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When you're in the wrong - what to do

luft_
Community Member

I have been anxious the last 6 months after my grandmother passed away who I had cared for when sick. I admit I have been essentially both cranky and difficult to be around since.

My partner and I have been together for 4 years. When he drinks he has become verbally abusive and aggressive. He has probably been like this twice in the past 6 months, and has been so in the past. When he doesn't drink, he is generally quite nice and we don't really have any problems.

About 6 weeks ago, the night before we were meant to go on a weekend away, he had over 20 standard drinks in one evening. I had gone to meet him at a bar with my friends,& he got very angry with my friend who had said something rude to him. I asked him to leave it, and not make a scene, but he persisted, so I left and walked home.

When he arrived home we had a terrible argument. He tried to 'steal' my wallet and possessions and threw a glass of water at me (not the actual glass, just the water), kicked a pot. He said all sorts of horrible things, even going so far as to call me fat (which is the second time he has said this to me - which doesn't really make sense because I am actually quite slim but it still hurt me). I decided to leave, and he followed me to my parents' car which I was borrowing, and even punched the dashboard!

It was crazy behaviour, & after several hours of being insulted & being in genuine fear etc, I drove to my parents' house to stay there. He ended up driving up the next day to apologise. I was really hurt and remained so for the next 6-7 weeks.

After about 6 weeks or so, he took me on holidays for my birthday - which we had planned months ago. The holiday went well, but I did feel anxious a lot of the time, but we seemed to rekindle things. The weekend after we returned I organised a birthday party.

One of my friends started complaining to him that he hadn't bought me a cake, which I didn't care about. In the cab home, he said it upset him. At this point I was quite intoxicated, and started getting angry with him. When we arrived home I apparently started verbally abusing him, telling him no one in my family liked him, that I hated having sex with him (neither are remotely true), that I wanted to break up. I even deleted him from FB it seems.

I can't believe I did or said any of this. We have tried talking about it but he is hurt and confided in me that he didn't know why he was with me now. I have no idea what to do - I feel what I did is 100% unforgivable.

4 Replies 4

Lonelydan
Community Member
Hi Luft, It sounds to me he likes to dish it out but cant take it back. I could say a lot more, my advice is to run run run get away from him. It will never improve there will only be heartache and you will be dragged down with him. Don't let him play with your head which is exactly what his doing. Danny...

😞

geoff
Champion Alumni
Champion Alumni
hello Luft_, even though you had a good time when you went on holidays, you say, 'but I did feel anxious a lot of the time', so you weren't too sure what he may get up to, so to rekindle this could just be a temporary situation, no different than a husband giving his abused wife a box of chocolotes for forgiveness.
Alcohol can make people say things that they wished they hadn't said, but once said it's very difficult to overcome and only time will do be able to sort this out, however what is said can quite often have significant points on how you are feeling, and being intoxicated then there are no inhibitions, and what else that worries me is that 'he is generally quite nice when not drinking', but you have to remember that alcohol is part of his life.
I wouldn't worry about you said to him, that's happened very few times, compared to how he treats you, verbally abusing and aggressive, so there is an enormous difference, and he may in turn to physical abuse, I'm not saying that he has done this, but the there is a great possibility it could start.
Any counselling is going to be about his drinking, as that was exactly what my wife and I talked about in couple counselling, purely blaming me for drinking, until the topic was changed to let the counsellor know that I had a head injury, then the blame was put onto my wife, that's the last meeting we had, and I would presume that the same resultwould happen with you.
That doesn't mean that you shouldn't have counselling yourself, as I think it would help you get over this hurdle, and make you decide whether or not you want to stay with him. Geoff.

luft_
Community Member

Hello Geoff,

I am really struggling with it, I'll be honest.

Since the big argument that I instigated two weeks ago, things haven't been great. He has been pretty angry with me, but then things calmed down for a little bit, and then yesterday he had the realisation that I had deleted him off Facebook during the fight, as at the time we had apparently 'broken up' and he had told me to leave.

I apologised for deleting several times via text yesterday, but then the tirade of abusive messages came through. It went on and on for about an hour. I understand why he'd be upset over what I did, but I can't help but shake the feeling that this his is not a proportionate response.

I don't think he can control his anger - and to be honest male anger scares me because there is an obvious physical and dominant advantage. I don't think he is going to change.