looselips

I've had a tough week. Actually, things with my mom have been good since we had a fight last week. I insisted on three things:
1) If she wants me to know something, she needs to tell me
2) if she expects me to do something but does not tell me what that is, she can't blame me for not doing it; and
3) if I say something she doesn't like (in a respectful way), that does not mean I have done something WRONG.
To her considerable credit, I think she has taken this in. Her behavior has been more respectful and reasonable this week. I haven't been feeling like I am at fault for something I couldn't have avoided. BTW, my mom is actually a dry alcoholic. She's been dry since I was 14.
The consequence that I did not expect has been with my boyfriend. He has some of the same expectations of me that my mom has (he is an AA-sober alcoholic, sober for 6 years). I didn't even realize this until I put my foot down and made some boundaries with mom.
Basically, I am trying to make room for myself in our relationship. I didn't even realize that I was accepting his expectation that I only say things he wants to hear, that I only have needs and feelings when he is not stressed out, that he is only expected to care about me when he feels like it. This situation is so similar to the one I was raised with that I did not even see it.
My boyfriend uses his explosive anger to try to keep control over the relationship. It takes him a long time to calm down after he gets angry. In the meantime, I don't even exist to him. His main trigger is criticism, and it doesn't take much to set him off.
After my fight with mom, I had a very useful conversation with him about how I sometimes feel like he is so caught up in his own life that he does not have room for me in it. I was crying. I did not even know I had this problem until I heard myself say it. But, I have been with him for a year and half, and just bringing this up now. He was upset but willing to listen. I thought I made sense to him that night. But since then he has gone backward to his usual behavior, which is punishing me for saying anything that makes him upset.
Today we got in a fight because I was frustrated that he couldn't hear me talking while I was trying to tell him about my hard day at work. I wanted to talk later when he could hear me. He told me he didn't know if later would be better because he's driving all day. He said he would call me back later, but first wanted to make sure that I didn't think it was his fault that the phone had bad reception. I felt like I had already made it clear that I was just frustrated, not that I blamed him. I felt worse when he said that because it indicated that all he really cared about was whether or not I thought he was at fault. The fact that I was frustrated seemed to mean nothing to him. (This is how it happens; every issue gets directed back to him. I simply disappear from his sight- all he cares about his clearing his name. Whether or not I am hurt or upset is irrelevant.) I told him that I felt like he didn't care that I was frustrated. This set him off. Then he yelled at me for about an hour until I hung up the phone. Again, I was expected to give up my side because he was mad, because he felt attacked. If I make him feel bad, he believes that is my fault. Until I am willing to disappear again for him, he will ignore me.
I know it's an insanely petty fight, but it had all the force of many other unresolved arguments behind it.
I feel like I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. If I tell him the truth (i.e. that my feelings are hurt), he will become overwhelmed with anger, and that makes me feel worse. If I don't say anything, I'm repeating the relationship pattern that has never worked in the past. I don't want to be invisible anymore! I'm sick of always being the understanding one; I want to be understood. I'm sick of always being flexible and nice and giving up myself in order to keep the peace. I want to be important to someone. I want to be able to say things that he doesn't like (again, respectfully) without him feeling entitled to attack me.

EveningRose

It's good to realize these things now, while it's still easier to make choices about the future of the relationship. There is no excuse for yelling at someone like that...for an hour!!??

I put up with a lot of yelling from my husband. One day, someone on the internet said, just tell him to stop yelling, and if he doesn't, walk away. It took me awhile to even try it, figuring it would be useless. Amazingly, it worked...not immediately, but bit by bit.

At a certain point, I wondered why in the world I had put up with being treated like that for so long. Then I movied back near my family, and saw them close up really for the first time in my life as an adult--I had left home at 18 and with various moves, didn't come back until my mid to late 30s.

I now understand that my ex husband's yelling was less than what I heard at home routinely, so all the yelling he did not only looked normal, it looked better than normal. But since cutting ties with my family and finally divorcing my husband, I've discovered how many people out there don't yell and scream at everyone around them.

Yes, definitely set boundaries and don't accept this. He's a big boy. He doesn't need to shout and yell.

tromboneliness

This guy needs to work the program. A lot of AA's tend to think that as long as they're not drinking and are going to meetings, they're doing it, and they're entitled to be just as much of an ******* now as they were when they knocked down a quart of Smirnoff a day. They think it's all about them.

If we have to walk on eggshells around a "recovering" alcoholic, they're not really "recovering."

T

GingerM

It is NOT a petty fight. It is a fight that goes to the very core of your relationship.

If I was to tell you "The only person he will ever care about is himself," would that sound like a relationship you'd want to continue to retain? No matter who the "he" is?

You have described my father. It is my fault that he is in prison - not his, not caused by his own decade long highly illegal and terrifically damaging behaviors. It is my fault all his friends have left him - again, not his because sexually molesting a child aged 8 - 18 isn't really that big a deal (his logic, NOT mine). His life has always been all about him - his career, his reputation, getting everything he wanted, damn the rest of the world.

Anyone who puts themselves first, always, with absolutely no regard for the effect it has on others is not someone I would want in my life. Unfortunately, due to legal issues, I need to stay on civil terms with my father. If the situation changes and I no longer need to do that? I will not tolerate the behavior for one more day.

Mo S

I found as I grew in recovery ; I made better relationship choices. I have to hand it to you. I could not be with someone with an anger/power play problem. Sober or not.....he is still an alcoholic.
I dont say this as a put down; as I am sober too.
I wish you the best.
Mo

Jody675

my bf and i have been seeing each other for about 4 months and in that time our relationship has been volatile. i am for the first time standing up and giving myself a voice of how i want to live my life. he sees it as criticism or me rejecting him. if i stopped telling him what affect his actions and words had on me, then i would have gone straight back to square one. it took us 4 months for us to finally find common ground where he understood what he was doing. he is bipolar and so his brain is wired differently, and so we have come to an understanding that he now shares with me when he is feeling stressed and going down in his spiral. this helps him to stop, and get back on track, and me to understand. he is more respectful to my needs and emotions, and doesnt take my "im really tired tonight" as a rejection on him, just that im tired. which stops me feeling pressured. we actually broke up over the argument that got him to really listen and open up to me. had he not done that, we would not be together today.

my point is, your emotions deserve a voice. you are giving them one. if this guy had not stopped to see what his behaviour was doing to us, and opened up and told me what he needed from me, then we wouldnt be here today. i do not walk on egg shells with him, because that is not the relationship i want. (been there got the divorce papers to prove it...lol) so unless your guy is willing to listen to you and respect your feelings and needs, then why would you want to continue to build a relationship with him? or you will end up dating your mum as you have already worked out. do you really want that?

kudos for your boundaries with your mum btw. awesome work.

h00ped

One thing that's helped me is reading a couple books on manipulative people:

Who's Pulling Your Strings?
Wolves in Sheep's Clothing

Both books talk about different types of aggressive personalities. People with "personality disorders" or "character disturbance" actually don't feel empathy and will not respond to your explanations of how you feel. Read these books and ask yourself if you're dealing with a character disturbance. If so, run for your life. These people do not change, and they do not care about others, they use others for their own ends, and will use things like outbursts of anger to condition their victims.

Honestly, this guy sounds like one of those has-no-empathy-for-anyone-else types based on your OP. Can't handle criticism, punishes you for saying something he doesn't like, "crazy making" tactics, makes everything about himself and never you -- he sounds like he has a degree of NPD (narcissistic personality disorder).

LadyinBC

Then you need to get back your confidence and self worth and quit settling for people that treat you like crap.

It's not uncommon for us adults that grew up in these toxic environments to pick partners that are not good for us. Or people that like to be in control all the time. Or we pick people we think we can "fix" because we couldn't fix our parents. We don't know anything else. I talk from experience.

Some women who are abused physically as children will find partners who beat them because they don't know anything else and think they deserve it.

Seriously run from this guy as Hooped has brought up some very good points about this guy in regards to empathy. You want someone who will treat you decent and treasure you.

Seren

Hi looselips, I think the fact that your recognized how you were feeling and have begun to express it are fantastic.

Also...if it were me, I would not spend an hour on the phone while someone yelled at me. Perhaps "If you continue to raise your voice at me, I am ending this conversation right now." Then, if his tone did not change, I would have hung up! You do not deserve to spend an hour of your precious life having someone berate you over something you did not do!!

EveningRose

This is exactly why I finally went mostly NC with my family. I finally saw that the only way to have 'peace' was at my expense, by me always being the peacemaker...or, rather, the person who smiled and held a civil tongue in the face of any obnoxious, insulting behavior, any screaming or rage, any hurtful words; 'peace' meant no matter what they did or said, I didn't bring it up again, I never made any objection.

'Peace' in our family was finally just about killing me. It got so bad that my brother once simply didn't bring my daughter home from her overnight babysitting. I got home after a full day of work to find she had been gone something like 28 hours, nobody knew where she was, I had to call around to all my family members trying to find my daughter. She wasn't with him; he'd passed her off to another relative and told me he had no clue where she was and it wasn't his responsibility!

I hesitated over the weekend to tell my brother this was a problem, knowing he'd object. I finally said, screw it, this is my daughter, I have every right in the world to tell him I need to know where MY CHILD is.

I called, left a very mild remark on his voicemail that I'd like to know next time if he's not bringing her home.

Sure enough, I got a call back the next day, as I was trying to walk out the door for work no less chewing me out for saying anything, yelling at me about how he'd never said he was bringing her home (and explaining indignantly that why would he, since he was out late partying and she had to care for his kids in the morning, too, so he and his wife could sleep in!!!); he yelled at me that my daughter (a minor at the time) was responsible for telling me where she was; he informed me that clearly I was angry with him (actually, I wasn't, which probably is a scary comment on how dysfunctional this family is and what they'd convinced me was normal); he continued to tell me what I really thought and felt and that I had no right whatsoever to think or feel these things.

Yeah...this was the response to, "I need to know where my children are when you take them."

And I knew that if I EVER EVER EVER pulled that on HIM, the whole family would come down on me. I knew that I'd likely have the whole family backing him up and looking at me like I was crazy.

It was one of those eye-opening moments of what 'keeping the peace' really meant: shut up and do as you're told. Hm. Sounds like growing up with an alcoholic father all over again, doesn't it?

Hopefully this is not just a long-winded vent because I can't let go! Hopefully there's actually something helpful in relaying that story, in perhaps seeing this stuff continues, that, while there must be balance in relationships, those of us who grew up dysfunctional usually eventually find that 'being flexible' in order to keep peace only ends up in us being so flexible that we've squeezed ourselves into a painful, cramped box like one of those contortionists, and we're still being asked to squeeze down even further, and give up even more of our rights and feelings and dignity...to 'keep the peace.'

fluffyflea

I'm 50 years old have been sober for almost 15 years and am back in therapy AGAIN to find out why I ALWAYS end up with unavailable men. We repeat and repeat until we FINALLY AND HOPEFULLY learn the lesson. Have had enough of this cycle and want to move forward.

Yes you probably are dating your mother.