Can we talk about anger in relationships?

[Chippychopz]

Currently having counselling following on from a previous 12 year relationship. I have a lot of shame, a lot of guilt going on over the way I behaved at times in that relationship.

We have ascertained so far that he was emotionally abusive. But I did not react in the way that you would expect someone to react when they're being abused. I reacted angrily and with rage at times. I thought I was the abusive one.

He would put me in situations that caused me discomfort or anxiety, sometimes I think as a way of punishing me. I was never allowed to have limits or boundaries. He was the sort of person who would continue speeding on asking him to slow down. I wouldn't cry. I would yell and call him names. I hated myself for it.

He admitted to me once that he would try to intentionally wind me up sometimes.

Will I be angry forever?
Has anyone else experienced this in a relationship before and had a happy relationship afterwards? I'm scared that anger is just me now.

Anger is how our boundaries assert themselves if we don't channel them into calmer communication methods. It's worth learning how to assert your boundaries by choice, rather than by having them burst out uncontrollably, because they assert themselves in the end anyway.

This

Walking away, leaving, is hard but that doesn’t mean it isn’t what we should expect rather than turning to violence.

What happens when you try, as calmly as you can, to say 'I don't want to have this conversation any more' and try to walk away to get some breathing space, but they won't let you? They block your way and stop you, because they've decided you can't leave yet? What then?

False imprisonment is a physical threat, so covered by the sentence immediately before your selective quote.

"It’s normal to react to abuse by sometimes fighting back. Getting angry when someone is deliberately cruel to you is one of several normal reactions."

I often felt like I had two choices when we were together- die a slow death of depression or fight back. I said this a few times to my counsellor. This was particularly the case during covid when I had nowhere to go and couldn't leave. I felt trapped.

Like posters have said upthread he most definitely goaded me. More so when I was tied to the home with young children, breastfeeding etc and there was nothing I could do about it. He would disturb and sabotage my routines, my sleep, anything I did to give me a bit of sanity. I asserted my expectations of him, asked him to communicate his intentions via the family calender but he'd just punish me by refusing to use it and pleased himself anyway. He said it was my parents' fault I was struggling with the children because they'd chosen to move away. He never took responsibility for anything but mocked me for the way I did things.

He'd also try to make me look small infront of our friends which I used to hate as he was so agreeable with them in comparison. The more I complained, the more he did it so I became even more isolated as I refused to socialise with him. There were so many layers to the abuse which was always passive aggressive and calculated. It always felt like his primary motive was to ensure I couldn't thrive or be happy.

Something that helped me was to recognise where I was when I was behaving in a way that didn't feel right to me. So, was I like that with everybody? If so, I really needed to do something about my reactions and responses to people. Or was I just like that with one or two people? In which case, I needed to stay away from those people.

Learn where the toxin is. It's a bit like if your house is on fire, and you jump out of a high window to escape. You don't need therapy due to your aberrant need to jump from high windows, you just need to make sure you don't hang around in houses that are on fire. If you're jumping out of every high window you can find, then sure, it's about you. If not, look at what you can change about the circumstances, rather than about yourself.

Yes Reactive abuse is recognised. They wind you up and then say you’re abusive when you react.

I split from XH 18 months ago. I heave a huge sigh of relief everyday that I’m not married to him any more. We have a DC together so we still have to interact but I have firm boundaries. I still get angry when I remember some things he did. I also get frustrated about how he parents DD. But it gets easier over time. Counselling has helped. I’m also in a happy relationship now.

You will need to do some work to get through it. Talking therapy is good but also look in to Somatic healing. Some parts of the abuse can’t be helped purely by talking, but simply being aware of it and putting in effort to move forward is a great start.

Will I be angry forever?

No. My ex was exactly the same as yours. Goading and goading, not letting me escape it until I exploded. It's so they can go "aha! you're the abusive one, not me!!"
And I genuinely believed it for long enough, but 20 years on and in a much nicer relationship, I'm actually easygoing, laid back and generally react with a wry humorous attitude to stressful situations most of the time. I'm actually in a job that's not busy, but my deadlines are always stressful and I'm known for keeping a cool head and staying calmly focused. I was angry with him for a good while after the relationship because I felt like he walked away scott free and I was a mental mess that I didn't know how to pull together.

I don't think you're an angry person. He is though.