Arguments with my bf..

[Hollandia]

I can't say I really understand what you mean by this. I like to see two sides of a story. My ex used to yell at me, and I hated that. I used to sometimes yell at my husband, and there have been times I have not been very thoughtful towards my boyfriend, and he gets very easily hurt by it . I have seen two sides of this story. I am not blaming anyone. I am pointing to the fact that she is part of their ongoing communication. There is no way of telling if he is being abusive or just a bit frustrated, but either way it is not working out . And she needs to decide if she wants to make it work or let it be. It is her life and her call. Only she knows what can be done.

FFS!

You have done this in a dozen threads. Stop making excuses for people to treat each other like shit!


You have done this about cheating and lying and now abuse? Really? Your reasoning is full of crap and you have no experience or wisdom in the areas so please stop pretending like you do. If there is ANY abuse going on and there are huge signs of it here, it needs to be addressed as what it is and not ENABLED, which is what you are promoting AGAIN for yet another poster going through something you justify, rationalize or excuse away.

You really don't need to respond if you don't have real helpful advice. Your Ex treated you like shit and you are okay with it, but it does not mean you should have been or anyone else ever should be.

[snow]

I get what you are saying and it is very considerate, the only problem is that there should never be a reason to call someone a nasty name, ever. Yelling happens in the heat of the moment, but name calling should just not be happening. If you resort to calling someone names, you don't respect that person. I don't call anyone in my family names because I love and respect them. I don't call any of my friends any names because I love and respect them as well. Name calling is abuse (unless of course otherwise specified, when it is accepted by both partners, or jokingly as a nickname, etc. etc.)

[rubydissolution]

Honestly....your relationship is toxic!!!! You doubt him, he gets mad that you doubt him....how is that healthy? How are you even happy in this relationship? If I was fighting with my SO all the time, if he ever called me any sort of name that would be it, we'd be done. There is no excuse...NO EXCUSE for him to call you any sort of name. You are his girlfriend, not some person he is brawling with at a bar. He is verbally abusing you, and after verbal abuse comes physical abuse. He is taking his insecurities out on you and you don't have to take it. Leave now!

You need to break away from this relationship and focus on yourself and your issues. All of these insecurities within yourself need to be dealt with before you can have a healthy relationship with anyone. Any boyfriend you get is going to get frustrated if you regularly question their love. Yes, every now and then they may have to walk away from you, or snap at you because it gets old. The will not do it every single time you try to talk out an issue. Trust me, break away and focus on yourself. You'll be a better person for yourself and for your future partner for doing so. GL!

[KrazyKat]

I did not take differentcountries' post as blaming the OP for her SO yelling at her, I think you guys misinterpreted it (very easy to do when you are just reading text). I think she was simply trying to give the OP an alternate way of talking to him without him getting upset. Again, it is not AT ALL her fault he's getting upset, but some people need to hear things a different way or something can set them off. I know this from experience, a SO of mine often took things the wrong way and got very upset, it was not my fault that he got upset, but if I managed to say things in a way that he didn't misinterpret it saved us a lot of grief!

[Ahava]

You sound like me when I was 22 and a few years on ward. I had a bad childhood, insecurity issues, felt like now one could ever truly love me. I wanted security and a family, thought that was the answer to my problems. So because of my background, lack of selfrespect/love etc I ended up with an abusive man.

Your descriptions of your fights really hit home for me and brought back memories. For us it wasn't that bad right from the beginning, but over time it got worse and worse. He took everything I said the wrong way, twisted what I said, told me always when I was trying to explain how I feel/see things that I was lying. He got upset and started yelling and breaking things (numerous amount of mobile phones, at least one laptop, several apartments had holes in the wall).
Once when I was holding our baby and I managed to upset him yet again by saying something wrong he swung his fist right next to my face into the wall next to us. Normal behaviour? He never actually hit me, but I think I could have managed to get him to if I wanted to. I stayed for 10 years. I did not love him but because beeing a christian etc I felt that divorce wasn't an option. It took some really heavy stuff to occur before I could get the courage to leave.

You have two choices: either leave and save yourself a lot of heart break (and I suggest you get yourself some sort of help/therapy before you get into another relationship) or get yourself a hard lesson of life, which will either make you or break you.

[standingoutsidethefire]

While I feel for you, and I can't imagine how much it must hurt to have someone you care about say things like that to you, I wouldn't as I say..."put up with any bullshit from a man". Maybe that's too blunt, but when it comes to any form of abuse (and yes verbal abuse is still abuse), there's no reason to put yourself through it. You deserve better than that. If he can't treat you with the respect you deserve, there's another great guy out there who will!

[Fretboard_Magic]

I did not take differentcountries' post as blaming the OP for her SO yelling at her, I think you guys misinterpreted it (very easy to do when you are just reading text). I think she was simply trying to give the OP an alternate way of talking to him without him getting upset. Again, it is not AT ALL her fault he's getting upset, but some people need to hear things a different way or something can set them off. I know this from experience, a SO of mine often took things the wrong way and got very upset, it was not my fault that he got upset, but if I managed to say things in a way that he didn't misinterpret it saved us a lot of grief!

I agree! *tips hat*

[Berenice]

Hi ,
I can more or less relate to what you say, I guess.
I have a severe lack of self confidence issue, and in my previous relationship (5 yrs) I used to be incredibly insecure about my ex's feelings. Very often, I would "accuse" my boyfriend of not loving me, of not doing this and that, and of doing too much of this and that, and so on.
Now i realise that i literally made him live in HELL. At one point, he ended up telling me that his feelings towards me actually had decreased over the months. And i played a huge part in that.
Now i'm not saying everything is my fault, cause the game needs two players, and we both didn't play it. He wasn't the man I wanted.
But what i'm trying to say is that not trusting someone who says that he loves you can be really really hurtful, and even though i do not support his attitude AT ALL, I can understand how frustrating it is not to be believed by someone you love. This is why my first advice is that you truly deeply look for the reasons why you don't trust him. Is it because you lack self confidence like I did (do), because you feel like he's doing less and less stuff, because other reasons maybe...
Now, that being said, i agree with the others girls that NO MATTER WHAT, your bf shouldn't insult you, or at least YOU SHOULDN'T LET HIM INSULT YOU. Whatever situation, whatever feelings, calling your gf names, yelling at her because she is sad is not right. That is not how you deal with tough situations, that is not how you deal with sadness or lack of trust.
I think the best thing you could do now is take a moment, when you don't feel extreme feelings, when you are rather calm, and explain to your bf how you feel about the situation. You don't need to accuse him of anything, starting your phrases with "you do that, you say that, you are..." is just gonna make him feel angry and attacked. Try to start your phrases with "me, I". "I feel this way when this happens" etc.
eventually, your bf will have to understand that your communication pattern has to change, and that change has to come from you as much as from him.
In the end, you have to do whatever it takes to be happy. If your happiness has to go through leaving this relationship, then that's all the bad i wish for you. Although i couldn't see how, although i refused to see how, I had to leave my ex boyfriend, that I loved, because it came to a point where i knew deep inside that i would be happier alone. Even if at the beginning, I thought i could never overcome the situation.
Also, remember that you always, always have a choice.
I sincerely hope that both of you can overcome this issue and be happy together.

[Hollandia]

I did not take differentcountries' post as blaming the OP for her SO yelling at her, I think you guys misinterpreted it (very easy to do when you are just reading text). I think she was simply trying to give the OP an alternate way of talking to him without him getting upset. Again, it is not AT ALL her fault he's getting upset, but some people need to hear things a different way or something can set them off. I know this from experience, a SO of mine often took things the wrong way and got very upset, it was not my fault that he got upset, but if I managed to say things in a way that he didn't misinterpret it saved us a lot of grief!

That way of thinking is why battered women continue to get abused. There is no alternative way of looking at abuse. If you are being abused you need to do something, NOW, today before it ever happens again. This not one single sliver of it being okay in the slightest way. This is no offense but total Sh#% to say, "some people need to hear things a different way to prevent them from being set off" ....that is blaming the victim, right there. That phases is saying that she has to watch how she talks to him or she can "set him off". That's wrong! That is exactly what my Ex tried to say, "I made him angry when I knew that he could not control his temper."

You Ex was doing the same thing to you and it was not in slightest bit right for you to "manage to say things in a way", that's called walking on eggshells and again putting some blame upon yourself for his reactions. This is not about "grief", this is about abuse.

[TwoThree]

Thank you, Hollandia. Wow. I can't believe that in this day and age, people are still using those abuse-enabling arguments. I feel sick.

[Moon]

That way of thinking is why battered women continue to get abused. There is no alternative way of looking at abuse. If you are being abused you need to do something, NOW, today before it ever happens again. This not one single sliver of it being okay in the slightest way. This is no offense but total Sh#% to say, "some people need to hear things a different way to prevent them from being set off" ....that is blaming the victim, right there. That phases is saying that she has to watch how she talks to him or she can "set him off". That's wrong! That is exactly what my Ex tried to say, "I made him angry when I knew that he could not control his temper."

You Ex was doing the same thing to you and it was not in slightest bit right for you to "manage to say things in a way", that's called walking on eggshells and again putting some blame upon yourself for his reactions. This is not about "grief", this is about abuse.

Hitting the nail on the head again, Hol. Couldn't agree more!

[KrazyKat]

I completely disagree with you. I am not being abused by any means. Every couple has arguments, you get upset with your SO occasionally, don't you? Does that mean you're abusing your SO? But if my SO gets upset I'm being abused? I in no way ever said that my SO has threatened, yelled at, or harmed me, he has never done anything more that express his frustration or let me know he was upset and why. How is that abuse? Isn't that called communication? I said "if I managed to say things in a way that he didn't misinterpret it saved us a lot of grief!" By grief I meant extended conversations about how he took things the wrong way, not that I was saving myself from a beating or verbal abuse. I just don't like lengthy conversations explaining what I meant when I could just try to word it properly the first time. My SO has mental health problems and "set off" was not the proper way to say what I was meaning, what I had originally typed for some reason didn't post so I rushed and typed a second response before I had to leave. I didn't mean set off as into an aggressive state, and by upset I really don't even mean angry, he gets defensive and hurt and sometimes depressed because he misinterprets what I say and it "sets him off" into a depressive state until I finally manage to get him to tell me what is bothering him. We discuss it and I explain what I actually meant and resolve things. Of course sometimes he does get mad but he doesn't get aggressive or abusive about it, he usually lifts weights to release it so he's not so worked up and then we talk about why he was angry. Anger is a natural emotion, as long as it isn't being taken out on the other person it does not equate abuse.

With that being said, I was not even commenting on anything the OP posted, I wasn't giving advice to the OP, my post was not at all about trying to convince someone they aren't being abused or trying to get her to stay with someone who's being abusive, I was simply saying that I thought people were misinterpreting DifferentCountries' post, it's not our place to say if the person is being abused or not and not our place to decide what the person does (although I agree from her posts that things are out of hand and should not be ignored and I would not recommend she stay with her SO), DifferentCountries was simply suggesting a possible alternative way of communicating if the OP feels that she isn't being abused and decides to try to work on things with her SO, not blaming her for her SO's behavior.