I (20F) have been with my boyfriend (21M) for 8/9 months. He’s really sweet with me, buys me flowers, opens doors for me, compliments me and all this stuff I deeply appreciate and that makes me feel loved. However, if I take my rose-colored glasses off, I have to admit that these things only happen when he’s in a good mood. Of course, I don’t want him to worship me when we have an argument, but his way of arguing with me is becoming too much for me to handle. He’s the kind of guy who gets angry rather than sad, the kind of guy whose anger makes him punch walls and destroy stuff. I have seen him do these things when his anger was not related to me, and I tried to talk to him about it and tell him that he needs to work on this so that it doesn’t negatively impact our relationship. He said that he knows, apologized for doing it in the first place, and seemed to take my remark into account.
But here we are, a few months later, arguing about everything, going through this phase I thought every couple has to go through, the actual getting-to-know-each-other phase.
I am fully conscious of the fact that sometimes I bring up stuff that seems irrelevant because of my childhood traumas and my past in general. And I’m not afraid to apologize when things get too ugly between us because of my past, which I should be, as an adult, able to have control over.
However, I am starting to realize that the problem might not be the things we argue about, but the way we argue. Him calling me names, getting mad, feeling attacked anytime I bring up an issue, whether it is relevant or not… makes me scared of him. I am afraid that I will give up my efforts to communicate because of this fear.
However, I still found the courage to talk to him about it and tell him about my fears. The fear that punching walls could become hurting me physically. The fear that calling me names could mean that he won’t have any respect for me in the future of this relationship. The fear that the target of his yelling might change from me to our kids. The fear that I can fight back but our children won’t be able to, because they’ll be too vulnerable.
He told me that my words about my fears are replaying non-stop in his head, but that he doesn’t see anything we could do to make this situation better. He never told me I should change stuff about myself, but he also doesn’t seem to even realize it could be time to change something about himself.
I’m starting to think that maybe to him, I’m not worth changing for, and that this relationship will never be healthy.
I even suggested couples or individual therapy, but he refused. He said he didn’t want strangers to “decide things for us” and that it’s expensive. I found a company that offers a few free sessions, but he still refused.
I still love his family and other than this, we get along really well… He’s never physically hurt me and he can be very loving outside of conflicts.
Has anyone been in a similar situation before? Did you stay? Has it ever gotten better?