do. He's damaged. He knows this, and freely admits it. But when he's in the middle of it, it's very difficult to deal with.

He's mentally unwell I suppose. But I love him, and if everyone ditched their partner because they were mentally ill, it would be a sad world.

Fuck sake OP I really couldn't be arsed with all this drama. It shouldn't be like this after just 12 months together! You should be able to disagree/ communicate without all the shouting & bag packing.
Why are you putting up with this hard work shite? Only a drama lama could love all these up & down times.
Ugh... sounds awful & terribly hard work
I would bin him off & him going away for a week with work is the perfect opportunity to do so. Unless you are a drama lama & awaiting return of all the erm drama

This is not normal OP!!!!!

You've internalised his wishes and is perspective and are now describing your own behaviour in his terms - especially 'nag'. That's a nasty word.

He's got you part-trained and he's continuing the training.

You are analysing everything you do, in an effort to change your behaviour, to appease him. He is analysing nothing (lip service in front of you only), changing nothing and killing all legitimate criticism stone dead, with his 'I can't do anything right' line. That is, you may not criticise him for small, real, legitimate things, because this would make him feel bad, so don't you dare criticise him, for anything, ever!

Everything he does that is thoughtless, unkind or horrible will be covered by this excuse. You need to be able to say; 'you're an ok person on the whole but this thing that you did was thoughtless, unkind or horrible and you owe me an apology for that'. He needs to be able to apologise and if relevant make the thing up to you and if part of a pattern of behavior take meaningful steps to alter his behaviour to avoid that thing happening again. Is he capable of that? Doesn't sound like it.

When he starts winding himself up, say 'I'm not engaging with this' and either go to another room, or ask him to leave.

He needs a counsellor, not a girlfriend.

People are not abusive because they are mentally unwell, they are abusive because they have learned behaviour that get them (consciously or not) what they want. Read Why does he do that by Lundy Bancroft- I promise you’ll recognise a lot.

You don’t “drive him to it” & it isn’t his ex’s fault- she may have hurt him or been abusive, but that doesn’t give him a right to abuse you.

He's not unwell, he's damaged.

He needs fixing before he unleashes himself on the world of potential girfriends and damages them too.

Pack his bags and tell him to get psychiatric help.

That is, you may not criticise him for small, real, legitimate things, because this would make him feel bad, so don't you dare criticise him, for anything, ever!

Yeah that's it. On the whole, he's great. I don't really need to criticise anything much - it's silly small niggly things like being messy, or spending too much time on his phone. He's always thoughtful, never unkind.

You need to be able to say; 'you're an ok person on the whole but this thing that you did was thoughtless, unkind or horrible and you owe me an apology for that'. He needs to be able to apologise and if relevant make the thing up to you and if part of a pattern of behavior take meaningful steps to alter his behaviour to avoid that thing happening again. Is he capable of that? Doesn't sound like it.

Yes we do need to be able to do that - and we do ... but only after a horrible argument. He does apologise, profusely, and tries to make it up to me. But he's not altering his behaviour. He talks it through, he can see where he's been irrational and over reacted - but he seems unable to prevent it from happening again.

OP please, run for the hills. This is not passionate or fiery behaviour and it’s nothing to do with his last relationship. What you are seeing is who he is. Take it from me and anyone else who has ended up marrying or having kids with a man like this. He will ruin your life. End this relationship now while you can. When he goes on his business trip this week make sure he doesn’t come back to your home. Please please listen to me and other posters here and learn from our mistakes. We don’t want you to suffer like we have

He IS able to stop it, he’s just not willing to do so, because it’s working for him.

You can’t fix him

You can’t make him behave differently

He won’t ever put your needs into his consideration at all, he will only ever think of his own needs and wants

This is who he chooses to be and how he behaves and thinks

Do you really want to put your needs below his at all times for the rest of your life?

You have a choice, make a good choice for you while you still can and end it

Put your needs first as no one else will

He’s shown you that, whatever his good qualities, he’s very bad news as a DP. Unlikely to be salvageable!

His past relationship issues don’t excuse his shitty/abusive treatment of you.

People are not abusive because they are mentally unwell, they are abusive because they have learned behaviour that get them (consciously or not) what they want. Read Why does he do that by Lundy Bancroft- I promise you’ll recognise a lot.

You don’t “drive him to it” & it isn’t his ex’s fault- she may have hurt him or been abusive, but that doesn’t give him a right to abuse you.

exactly.

He isn't great "on the whole" if he behaves as you have describes. All the niceness is just grooming in the context of the deliberate creation of arguments in order to gaslight you and make you beg.

I'm going to leave the thread now because it is beyond frustrating that you are clearly aware exactly who this nasty piece of work is, but for whatever reason you choose to string this out.

This man is a father, and behaving like this: even worse.

Woman up and ship him out.

He indeed does this because he can and this works for him because he has you well trained. I would also think he never apologises nor indeed takes responsibility here for his actions. You do that for him instead.

What did you learn yourself about relationships when you were growing up?.

Are you really confusing love here with codependency?.

If they tell you about their “psycho” ex, they were the problem not the ex.

Ye gods how can you read your own posts back and then say he's never unkind.

Would someone who is never unkind gaslight you?

Would someone who is never unkind create shouty rows out of thin air in public places in order to force you to beg him to forgive you for things you haven't done, for fear of being humiliated in public?

You say he is emotionally abusive and damaged so why do you think you can fix him? Do you want to be his therapist or have a relationship with him? Are you a rescuer if so you may want to look up the Karpman drama triangle. He was he victim, you are the rescuer..for now. You will always however become in his mind the persecutor. It is already starting as these arguments show. The more you defend the more you will be seen as against him.

For this reason I truly don't believe his Ex caused him to become like this. I was married to an abusive man and no way did it cause me to lash out at new partners. If anything the opposite is true.

I believe his marriage was dysfunctional and they both abused each other, swapping victim and persecutor roles. You say this is normal to him so why do you think he would act differently to you? He hasn't had a healthy relationship so where will he learn this?

At just a year into the relationship there are major, major red flags. It will not get better only worse as I assume he is an adult. The therapy needed to change his reactions to perceived slights takes years and often isn't successful. He is best not to be in a relationship when doing the therapy and needs to allocate the money for at least 100 sessions with a qualified therapist, probably in DBT. Is he preparing to do this?

If not nothing will change.

First consider this; Do you want a future with him? And do you see things getting better?

If no to at least one of those, it's time to move on.

If yes to both, you need to know if he is on board too.

The good thing about him being away with work is that (hopefully) you can speak with him on the phone and have a very serious chat about where you both go from here. Talking on the phone is much less confrontational than when you are sitting face to face and it might help you both to listen to each other better.

Don't spring it on him, guys hate that. Send him a sincere text, along the lines of "Hey you, I know we left on bad terms and I really didn't want that. I'm sure you didn't either. I really want to make things better and I think we need a calm chat about it one evening after work. Is that ok with you? How about tomorrow night? Let me know. Thinking of you. x"

Keep it airy, keep it light. Don't bite if he wants to start a texting row with you. See what his reaction is and it should tell you how serious he is about making it work.

If you have a little time before your chat, find some articles online about effective communication techniques.. how not to engage in an argument, etc and see if you can use these when you chat with him.

I'm with a guy who absolutely winces at the idea of being "nagged" (I really don't nag, I do gently remind him of things but he still hates that) or "had a go at" that he will hear this even when it's not happening. He becomes so defensive and it's so difficult to communicate with him when he has his defences up.

Another technique me and my partner have started using to stop the flighter running from the fighter (him from me usually) is the following;

Step 1: Flighter identifies they need a time-out from the discussion or argument

Step 2: Flighter calmly explains that they need to take some time to calm down, states the reason why ("I am starting to feel anxious/angry and I need some time to calm down") gives a rough amount of time for the time-out (generally an hour or so), and acknowledges that it is their responsibility to pick the conversation back up at the end of the time-out.

Step 3: When time-out is up, flighter returns to fighter to resume the conversation, hopefully with both feeling more calm and ready to talk and listen to one another

Step 4: If flighter is feeling agitated or upset still, they will need to come back and communicate this, take ownership of their feelings and request more time, then move back to Step 3.

Another thing me and my partner do which we have found to be really effective - we record our conversations/arguments! It's important to make sure both of you are aware that the conversation is being recorded so as not to try to "catch them out".. if you are both in agreement with this technique, you'll be surprised how calm things will be in the face of having behaviours recorded and having to admit accountability for certain actions.

May not work for you, but these are things that have really helped us.

You seem to understand he is abusive but are explaining it away.

Being mentally unwell or effected by a previous relationship is something a lot of people deal with. Bringing that to your new relationship and using it as an excuse to be abusive is unacceptable.
He's a grown man. He should be looking at himself, at his temper etc and doing work on that himself, with no prompting from you. He doesn't because behaving like this gets him everything he wants.

He gaslights you (to make you doubt your own thoughts).
He loses his tempter (to make you think twice before you disagree with him)
he 'misconstrues' things (to keep you forever on your guard because you don't know what will set him off next)
he causes rows just before he goes away / when you're about to go somewhere (to put a downer on a time you could enjoy)
he threatens to leave when he knows people can hear which makes you uncomfortable (which forces you to beg and make him feel important and powerful).

You're excusing him now. In 3 years you'll realise he isn't changing, that this isn't working but you'll be stuck in the sunken costs fallacy having put 3 years in already.

If I were you, I would message him now telling him you need a break from him so you don't want any contact for a month and take it from there actually I flipped completely on my similar ex and when he snarled in my ear to stop having a go at him or he'll leave while at a party I responded with a very loud "leave then, just stop going on at me" and as hard as that was for me it really helped.

I'll bet that while you may miss some things about him, you'll be happier overall.

So if you want to make things work with him you need to never ever say anything he doesn’t like. Make sure you monitor your works and action all the time. When you are about to say or do anything , analyse it first and work out if this will anger him ( or as you like to call it, trigger him).

You need to stop having opinions or views or choices that are different from his. Never ever comment in his behaviour or actions, he doesn't like that. You must let him do and say what he wants at all times.

Read those words above , expressed so eloquently by Rosemary . She has it bang on. Every time you so much as mention, no matter how gently and non confrontationaly , something that has upset you , you will immediately be made to feel like you are the worst human being on earth . How you always are criticizing him and nothing he does is ever right , so why does he even bother to try ,right ?
This is all about control . He has you exactly where he wants you , begging him to stay every time he feels the need to put you in your place . After all threatening to pack his bags and leave , knowing you will beg him to stay , without ever having to leave , is putting you in your place .
The control will escalate , there will be times that you are so fucking miserable you can hardly breathe , yet you dare not say anything for the knowledge that if you do , you will be shouted at , told you are the reason their life is so fucked up , that you are so negative it rubs off on everyone around you , that everyone else feels the same way that they do about you , and generally made to feel the most worthless you could ever feel . So you feel shit if you don’t say anything ,even worse if you do ,there’s never a good outcome I get he’s damaged , but in turn he’s damaging you . It’s exhausting , mentally , physically , emotionally and it plays out in a never ending loop , until you decide to walk away .

You aren’t compatible. At 12 months in and recently moving together, this is the time most couples would realise