Please no judgement, I’m just trying to see if there are people who have experience situations this intense+ and have gone on to have happy and healthy relationships.
My boyfriend and I have been together for 2 years. It’s been a challenging relationship and on several occasions arguments have turned physical, thrown to the ground, arm around the neck, blocked from leaving.
This being said, I see how hard he’s been working to change. How he communicates with me isn’t perfect but it’s leaps and bounds better and he always shows intentions and vulnerability on getting better and acknowledging where he’s been wrong. He wants to go to therapy together.
Again, no judgment on anyone who’s been in this situation. I just wonder if it’s possible to really keep this behavior at bay for the long term.
Thank you.
4 comments
The question isn’t whether it can be kept at bay for the long term – maybe it can, maybe it can’t. The question is whether or not the risk of staying is worth it.
Suppose he doesn’t change. And you’ve burned another year or two with this person and he’s *worse*. You have the same problem you have today, but magnified. You’re gambling your time, and the safety of you future self on that question. Think about that.
Now, IMO: these kinds of problems don’t resolve inside of relationships. They resolve when one is single, going to therapy and ‘doing the work’ for an extended period of time.
No. It’s not. It always returns.
Before the physical abuse, think about how he first primed you emotionally to accept this.
Learn to love yourself and leave. Before it’s too late.
In my past, I had severe anger issues that resulted in similar behaviors to those close to me. I did go to therapy and treatment — EMDR for PTSD ended up being the right course of action, and it allowed me to change and control those immediate reactions when other types of practices and therapy did not. So yes, it’s possible for a person to improve with the right treatment and partner, but you may or may not want to stick around for the journey. It’s important to note that even after the therapy, the anger is still there, and I will still raise my voice, become animated, but the physical and verbal parts that weren’t OK are no longer an issue thanks to this treatment. Hope this helps.
I had terrible anger issues in my youth, particularly teenager years. So much so that I couldn’t control myself and flew into a violent rage once where my sister took something that belonged to me. I chased her around the house and got angrier and angrier until she ran into the bathroom and locked the door and blocked it with her body. I got a metal-tipped umbrella and shoved it through the door. The tip punctured about 2 inches to the left of her head.
Thankfully nobody was injured, but this was a wakeup call for me. Did a lot of work to control my emotions and learned to express them in healthy manner. Now I pretty much never lose my temper to go crazy like that.
Having said that, don’t take my experience as the same as yours. A grown ass man has stopped developing past teenager years and this is how he is. He should know better and take responsibility for his actions. I have never laid hands on either of my wives even when I found out the first one was cheating.