| Hello everyone! I am new to the forum, and I am hoping I can get some good advice and input from people who have been through similar situations. Please forgive the length of this post but I want to give as many details as possible. My SO and I have been together for a little over 6 years. I am 33 and he is 40. At times throughout the relationship, we have had issues. He has a very unstable background and has been cheated on in all his past relationships. I come from a very emotionally abusive background and witnessed both my parents fight constantly when I was young. My mother is also very controlling, abusive and manipulative. That being said, we are now acting out our issues in a vicious cycle with each other that is not getting any better. It reached a point last week where I actually called my father to come help me move out. I am not afraid of physical abuse, but the emotional and mental abuse had gotten to be too much. The typical cycle of the fight is this: I confront him with something, usually when I am frustrated. This is not usually something he is done, it is more like a situation that needs fixing (the cat tore one of the screens, something is wrong with the dryer, etc.). He either A. reacts non emotionally to me and we solve the problem together or B. reacts like he is being attacked and then shuts me down with some quick dismissal of the situation (why are you so uptight about it? how did I cause this problem and why are you yelling at me?, etc.). If the latter reaction happens, I then get mad that I am not being heard or that he is not listening to me and I do everything in my power to MAKE him hear me. This includes me yelling at him. If he walks out of the room I will follow him and talk to him until I am blue in the face. He will then at some point lose it with me, scream at me and call me every name in the book, and then leave the house. It should be noted that he has NEVER be en physical with me. I, on the other hand, have shoved him, hit him on the shoulder, and thrown things at him. He is VERY verbally abusive with the name calling. The last straw was where he told me he wanted me out of his house and out of his life, and then proceeded to tell me what I was doing to him was the equivalent of him spitting on me (he illustrated this by spitting on my feet) and then just saying I was sorry and expecting him to be fine. That was it for me. I said fine, you want me out then I am gone. I left, went to stay at my mother in law's house for the night and then went back the next day with my Dad when he was not home to get all of my things. When he came home and saw everything gone, he lost it. Called me, begged me to come home. Asked if my Dad would be willing to talk to both of us and act as mediator. (It should be noted that my Dad and Mom are now divorced and that my Dad went through intense therapy to overcome his issues in the marriage. He is currently going through classes to become a certified counselor to help others who are in his former situation.) My Dad listened to both of us for over three hours and came to the conclusion that I am abusing my SO by berating him verbally when I feel like I am not being heard. My SO is abusing me when he is calling me names. He suggested we go to counseling, and both SO and I agreed. We are starting next week. Here are my issues: 1. Deep down, I feel like what I have done to my SO is not nearly as bad as what he has done to me. 2. I feel like my SO does not accept responsibility for his actions ie. "If she didn't just keep pushing me, I would never get to the point of calling her those names". These are (I think) going to be the two main things we are really going to have to work on. Does anyone have any advice for this? I will say that we do genuinely love each other and we both do want things to be better. I would also say that not all aspects of the relationship are broken. Neither one of us seeks the other out to abuse them ie. he doesn't just come into the room and say "hey you suck" and I don't just pick a fight to pick a fight. And we do laugh. We laugh so much with each other. Overall I think it's mostly good, we just have one aspect that is unfortunately REALLY bad. Again, we both want to work this out. "Just leave him" is not the response I am looking for from anyone. I feel like we do have a good shot with counseling, and I am looking for advice on what I can do to make the counseling as effective as possible. Thanks in advance for any imput! :) | |||
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