(((Rose))),

That is good, you are opening up and talking about what you have recognized about this relationship.

From what you are saying it sounds like him being given away and then settling in only to be taken back was very tramatic for him. That could explain why he loses his temper and gets so upset when something is "misplaced" or "lost" in his life.

It sounds like he really leans on needing to express his displeasure to you, blaming you back handedly for a deep wound that others put in him. You have had to find ways to distract him from feeling that sudden panic/anger when something is "misplaced/lost" constantly. His own method for dealing with this ongoing deep issue in his past was to turn to alcohol so he could deaden this very uncomfortable feeling of "something lost" that troubles him deeply and was never really addressed, validated and repaired somehow on a conscious level.

You say that he tends to do fine for a while and then gets so snappy and short tempered he hurts you and you get frustrated and you leave. What he really needs is therapy to help him see the root of this behavior pattern and to make "conscious" efforts to find ways to control his out bursts. Right now he just continues this bad behavior and no one around him can really put up with it or stop and keep addressing to him where that came from and how "he" needs to develope skills to over come it instead of just continueing to ask others to control it for him.

You on the other hand had to walk on eggshells and be perfect Rose. So you have scars as well, as you mentioned. God forbid you colored outside the lines growing up. No room for Rose to be ok with mistakes or anything other than perfect.

The bottom line is that neither you nor your boyfriend are perfect, and neither of you are ever going to be perfect. When you are with him you end up being his mother, he demands that in you sometimes, he also punishes you because his mother 'LET HIM DOWN" and he is still very angry about that in his core. So, while you do special things for him, even love him and care about him, he can't let that complete him or resolve that need to express anger about how that love should have been there, and organized for him when he was abandoned and then taken back and he was not really mothered appropriately "there is a missing piece that still upsets him in the now, to the core of him".

You were taught and raised to be "perfect" and "restricted" and to "please in certain ways for your rewards". So in this relationship, your are frustrated because none of your efforts to "help" him have ever been "perfect enough" and "he never gives you real satisfaction".

The fact that he left and you were lonely at first but then felt better and even had some energy to be productive is all about you having some space to have some of your own sense of perfection and self satisfaction. But, his coming home triggered you because you had to go back to be restrained again because of "his" issues. And it is much like your dad that restrained you because of "his" issue and strict environment.

Rose gets very upset when she is "restricted" by others in any kind of interaction. Rose likes to be in charge and have her own way of doing things the way she likes things to be done. She is very strict in her own nature and very dutiful and recognizes rules and what is "right". So, when Rose is not respected or validated she gets upset and ends up depressed from feeling "repressed somehow".

Does that sound like what may be going on?

(((Hugs)))
Open Eyes