Hello,
This is my first post here, so be gentle! I've been lurking for a few months and have been impressed with how wise, supportive and knowledgeable you all are. Reading some of the threads on here has certainly been an education for me and it's raised a lot of questions in my head about my relationship. The 'What Would You Do' thread in particular really set off a few alarm bells but I would appreciate an outsider's point of view on my situation as I'm really not sure if I'm being oversensitive.
I'll try and make sense(!) and make this as short as poss. Basically DP and I have been together for 8 years, no kids as yet. For most of those 8 years we have been in some kind of state of crisis - breaking up, getting back together, etc. He can be very controlling, and is quite intolerant of other people's weaknesses or annoying idiosyncrasies, especially mine. He's very rational and logical so arguing with him is difficult and I always find myself getting muddled. Eventually it gets twisted round so that I end up apologising even if I was the one who was originally upset with him.
I have a pretty important, well paid job, two university degrees, certainly not the sort of person you'd call a doormat, but sometimes I do feel controlled by him and like I have to compromise myself to keep the peace.
We've been through a particularly horrible time just recently and our relationship was dangling on a thread. We've both had some very frank discussions about what we'd like the other to work on changing in order for us to move forward and I think we're moving into a better place. I told him I think he can be cruel and controlling and emotionally distant and he told me that I handle criticism really badly and overreact to things too easily. I think he has a point, I've caught myself disproportionately overreacting to situations a couple of times recently and although I haven't managed to stop myself in time, I do now have an insight into how my behaviour affects him and our relationship.
The thing is, writing it down now, I can see that he's still essentially putting the blame on me. Saying I can't handle criticism and that I overreact is a handy way of shirking his own responsibility isn't it? I know he isn't perfect, but I definitely have things I need to sort out too (shit childhood with addict mother, etc) that mean I can be difficult to live with.
I suppose I'm asking whether I'm in a difficult relationship because we're both quite flawed and sometimes difficult personalities, or is he an emotional abuser and am I just in denial about it? I've read all the links that have been posted about emotional abuse by other mnetters in relevant threads and although a couple of things ring true about him, most of it definitely doesn't.
Am I reading things into my situation that aren't there? Would appreciate some different perspectives.
Thanks for making it to the end of my essay!