Recent argument has destabilised our relationship.

[timeismymedicine]

My partner of 18 months and I had an argument a week ago where he accused me of triggering him with how I spoke to him during a random everyday conversation about sheds.
He absolutely blew his top and started shouting at me that I needed to go away and think about what I had done (said this on repeat) when I said I didn’t know what I had said to cause such upset. I started crying.

He went on to call me a princess and how I always got my own way said he asks nothing of me and I had just given him a red flag and if I wanted to see this side of him this was the way to do it! I was so upset and puzzled I immediately apologised. Said I would never knowingly say anything to hurt and upset him. He called me a nag. Several times used that word on me. I hate that word and he knows it.

We had been discussing living together in the future. I own my house and he still has a mortgage. We are both in our 50s and have been married before. He has disclosed a turbulent childhood to me a few months into the relationship and probably has an anxious attachment. I am the opposite and calm consistent in nature so this suits him and he always tells me how happy he is with me and I am his partner for life etc.

We have had possibly 2 other arguments in our relationship, where he has gone into full anxiety mode with closed body language aggressive fight or flight type of response where I am left a bit confused as I don’t know how to respond.

I have really tried to understand but don’t know the full extent of his past as he has clearly only shared what he is able to therefore I don’t know what actually triggers him.
He also said he was going to leave me and not return. He didn’t go as it happened but continued to threaten to. He told me to continue living in my own house alone and single! It was very hurtful and said in an hurtful way and I am still hearing his voice in my head when I think about the argument. I seem to be unable to move on from it.
He only disclosed his financial situation to me recently. He plans to sell his house and we have discussed him moving into my house. It is convenient for both our work places etc.
He would have a small amount of equity which he has said would be ‘ours’. It is not enough to buy another house.
I am now panicking a bit as I feel this argument has de stabilised our relationship and I’m not sure I want to live with someone who shouts at me, threatens to leave and just calls me names to be unkind. He works with people so is aware of minimising feelings, would have done training on managing conflict Trauma triangle etc. I appreciate this is different to apply in real life. He is usually kind and thoughtful and up to this point I was really happy.
My concern is am I over thinking it - or is the occasional argument okay? Is a cup of tea 90%tea and 10% s*t still a cup of s*t tea?? Any decisions we have made have always been together and I am mindful of being a team and working things out so saying I always get my own way was baffling actually.

I would really appreciate some advice. I have lived happily alone for 3 years before knowing him. Has he shown me who he is. Is this who he is? I have experienced an abusive relationship and don’t want to go there again but there hasn’t been anything much up to now that was worrying.

I think the last three posts are really on point.
@Carpetty @BonneMaman77 and @Takenoprisoner put their finger on the issues and I hope OP can take it on board.

OP you are wasting enormous energy letting this man down easily and “owing” him for his company for 18 months. That was not his probationary period on the way to full partnership. It was his probationary period and try as he might he couldn’t keep up the pretence of being a goid person through to permanent status. And thank god! Because I can not stress enough how unforgivable his behavior is. Its right out.

Absolutely 💯 agree.

Despite every single post on here warning the OP about the huge red flags this man waving in her face, she’s still tying herself into a pretzel to make excuses for his behaviour and agonising over not upsetting him.

Its sad that mature women are wasting their golden years appeasing useless men

Like your friends, mine all day they would never in a million years cohabit with a partner again. And tbh most of my 50 something divorced abs widowed friends have pretty much decided to stay single now rather than deal with the dreadful dating pool

Bin him.

Sadly OP, it is this statement that screams your vulnerability to an abusive relationship.

"When people advise to leave your partner anyone in that position knows it’s not something that can just happen instantly. . I wouldn’t want to be hurtful and just be nasty to someone who has shared my life for 18months. We had planned a future. So I need to get my head around this too. He may still feature in my future but just not as close as previously planned."

He has shockingly abused and denigrated you verbally, and yet you are preoccupied with being refusing to be "hurtful" in taking the sensible action to protect yourself.

Unfortunately I think you will be one of those women who has to learn these lessons, the brutal way.

For the record relationships can be ended instantly. How else do you think you do it? I on a Monday, want on a Tuesday to on a Wednesday end on a Thursday this on a Friday, relationship on a Saturday...?

@timeismymedicine

OP, it’s great you say you’ve ‘put the brakes on’ from him moving in but from what you say this is only temporary and you’re unsure how much he’ll figure in your future. So to me this sounds like you’re going to give it another go, albeit slowly.

You asked us if he’d shown you who he really was, we unanimously answered ‘yes’. It seems you need to have that confirmation a second time 😔. So good luck with the choice you’re making and I sincerely hope you’re that 0.01% where a man does change.

Yes couples have arguments but not normally when they are not living together and at this early stage. This is a nasty argument, if this is the honeymoon period, how bad will he be in a few years? Wait and see, make a note of how he behaves from now on and tell him you won’t move in with him unless you feel safe to.

I would not move him in to your paid off house unless you have a lodger agreement, and give him his own room. He has to pay whatever a month for it. He can take it or leave it.

I fear the OP is going to learn the hard way. Years of this. Tears; talking to family and friends; forum advice. In the end, some people STILL need to experience the “truth” for themselves in order to make a decision. But my God, the wasted years.

I speak of what I know personally.

Yes I know of several women, sisters/cousins of friends that all had to learn the hard way.

Had to forge ahead and move them in.
Years of upset and drama.
Then trying to get them out of THEIR homes, which ended up costing thousands as because they did some very small improvement diy jobs they decided to make a claim.

Solicitors advised them to just pay them off to be rid of them rather than have years of it dragging it on.

They undoubtedly lost family and friends who distanced themselves as they found the drama distasteful, and eventually just became irritated by the refusal to accept well meaning advice until things inevitably got very messy.

One friend of mine won't forgive/forget with her sister for her persistent stupidity because it was a blight on their parents last few years.

I am early 60's but I do remember a few casual friends in their late 30's years ago seeing some really twattish men that I just knew wouldn't end well.

I stepped back and became increasingly unavailable as with a young family I really hadn't the bandwidth for drama.

Fortunately they weren't entangled too long and I was honest with them later that I really didn't have the head space for relationship drama, and witnessing them being repeatedly treated poorly.

It's really sad how some women just have to learn things the hard way, losing years and money in the process.

Run, OP! Like the wind.

If you can’t think of a way just listen to “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” and try one.

Skip out the back/Jack
No need to be coy/Roy etc…

@timeismymedicine you’ve been together about 18 months, not a long time in the scheme of things. All lovely at first, but recently he’s been rude, unkind, nasty and shouted at you enough to reduce you to tears. You have tried to be understanding (though you really don’t understand why he turned on you). You would never shout at him, call him names or rant at him, but he has no problem doing so, and then he blames you - his victim! See the huge difference between you? Yet, even now, you’re worrying about hurting his feelings, and I’m sure there’s an element of fear there too, as to his response. If you were offered a delicious sandwich, but were then told there’s a small teaspoonful of shit in it, you wouldn’t eat it would you? Well, that man is that sandwich. For your own safety - both emotionally and financially, I would message him and say moving in with you is not an option. See what response you get. (Really, you’d be best to dump,He really doesn’t deserve anything more, but I think at heart you’re afraid to do it. You’re a kind, people pleaser and it will be your downfall with a man like this. Good luck - you’ll need an awful lot if you stick with Mr Shitsandwich.

We're all right, OP because we've all either lived it or seen it at first hand. He is no good and he will keep doing it.

Some very sage posts on here OP. I’ve had wasted years in a verbally abusive relationship and if it wasn’t for my beautiful child, I wish I had not. He is not a bad person, he has nice traits and he tries. Given his upbringing he does quite well. Of course we wouldn’t stay with people who are all bad. But it affected my confidence, wasted my precious time and energy, made me miserable and my child witnessed it. Don’t look back with sadness when the scales have fallen from your eyes. Don’t be me OP, don’t be me.

I don't understand you at all OP.

Literally dozens of PP's have pointed out the blatantly obvious fact that he has verbally abused you publicly, spewing hatred and stored resentments, deliberately and repeatedly called you a 'nag' which he knows you are deeply hurt and offended by, happily watched you cry while he continued to spew threats to 'abandoning' you, and STILL you are trying to 'explain' or 'excuse' his horrendous bloody behaviour while trying to protect HIS 'feelings'????

I'm sorry, but there should be NO 'sparing' HIS bloody 'feelings', mostly because
HE certainly doesn't give one shiny shit about YOUR feelings, and he's happily exposed his OWN feelings of resentment and anger at YOU !!!

Why are you constantly prioritizing his needs/wants etc above your own??

Why are YOU less concerned about yourself than you are in saving HIM from any 'upset' or 'hurt'???

It's an old saying on MN, but 'When he shows you who/what he IS, BELIEVE HIM'. Stop trying to make excuses for his abusive attack on you, which you KNOW was 100% unwarranted and completely out of the blue, because there is NO excuse for it, ever.

Update re destabilising relationship

I posted the above about 7 weeks ago now. The unanimous advice was to leave the relationship. I didn’t do that immediately.

I will try to briefly outline the sequence of events that followed on from that first argument.
A month later, an almost identical argument occurred when I apparently accused him of changing his mind over something. His response was like flicking a switch, raised voice, accusing me of gaslighting- when I tried saying I had spoken in a normal voice/manner. On and on how I don’t listen, and a litany of events I had changed my mind on going back 8 months or so. Lots more was said that sounded like resentment he was keeping in and now just spewed out. He told me to leave that the relationship was over. I went to leave, he begged me to come back, started verbally abusing me again. Told me the relationship was over again, or maybe he would see me at weekends to f**k me and did I think I would meet anyone better on the dating apps.
I said I did not want to move in with him and I needed a break from the relationship.
We had a two week break, with occasional messaging.
I had a couple of counselling sessions. Counsellor suggested my partner had huge unresolved issues from his past trauma which were surfacing. They also said very clearly he was ‘unsafe’ for me emotionally at this time.

We met up after two weeks. In a nutshell we agreed to put moving in together on hold and enjoy the relationship. We still loved each other and felt meeting anyone where there was such a close bond was rare at our age. (Late 50s)
We had a couple of dates and nights together and all seemed to be going well. My partner opened up a bit more to me about his life and his childhood etc.
For those of you reading, I never asked him to share and never tried to counsel him. It was just deep conversations.
Out if the blue one of my adult children had a life changing event and my sister was unexpectedly ill at the same time. I was supporting my family with my time, so he was put lower down in the attention order. This was after explaining and discussing etc.
Upshot was he accused me of putting others before him, and his needs were not being met and I didn’t seem to be bothered.
He said if he had known I would behave like that he would never get into a relationship with me. I had stirred his past trauma up and he didn’t want to do that any more… and so it went on.
The last line of this message was Goodbye. X
So I haven’t answered him.
I will admit I feel very sad.
I wish he had turned towards me as opposed to against me as I felt like I was the enemy. I recognise I am unable to heal him. I know it’s way out of my depth.
I know the right thing to do for me emotionally is to keep walking and not look back.
I felt I was happy in my skin before I met him, I don’t want his or anyone’s criticisms and resentments thrown at me.
I need to be able to let him go. I am overcome with sadness that it’s ended like this. I felt we were so so close. I know his trauma will just keep surfacing with whatever unknown trigger I happen to tread on. He has already used it for his bad behaviour numerous times. His needs will always come first ( even before my children’s) and if I don’t dance to his tune there will be major imbalance.
Anyway that’s where I am.
Thank you all for your help in seeing clearly what my future was shaping up like.

You do need to be able to let him go. You might be sad for a while, but listen to your counsellors advice. You can't fix him, and he might become unsafe to you.

Block him on all channels so that he can't draw you back in. If you need to swap personal possessions then do it with somebody else present.

Ignore all his crap about being on your own and not finding anyone else. I have only ever heard that said to friends by controlling men when they try and leave them. It is said to hurt and to make you stay out of fear of being alone.

You are allowed to grieve the end of the relationship, but realise it is for the best.

It's ok to feel sad about the ending of a relationship that obviously meant a lot to you, even while recognising that he is not good for you as a partner. It's not your job to heal him and it sounds like he has a lot of work to do on himself and dealing with his issues. Whether he decides to do that is up to him. You are free to pursue friendships and relationships with someone who is at peace with themselves and I wish for all good things in your future 💐

Thank you, yes I know what I need to do. It has totally thrown me off my stride with the emotional upset of it all. I felt very pulled in all directions.
obviously my family/ children are my priority and this I am very clear on. Thank you for taking the time to post

Yes thank you also, I am still supporting my adult child and really have no time to be dealing with men like him. Just feel sad he did not see the bigger picture and him supporting me to support them would have been amazing and properly like a team. I guess some people just talk the talk! Thanks again.

Press pause for a while

I think you have had a lucky escape, he is the trash taking itself out. The increasing frequency of the attacks as he felt more comfortable using you as his emotional punch bag, is quite scary.

He will never have a happy relationship because he cannot - he literally doesn’t have the capacity to.

You should thank your lucky stars, and my reply to him would be “I’d wish you a happy life, except you’re not worth the effort and we both know you aren’t capable of it. You can block me now.”

I know his trauma will just keep surfacing with whatever unknown trigger I happen to tread on

His trauma is an excuse for his behaviour, not the reason. This is not a trauma response. Not only has he given himself permission to fly off the handle at you, he doubles down whenever he has done something egregious. I am sorry this happened to you but I truly believe it would only get worse.

Please OP stop continuing to make excuses for this selfish prick.
Hrs shown you time and time again who he is. Regardless of his so called ‘trauma’ you’re not on the earth to be an emotional punchbag to an inadequate man.

The amazing connection you feel you have is because he’s reeled you in with his act and now the mask has slipped.

Its ok to feel sad but ultimately this man isn’t a good one

Unless he was willing to have some pretty hardcore trauma therapy you would have been subjected to these outbursts with increasing frequency.
You would have ended up changing your behaviour and becoming less and less yourself because certain things would have triggered him. He was starting to try to erode your confidence.
It is his responsibility to behave in a reasonable way but he tried to blame you, a sure sign that he wasn't capable or willing to be a grown up.

It is difficult to lose someone who you have a strong emotional connection with. A similar thing happened to me a couple of years ago, I thought I'd met someone who I'd be with forever. Now I am on the other side and realise that it was not meant to be. His behaviour would have eroded everything and I am now grateful to be free of him. With hindsight it was very one sided and all about his issues. I actually feel positive now about meeting someone new

This is exactly it! This post is very wise.

Here is what I want to say. These charming, needy, men can and will offer a lot for a while in a relationship but eventually, in their mind, thr bill comes due and they expect you to pay them back for all the lovely moments. They are like a man who offers to cook you a lovely meal and buys you flowers and says “I just love treating you like a treasure! I love cooking etc…” A few years later they throw it in your face “I hate cooking and I could’nt afford the flowers and you took advantage of my generosity!” What seemed the delightful result if your shared interests and his lovely, giving, nature retrospectively turns out to have been wholly transactional. He gave or shared or complimented just to get it back later.