blueblooms14

And I dated him too! (Although he looked different the three times I dated him) :-D

I agree to read, "Why Does He Do That?" by Lundy Bancroft
and another book that was extremely helpful to me was
"Controlling People" by Patricia Evans.

My most recent XABF (chagrin) used to watch FoxNews simply to get pissed off and then he would start picking and saying provocative things. If I didn't fight, he would get more enraged and push harder and harder. It had nothing to do with alcohol- he did it drunk or sober.

Patty Evans also coined the term "verbal abuse"- some attribute it to her. She says that in her experience verbally abusive men can change. (She also says that verbally abusive women are much harder to change and that she has never seen it. Isn't that interesting?) She has a book about how that can be done. But, to me, investing in that "what if" or "if I can only get him to go down that road, make him really see" is the danger of codependence. Poof, our lives disappear in the morass of trying to change someone (at least for me, since I go down the rabbit hole when I get enmeshed in someone else's changing). And add verbal abuse to alcoholism? Might as well set out to build a pyramid.