I am 22F and my boyfriend is 24m. This weekend we went on a trip to celebrate his birthday which was on Friday. We’ve been arguing a good amount recently so this was a really nice trip and we had a great time until last night. So for more context, my boyfriend has pretty bad anger issues and has put two holes in doors since we’ve been dating (~1 year) but never when I am present and only one of them was because of an argument with me. We broke up in January for a week and when we got back together he made a promise to stop drinking because he gets highly emotional/angry when drunk and is impossible to talk to or calm down, although he never tries to intimidate or hurt me physically. He stayed true to his promise and only recently has started having one or two drinks with dinner or when we are out. Yesterday he had a few drinks but I drank more and was drunk. We were far away from our original hotel and wanted to stay out so he booked a hotel for us to take a nap in.
I was drunk and fell asleep around 11 pm with the plan he’d do his own thing and wake me up in an hour. Fast forward 3.5 hours I wake up to him entering the room intoxicated and talking about how he was detained by security (or cops I’m not sure). He was kind of rambling about what happened and really upset but he kept talking about how one of the cops slammed him on the ground and he hit his head. At this point I had no idea what he was talking about and had just woken up so I was very confused and bummed that I slept for so long because at that point the night was over. I also absolutely hate being around him when he’s drunk which he hasn’t been since he made that promise. I decided to leave and go back to our original hotel where all of our stuff was since I never planned to stay the night in the new hotel. I told him I wanted to go on my own because he knows I don’t like being around him when he’s drunk due to past events.
I went and hung out in the hotel lobby while he was texting me freaking out. He was making no sense and was super upset I had broken up with him but I hadn’t at all. I kept explaining that and saying I just didn’t want to be around him and for him to please just go to bed. Fast forward 20 minutes I stopped answering because he was spam texting me hysterics. At this point I realized his phone was dead and he’d have no way of calling an Uber to get back to our hotel and he didn’t have a room key to our original hotel so I waited for some strangers to go up the elevator since I didn’t have a key to our new hotel and needed one to go up. I found him in the hallway on the way to our room. He was super upset and started to cause a scene. I was scared someone would call security if they walked up so I tried to get the room key out of his pocket which led to us slightly wrestling on the floor for it. Neither of us were harming each other but at one point he lost his balance and tipped backwards hitting his head on the wall. All of a sudden his face changed and he started saying “you knocked me out” over and over again and I was extremely confused because he had been saying the cop did that but I didn’t at all. He stood up and pushed me so that I hit the wall and I fell which gave me carpet burn on my leg. I was extremely shocked and had dropped my phone when he did it. He picked my phone up and threw it as hard as he could down the hotel room hallway (~30 feet). It broke a light fixture on the wall and hit the wall on the other side of the hall way. I was shocked and figured my phone was absolutely shattered. Miraculously it was completely fine.
At this point he is punching the hotel room hallways and I am begging him to go in the room. He finally does and starts rolling on the ground screaming and crying. I am pretty confused because I didn’t do anything and we weren’t even fighting for it to lead to this. He also knows I had been in an abusive relationship and can’t even talk about it because he gets so angry at my ex. At one point he says “I wish I punched you in the fucking face” and once again I was in shock. He also pushed me to the ground one more time when he was walking by me but this didn’t lead to any injuries. I then started recording him screaming and crying so he could see it the next day since he never remembers when he drinks and he noticed and freaked out. He grabbed my phone which freaked me out so I tried to grab it out of his hand and once I had a grip on it he bit down on my wrist hard enough to leave marks and bruise. He also put three holes in the wall of the hotel room. I have no idea how security wasn’t called as he was screaming at some points. I almost called security but didn’t want him to get in more trouble.
At about 4:30 (after two hours of this) he finally fell asleep. I stayed up until i woke him up around 8. He had no memory of what happened and is absolutely devastated. He only remembers the cop slamming his head and being checked for a concussion and refusing to get in an ambulance. He has a huge knot on his forehead this morning. I don’t know if this is naive but I genuinely feel like the head injury caused him to be a different person. I don’t think it was just alcohol because he wasn’t stumbling or slurring his words even. He had actually been adamant that he was sober which was a lie but it was pretty believable. Even though he has anger issues he has never once laid a finger on me or even threatened to. Even when he’s in a peak of a breakdown he will reassure me that he’s not going to hurt me. Today he is constantly apologizing and I just feel pretty shocked by it all I guess. He asked me to replay the events numerous times because he couldn’t believe he would ever lay a hand on me. He does believe me completely though and is validating my feelings and feels so ashamed of himself. He has also given up drinking for life apparently. I do believe he’ll stop drinking and that he’d never touch me again. I told only my best friend who is his housemate and good friends with him as well. She also thinks it was the head injury because of how out of character it is for him. Outside of this event my boyfriend is the sweetest guy who worships the ground I walk on and is very open to all our friends about how he feels about me. I just feel like a line was crossed and I need advice on how to move past it or if I even should.
21 comments
It’s sounds like you’re making excuses for him. I’ve been in a abusive relationship before with a guy who drank too much, it won’t change. They always feel bad and apologize, saying they won’t drink.
My advice, leave him. It will be hard, but your life is more important
OP – first, he needs to go to the hospital and be checked out. If he has a concussion that can absolutely cause personality changes and anger issues.
BUT
He has REAL problems. REAL problems. Do not be alone with him – he harmed you and he harmed your property while in a rage. It sounds like he was high on something from your description of his behavior.
>Outside of this event my boyfriend is the sweetest guy who worships the ground I walk on and is very open to all our friends about how he feels about me.
That does not excuse what he did… at all… what happens in the future when/if you have kids and he gets drunk? This isn’t something that goes away on its own…
He needs to cut out alachol and go get serious thesrpy becuase this is not normal or acceptable behavior…
Seriously though consider breaking up becuase this is a massive red flag and if he doesn’t promise to cut out alachol or breaks that promise then do not stay in a relationship with him…
Your bf might have suffered a head injury, but he sounds like he was already well on the road to drunken violence. I’m seriously shocked how far down I read before encountering the “head injury”.
Your boyfriend is a blackout & mean drunk. It’s wild to me that you and your friend are so quick to latch onto a head injury as the cause for his poor behavior when he was acting out long before that, and apparently has a history of inappropriate behavior when drinking.
If you believe that he’s going to stop drinking and are willing to support him in that then that’s your choice, but the fact that you, him, and your social circle are apparently already spinning the worst of his behavior as being caused by something other than alcohol makes me think sobriety is probably not going to happen.
OK, you need to end this relationship, for real. He IS being abusive towards you. Smashing things, yelling, acting like an asshole, it’s all abuse. He’s got a lot of issues, and he almost got his ass arrested because he can’t control himself. I was just like him when I was his age, so I’m an expert on this subject. I used to lash out and break things. I used to act like an idiot sometimes when I got drunk. I used to think it was OK, I was just venting my anger on inanimate objects that didn’t really matter. Well, it’s still violence, even if I wasn’t hitting anyone. The effects on the people around me are the same if I was hitting them. I read something that resonated and opened my eyes to how much of a piece of ahit I had been, even if I didn’t realize it. It immediately crushed me and I changed my behavior instantly. But your bf is still in the middle of being a jerk, he hasn’t realized it. Which is why you need to leave. There’s no guarantee he’ll wake up like I did, and you can’t change someone else, unless they’re trying to change themselves. He could escalate his behavior, too. Some people get worse over time. You’re too young to be dealing with this bullshit.
You say that he’s a very sweet guy outside of this incident, but you also freely admit that he has serious anger issues in general, has punched holes in walls prior to this incident, and that his emotional problems are exacerbated when he drinks alcohol (and despite promising to quit drinking, he drank during the trip and then unsuccessfully lied about not being drunk). head injuries can definitely cause people to exhibit uncharacteristic aggression but this doesnt really sound like an escalation that cant be explained by a combo of rage problems and too much booze. I also have trouble believing that a cop who slammed his head into the ground would have been fine with him just walking away rather than arresting him, so it’s highly possible that he lied about the police brutality and just got into a fight with some random guy because he was drunk and making poor decisions.
if youre afraid of this person to the point where you cant be around him when he’s drinking, I think it may be time to reconsider this relationship before he gets further enmeshed in your life
Your boyfriend:
-is/was physically and emotionally abusive and is not “the sweetest”
-has an alcohol problem
-will 100% do this again
You need to break up and leave for your own safety and he needs help.
Violent drunks are shit people.
Drinking just makes people be who they truly are.
If I had a dog that would bite me if they got stung by a bee and they had been swimming in a lake, that means I have a dog that would bite me. It doesn’t matter if the circumstances aren’t common or even nearly impossible.
Put the dog down. He is only a threat to your safety.
First time he stopped drinking, he hadn’t hurt you. Second time, he has. What’ll be the reason he stops for a third time? You’re in the hospital?
My father suffered a nasty concussion in a car accident when I was a child. It changed his personality, and really threatened his and my mom’s marriage for a time.
Eventually, with healing, his personality returned to normal.
However, his starting point wasn’t that of an alcoholic, or someone who punches holes into doors.
Fact is, your boyfriend has been on the precipice of the behavior you saw this whole time. You’ve passed it off with excuses like “oh he doesn’t punch the holes when I’m around” and “oh he doesn’t try to intimidate my physically when he’s drunk”, but those are clearly THE VERY NEXT STEPS from where he’s currently at.
You’ve been acting like that line is some unbreakable levee, and that it’s OK that he’s slamming against the levee as long as the levee doesn’t break.
Well, you’ve seen that the levee isn’t unbreakable, and you see what happens when it springs a leak. It’s up to you what to do next, but I’d recommend getting the fuck out of the flood zone.
Your boyfriend was violent BEFORE the head injury. I know it is easier to make excuses and want to believe the best, but this could very well end in you getting severely hurt, if not worse.
I promise you, there are other men out there who aren’t angry/violent/abusive who will also treat you well. The hardest part is just getting yourself to leave. But once you do that, it gets much easier. Please leave him. Block him on everything so he cannot reach out and try to get you back.
You say that he’s usually the sweetest guy and has never/would never lay a finger on you, but the punching holes in walls etc is usually a huge warning sign that leads to escalation… Which it has.
Love bombing and then turning nasty before doubling back is classic abuser behaviour.
Someone in my life recently suffered a brain injury, and it truly does mess you up. But it messes you up for a long time. It’s not a one time thing the night of the incident. He swore to you once he would stop drinking because of how he would act, but he went back to drinking and it happened again. Chances are he’s gonna go back to having a couple drinks with dinner again until eventually another outburst comes 🙁 Even if he acts this way because of alcohol, it’s still his actions, and you still have a right to put yourself first because you know you shouldn’t be treated like this. Even if he apologizes. You still lived through that, and any choice you make from now on because of that is valid.
Hey girl, when I saw your post title I was like wow did I write this? I was in a relationship like this too where my bf (ex) would get angry when he drank, punch walls and throw things but otherwise everything else was amazing. There was one incident where he got physically aggressive towards me and afterwards promised that it would never happen again and was profusely sorry. Cried and begged and all that. It happened again, three more times until I left. Anger issues and violence don’t just go away, he needs therapy and a drive to be better. He can be sorry but it doesn’t change or excuse what he did to you. Please think about your safety, about how scared you were, about what you would tell a friend to do if they told you their boyfriend did the same thing to you to them. They can mean it when they say they’ll never do it again, but truly it is a lot harder and rare that they actually don’t. I’m so sorry you’re going through this, sending strength!
Run.
I am not kidding you get out of this relationship while you can and remove him from yourself and your life completely. Blocking, restraining orders, which would be approved since you have physical evidence, bruises, scrapes and possible camera footage. Both of my ex boyfriends were this way and one became so escalated that he tried to push me down a flight of stairs and took 3 officers to detain him. He tried to claim he was “drugged.” He most certainly wasn’t.
This different personas when taking in certain items that cloud certain portions of the brain give you a glimpse into who they truly are as a person. As my mom always said, “if you want to get an idea of who they truly are join them on a night out. Liquor brings out everyone’s true selves.”
You’ve been in a relationship for a year with someone who has a drinking and anger management problem. If youd been together for years and thewe things started gradually happening, I might suggest working with him to get help with his addiction and your codependency with him.
However, the situation you’re in has high potential for dangerous outcomes…and you havent been together very long. As long as he continues to drink, the stakes will get higher and higher, leading to consequences that will get worse. He’s escalating and there is nothing you’ll be able to do until he decides he needs help. It sounds like he’d nowhere near that.
You are in an abusive relationship. It’s not your fault but it is your problem. You cant control him but you have complete control over the extent to which you’ll let his behavior effect you. You are unsafe in this relationship and it’s time to protect yourself. Leave him.
Even outside of this incident there are massive red flags. He’s put holes in walls, this isn’t normal behaviour and doesn’t matter if you were there or not. You can’t even talk about your previous abusive relationship because he gets so furious; it’s not about him or how he feels, you should be able to confide in him without his bullshit taking over the conversation. Ditch the loser asap, he sounds like a ticking bomb.
There are three things you should absolutely do. First, tell him to go to a doctor to check his head physically, because it is possible that he should have gone to the hospital and is actually hurt. Second, tell him to go see a therapist because the guy has serious problems regardless that he needs to address. Third, get out of there because you are legitimately in danger.
Run run run run as fast as you can he will never change they never do
He is not a safe person. He may think he would never hurt you, but he already has scared the living crap out of you, behaved in a completely unhinged manner, doesn’t know what he is doing when he is blackout drunk, and punched holes in walls.
Don’t make excuses for him OP. It is only a matter of time.
You’re being naive and you know it.
He’s exhibited violent tendencies already with the punching of the walls. You refuse to be around him when he’s drunk because he’s abusive and annoying. Come on, man.
Do yourself a favor and find someone that can control themselves. Because believe me, this will escalate too. If you allow this to just pass, it won’t be long and he’ll be pushing you around more often. Later, he’ll probably upgrade to just full on hitting you. Seriously. This behavior really isn’t abnormal for him, according to you, it’s just escalating. You deserve better than this.
Well considering you said you wouldn’t be with him if he drank but he continues to drink to the point of being out of his mind I’d say it’s time to leave