Hi all- I’m newly diagnosed and am going through the seemingly normal-ish (from what I can tell?) experience that a lot of people go through when newly diagnosed: i keep identifying traits and questioning others, and it’s creating quite the identity crisis (or, i guess, exacerbating the one i’ve been in.)

That said: I’ve been in a relationship with my boyfriend for 2.5 years now and we have a 2-year-old son. My boyfriend has had anger issues from the get-go. 

The first time he lashed out at me: we were watching tv and he was being quiet and short with me- thought he was mad at me, so I went ahead and got in the bath even though we’d planned to take one together. Minutes later he busts in the bathroom yelling because I just went ahead without him. I’d never encountered anger like that before and it scared me, because it made me feel like I’d suddenly lost touch with what felt like the best relationship ever to me. We cuddled and then told each other we loved each other for the first time, and in hindsight, I know that the make-up was an effort on my part because I couldn’t handle feelings of neglect and rejection if we went to bed upset. 

Now that I think about it, I think all of our fights have started with that scenario: me thinking he’s upset, and then either pushing him too hard to tell me what’s wrong, or me simply not asking him what’s wrong. About 2 years ago, he (drunkenly) shattered the glass coffee table and scared his dog and I so badly that I locked us both in a room and started planning an escape route. He cut his foot on the glass and I went to help him.. he kept yelling “fuck you” as I wiped the blood off his feet. 

Another time, we went out of town, and he got so angry that he started slamming on the breaks and the gas in parking lots. I got so scared that I told him to pull over because I wanted out. He said to get out and find a ride home. 

One time when we went to our son’s checkup, he got angry that I wouldn’t address an argument with him in the waiting room- so he threatened to leave. When I asked how our son and I would get home, he said “you’ll figure it out.”

One time, he got so angry that he threw his phone at our bedroom wall, which made our baby wake up crying. I went in there to comfort him and my boyfriend tried to grab me and hold me back. When we got into the bedroom, I picked our baby up and my boyfriend later (wanted to specify the baby was not in the crib at this time) slammed the crib into the wall. Then slammed the bedroom door, shattering a mirror. 

The last threatening and aggressive episode has been about a year ago, I’d say. He identified his wrongdoing and has made efforts to control his anger- which is somehow working, or at least he isn’t unleashing it on me. His strategy is that he “just doesn’t think about it.” so I’m not sure how effective it really is in the long run, but still. He still doesn’t readily open up to me, and can go over 24+ hours without speaking to me if he’s upset. I do try to have civil conversations when we argue, and I feel that I’m self-aware enough to try to discuss things rationally- but I still feel as though I’m dismissed every time. We both have jobs that have pretty significant busy and slow seasons, both of which took a big hit this year- and while I’m not the best with finances, I’ve done my best to educate myself on money management this year and have put in more of an effort- but every time he gets stressed about money, he tells me that I need to start saving more or that I need to find another job because I’m not pulling my weight and my job isn’t consistent. It just hurts and feels somewhat controlling at times because I always end up feeling like a child being lectured by their parent- and his job is no more consistent than mine. 

I know this is all probably over-explained and unreasonably lengthy, but it’s hard for me to ever focus long enough to actually go through these experiences in such detail- I had to allow it to all flow. I’m just at a point where I’m unsure of what’s what. Every time we’ve gotten into an argument- ever- I’ve obsessively googled everything I could about emotional abuse. My mind just always ends up there, but I have such a hard time settling on that because he hasn’t acted that extreme in over a year now + I’m realizing how extreme and irrational my perceptions of, well, everything, are now- so I can’t decipher what any of this is anymore. If you did end up reading this, thank you. I do plan to talk to my therapist more about this this week, but I usually end up forgetting a lot of this under pressure. I can’t figure out if it’s emotional abuse, or if it’s me blowing things out of proportion because of BPD. Or if I’m experiencing more BPD symptoms because of the trauma that came with experiencing his unpredictable bouts of anger. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.. thank you