How do you know if they stay because they love you?

Or if they stay because they are scared?

My boyfriend and I have been fighting from the start of the relationship. I think, in the beginning, he didn't treat me correctly and since then I have become tyrannical in a sense.

I don't mean to be but I guess it could be said that I am.

He has said to me a number of times that I snap and it scares him and I've gotten more violent. As soon as that happened, I called my psychologist and psychiatrist immediately and scheduled an appointment. I understand that being violent is not the solution. However, it is a reaction to what I explained as being broken to the point of where I keep giving him chances to make amends and he says he will and then tries to hide that he has broken them.

I found out something he did. At first, it was a hunch so I asked him directly. He told me that I was being paranoid and delusional and that I need to be institutionalized again. A few minutes later, he came out with the truth and I lost it. It's like a domino effect where all this stuff just keeps happening.

Neither of us are in a situation where we could just leave due to COVID 19. This makes me feel like I'm keeping him hostage as he really has nowhere else to go due to being retrenched.

I feel like he is just pulling an act until he can just run away. I feel awful. I've said to him a number of times that if he wants to leave, he can. That I would find him somewhere to stay. But I don't think he believes me.

I feel like an absolute monster. He says he would have been long gone if I was anyone else, but I'm charming and pretty (basically low self confidence on his part) and intelligent so he keeps getting pulled back.

I can't believe I have transgressed so badly since my dropped assault charge.

I really don't want to be this way. Between the anger I feel towards him for how he treated me, the lies and the sadness that it's escalated to this as well as feeling like I am going back to where I was...

The feeling of thinking someone is just staying with you... Someone that you love... out of fear is so bitter.

I want to kill myself. I really do.

I don’t want to really even try To give any specific relationship advice here it would probably be a good opportunity in therapy together to work through these issues and get down to the cause imo. It sounds like you are taking all of the blame for what’s happening and placing it on yourself, It’s usually alittle of both that need to work at it. It also sounds like you don’t feel like you have a good open relationship where you can communicate with each other. If you don’t trust each other to tell the truth about how you feel towards each other that’s obviously going to make everything else a problem too

My first impulse would also be to talk about it. Now since you seem to think he wouldnt [dare to] be honest, that doesnt seem to be an option (?). Which does raise a question though, namely why you stay with him. When I look at the intro of what you wrote, you say, that he didnt treat you well initially and you turned into what you call tyrannical, so when I read that correctly you are trying to control him a lot. But why did you stay in the relationship if it was clear to you from the start that something was wrong?
This might be just me, but I actually have quite a black/white view on this kidn of thing. In my opinion a relationship is quite a fragile thing and you need openness and trust for it. So if one person cant speak openly, or there is abuse or fear involved that is not only problematic, in my view one instance of that damages the whole relationship. Irrepairably. So while I would second ESmokes idea, I would look at it a bit differently. If you want to try staying together, and if there is an option for you to somehow pair your therapy in a way - also if you two are even open to that idea - then I would maybe look at the relationship issues more through the lense of your personal psychologies, and vice versa, in contrast to trying to repair the relationship or to regain control over it; so trying to shift the focus away from you vs me towards a more internal view of whats going on inside you from moment to moment and how it connects to your past experiences etc.
But I guess if thats an option is also something that requires you to sit down and figure it out together.

u sound like my ex

i sorta ###$ w her at first bcuz i didnt care for her and she was much more into me, then she got vengeful

consider that he may not be scared as much as he might actually enjoy the roller coaster ride

my ex hit me, broke my buddha necklace, harassed me, all in good fun

I don't disagree with the others on the subject of seeking help if you wish to stay together but my instinct is that if you've reached the point we're one person is assaulting the other then it's time to call it a day. I imagine physical abuse would result in such a catastrophic loss of trust that no platitudes or arguments in a therapists office are likely to be able to overcome.

OP, if you're worried he's only staying with you because he's scared rather than because he loves you, you could give him information to contact a domestic abuse hotline for men.

It might be a simple way to find out since they would help him leave if that's what he wants, and he wouldn't need to worry about trusting you for help.

Maybe he doesn't leave because he's both afraid of you and loves you.

As unpolitically correct as it is to say, author of "Games People Play" (and guy who came up with "Transactional Analysis"), Eric Berne called repetive dynamics/patterns within social interactions "Games"

He asserted that often in order for there to be a "Game," both parties experience some type of payoff.

Also, with no intention of being an asshole, I'm curious if you think your level of violence would get better or worst if he retaliated in the same way?

Do you think it would make you even more violent?

Or, do you think him responding violently back to you would regulate your own behavior?

Or, do you think him responding violently back to you would make you lose interest in him?

I agree with everyone else on the abusive front. I found it odd that someone who is abusive would come out and not only admit that but also own the entire responsibility for it. I thought there could be more at play here. I know plenty of women who will goad a man into threatening or doing something “assault” not even necessarily hitting them so they can have them arrested and now they have control over them due to their case. I was wondering if something like this was going on but in reverse. Either way if it gets to this point it’s probably a dead relationship either you get out for you or because of them but it’s not good for anyone involved

@Akuma, many reasons from personal insecurities like fear of abandonment to more squishy reasoning like that he fits in well with my family, and I have had really happy moments with him.

The problem really lies with this underlying foundation of mutual distrust. This has created from my point of view a polarity in his personality. One moment he can be utterly fantastic and the next he can be horrid. Sometimes this can swing in seconds. It makes me utterly confused. I can handle someone being fully stoic or fully emotional but I don't know which one he is because it swings with very little variance.

I'm not sure if the trust he broke can be fixed at this point. I don't feel as if you can look at a relationship from a day to day stand point. You need to look at it holistically. I feel that I put myself into his shoes when we fight and that he doesn't care to put himself into mine.

He will apologize and then do the same thing. I asked him what sorry meant to him and he said that sorry meant that he could understand how I feel, not that sorry meant any sort of remorse or that the word itself means nothing in comparison to making amends to the person.

I'm not saying that I am being treated fairly. I'm just saying that I am getting violent and it's escalating. It's not consciously intentional but more a subconscious reaction. It is an impulsive action that seems almost like an emotional defence with a physical offence to get him to feel the pain he is putting me through.

He doesn't try to understand me, as an individual. He piles me into "all woman" and fits me into that narrative. For example, he hid a lot of things from me in the beginning... Well, he still does, and in one of our mutual things that we do together in a group, I saw someone with a female name that he has always referred to as a male. So I phone him and ask him. He believes my motives are jealousy but my motive is to understand if there has been a misunderstanding and if so, why he tried to hide it from me intentionally.

Additionally, we clash in terms of I will outright say what I want to say and want to settle a matter. He will avoid saying anything until he acts out.

He said yesterday that there are a few things that I do that we can speak with the psychologist. This is still making me feel uneasy in terms of stuff once again being hidden from me. I feel very much deceived and confused as to whether this is paranoia or not. It doesn't help that he made it out that I was paranoid when it turns out I was not as it just muddies the water.

Datura is asking if he acted back with violence if it would deescalate or escalate the violence. It would definitely escalate the fight. I'm not sure how much it would escalate the violence. It just depends on what the fight is about.

Anyway, for a number of factors we cannot be apart for now. He is also involved with business within my family so that makes it more difficult.

voidance wrote:
The problem really lies with this underlying foundation of mutual distrust. This has created from my point of view a polarity in his personality. One moment he can be utterly fantastic and the next he can be horrid. Sometimes this can swing in seconds. It makes me utterly confused. I can handle someone being fully stoic or fully emotional but I don't know which one he is because it swings with very little variance.

Jesus Christ, have you no self-respect? Time to scrape him off.