My relationship is borderline abusive, but I just want us to fix it

[hihey]

I have been dating this really great guy for a year now, who prior to that was one of my close friends, but lately... longer than lately, our relationship has been terrible. I think that we are both experiencing some very hard things in our personal lives that are both placing a lot of stress on us.

We fight a lot. It is exhausting.. we have talked about it, even wrote a list of how to try and change, but it never happens. I think we are both insecure about each other and losing each other. He has a thing for asians (Im white), so that alone makes me very insecure and jealous seeing as we live where the race prominent - he has never cheated or anything though....

The problem is that I will admit, get mad about little things, but then I will want to let it drop but he holds on to it. He will continue and prolong what could have been a tiff into a huge fight, and then I get angry because he won't drop it, and the he gets mad and.... it escalates. I can feel myself getting annoyed and angry and ask for space, but he will not give it to me. He says because he wants to fix it. He hates us fighting, he doesn't want to lose me ect. So it always continues and we can fight for hours... About stupid stuff that ultimately is us being insure about others and our relationship....

Lately I would put this at/ nearing abuse. He doesn't hit me, but himself.... he gets so upset because Im just annoyed at this point or angry or whatever, that he throws a grown man tantrum. I have hit him but he never does me, he if anything will just hold me, or try to get me to hit him......

I don't know what to do at this point. I love him so much, but this is to a point where it is so frequent, and such a pattern. I would love to completely start over, but I feel that it is so habitual, and were in the hole too far. What to do? I want to be with him. I think that we could have the world together if we could just stop being so dumb, but we can't seem to stop. Its only getting worse.

Thanks for responding, but please don't just reply "get out," I want this. I want to fix it, the reason we even do this is because we don't want to lose each other, especially him when we fight, which is pushing me away.

[hihey]

I don't mean anything insulting about the asian thing, just explaining.

[lavenderdove]

OK, the first thing you do is call an immediate truce. As in NO fighting allowed. If either of you starts to feel angry, you just walk away and don't come back together again until you have your temper under control.

 

This kind of a relationship is a 'death by a thousand cuts' situation. Each cut may be shallow, but the total of them together destroys a relatinship so you just have to stop.

 

Think about it... would you fight or argue with your boss like that? No, you wouldn't talk to them that way or you'd get fired. And you certainly wouldn't bicker with them every day. So you both have decided that bickering with your partner is OK, and you do it, even though the way you need to look at is is that you should treat your partner BETTER than you would anyone else, better than your boss for sure. And you're just not doing that.

 

You are using each other as lightning rods for your stress or unhappiness, which is very wrong. You need to find other ways to deal wtih negative emotions that don't involved picking fights with your partner. So if you're tense or in a bad mood, recognize that and go do yoga or jogging or listen to relaxing music or anything that reduces your stress.

 

Recognize that fighting takes an ax to the roots of your relationship, so fighting about the state of your relationship is as screaming, i need to heal my broken leg while you busily take a hammer and beat on your broken leg. For the relationship to heal, you need to give it an extended period of calm rather than chaos. So make a pact to NOT fight, and to walk away from each other if you're in a bad mood or get irritated, just separate and go into different rooms til both of you are in a better state of mind. You need a period of calm in the relationship to de-escalate the fighting.

 

Set aside a period of one half hour a week to talk about any grievances, say over dinner Sunday night. And any other time during the week, just refuse to fight and table the discussion until your half hour period once a week. You'll discover that by the time you get to Sunday night, most of the things you thought you need to fight about you can't even remember, or don't care about anymore.

 

Decide that the purpose of your relationship is love and support rather than serving a conduit and dumping ground for your negative emotions. And start refusing to dump those negative emotions on each other and avoid known 'hot spots' of discussion.

 

For example, say he is attracted to Asians.. so what? He may be attracted to lots of things but none of that is relevant to your relationship because he is dating YOU and not anyone else. Why fight about something he is NOT doing, like NOT cheating. You won't be able to control his likes and dislikes so fighting over something that really isn't about YOU or your life with him is ridiculous.

 

And if you can't control yourself and stop hitting him, then it is time for this relationship to be over. Physical abuse is uncalled for under any situation, and it doesn't matter that you're a girl, you shouldn't be hitting him. Are you going to hit your future children because they make you angry? Or hit your boss or some random guy who bumps your cart at the grocery store? It is an inappropriate response to any situation, and if you can't control that then you need to get therapy to learn how.