Submitted by throwRA837372929 t3_113hzte in relationship_advice
I have been dating and living with my boyfriend for 2 years. He has anger issues and likes to throw things during an argument such as remotes, phones, bowls of dog water, really anything.
He’s been grumpy all week because his family is coming into town for their dads wedding and his brother doesn’t treat him the best and we are hosting his brother and fiancé.
I go above and beyond for my boyfriend. Since I don’t pay much in rent: I pay 1/3 and him 2/3 this years lease) and last year I didn’t really pay rent, I do 100% of the house cleaning, the laundry, breakfasts and most of the dinners, taking care of the dogs vets appts, making sure we have dessert to bring over to his family, the gifts for his family for the holidays, just overall taking care of stuff. Sometimes I feel like he takes all this stuff for granted and doesn’t really respect me during fights.
Tonight’s fight was about this throw pillow. We had this fight while on our nighttime walk with the dogs. He had two of these pillows. One pillow was falling apart and exploding cotton, so I threw it away (this was a while ago maybe a yr or so). At the time, He threw a fit saying how I didn’t ask him and I was supposed to fix the pillow since I sew. Fast forward to tonight and the other throw pillow has been sitting in the closet gathering dust and most definitely needs to be washed. Mind you, these pillows are kinda gross and really need to be recovered or get new ones. Since we pay for laundry, I don’t really waste my time washing this one because we don’t use throw pillows on the bed (just another thing to wash). He said tonight that he wants me to wash it. I said he really needs to find a new one or I can recover because the outside is getting gross (think of a ratty old teddy bear). So he got angry and said I threw away his first one and that I need to wash this one and put it on the bed. This escalated quickly into me saying he’s being rude and to wash it himself. He proceeded to throw a bag of dog poop at me and stormed off. I continued on my walk and went home to shower.
I was watching tv in the living room with all my stuff with me to sleep on the couch. He comes into the living area and we get into it again where I said he’s behavior is appalling and that he’s taking his week out on me and that’s not ok and to leave me alone. He then spit in my direction.
I know he has anger issues but this is just getting out of hand. Any advice?
Update: We talked about his anger and initially this is all fights - he always tries to justify his actions by saying “well what were you saying to make me do xyz to you”. He actually thought his behavior was better than normal because usually he yells at me, raises his voice which scares the dogs, and calls me a baby, Ret@rd, btch, cnt, stupid, idiot, moron, etc.
We’ve talked about abuse before and some of his exes have called him abusive. I think he thinks if he’s not hitting then it’s not abuse.
All resolutions to our fights start with him being defensive then he gradually starts to apologize and recognizes his behavior is messed up.
Also, forgot to mention he is an alcoholic and I think even though he’s not drinking anymore that this contributes to how he acts out mentally.
He knows he crossed a line and said he’s going to therapy and anger management.