Is He Abusive With Anger Issues Or Emotionally Closed Off?

by Leslie
(Los Angeles, california)

My boyfriend and I are about to hit the year mark in our relationship, but it is far from how it once was. When we first started dating we were inseparable, we fell in love very quickly and we talked about kids, future, marriage...all of it very early on. We even considered each other as "soul mates" if you believe that.

I was very active when we first met, I was deep into yoga and meditation practices, I was a vegetarian and ate nothing but organic, I worked and paid for all my bills while still going to school. He worked, played soccer and stayed in shape by working out all the time. All of our friends thought we made a great couple because we were into the same things and loved eating healthy and staying in shape.

At first he was the sweetest guy I had ever come across. He was so respectful and understanding and completely went out of his way for me. We talked all day as often as we could, sometimes skipping sleep to talk to each other and the rest of the day keeping in contact on several social media platforms simultaneously.

Then things started to change when he went to drop some things off to his ex that she had left at his house. He was gone for hours and I couldn't get hold of him. This had never happened before, no matter what situation. He didn't return until almost 1am.

He begged me for forgiveness and said he was so stupid because he almost lost the best thing in his life, me.

After that he began to become distant, very closed off and irritable. He began to talk to me and treat me with less respect. He started saying we were maybe moving too fast and he never really believed we were soul mates and he wasn't in love with me.

He then decided to move to Georgia from California, and at the last minute he asked me to come along. If I liked it, he said we could move and start a life there, that it would be easier than in LA.

We got there on Halloween. He got really drunk and one thing led to another, and he started crying over his ex. When I tried to comfort him he got up like he was going to hit me. I ran and he began punching walls and throwing things.

I went through texts with his best friend saying he was scared of leaving LA because he felt he was leaving something important behind, his ex girlfriend.

And I found messages he had sent her begging her to come back to him. When he sobered up he begged for forgiveness and changed for almost a week until we slept together again and he started acting distant, rude, mean.

I moved back and he stayed there. But any time we talked on the phone he fought with me until he brought me to tears and would then hang up on me. When I threatened to break up with him and asked him for a break for a week he begged for my forgiveness. Then after about a week everything went back to normal.

He would scream at me, talk rudely to me all the time. Once he got so mad he threw his phone at the wall as we talked over the phone. Somehow although it was broken we still were able to talk until I hung up.

This type of communication happened until he came back to LA 3 months later. When he moved back he was still cold, rude and mean. Things only got worst. He started belittling me and acting as if what I believed in was stupid and my way of thinking was wrong and I was just some dumb hippie with dumb ideas. We would fight and I would start to cry but he would tell me all the time he was tired of hearing me crying. He would turn around and fall asleep as I laid there crying my eyes out, my heart breaking more from the fact that he didn't even care enough to comfort me. Once I started crying in the corner of the room and he got up and turned off the lights and let me cry in the dark by myself until I got tired and went to bed and fell asleep.

I found out about two months ago I was pregnant. When I got pregnant, we would fight and I would beg him not to be so cold and rude, to open up to me and talk to me so we could work through it and I wouldn't stress out so bad while I was pregnant. The fact that I was pregnant when we argued didn't seem to matter to him and he would still leave me there crying not allowing his anger to subside to comfort his pregnant girlfriend.

Unfortunately, I lost the baby and after my miscarriage he didn't even seem to be sad about having lost the baby. He barely comforted me, and sometimes would get mad when I cried.

I've caught him talking to multiple girls, texting a few girls, and liking and messaging girls on social media. Never anything super incriminating but it happened enough times and time after time that I developed severe trust issues. So I understand sometimes I might fuel the fire. And most of our issues revolve around trust issues.

As recently as this weekend we started getting a bit more physical. He started grabbing my hand and digging his nails into my hand as we argued. Than the next day he I put my hand in front of his to stop him from storming out of our apartment and he grabbed my index finger and started bending it back saying he would stop if I got out of his way.

I even looked him in the eyes and said you're hurting me and he said well stop pissing me off and let me go. Within minutes he grabbed my wrist and started twisting it and pushing me out of his way. When it was all said and done I asked him if he was even going to apologize for hurting me and he said no, and it's not like I hit you, that's not hitting.

I love him and I want to make things work. But I can't share deep emotional thoughts with him because one, he doesn't listen and two, he gets pissed off when I cry. I have no trust that he would stay faithful if some pretty girl came around and tested his limits. I'm scared to be my true self around him. I barely work out now, I mostly eat junk good and my diet is horrible, and I'm having a hard time keeping up with my studies.

It feels like my whole life is revolving around him and this weekend he had the nerve to say "Well if you want to leave go ahead, I already told you I won't cry if anyone leaves my life." I asked him how he saw his life without me and he said "pretty much the same."

When I decide to leave is the only time I see him act as if I matter in his life and see him weaken and open up a little.

Besides that he never talks about his emotions. And trying to solve a problem by talking about it only leads to him getting angry, and saying mean things and leaving me to cry and ignoring me. When he gets so mad it's almost like he becomes a different person I don't recognize.