For some reason, every time I try to talk to my boyfriend it turns into a huge fight. I feel as if something triggers some kind of rage in him, and he fails to hear anything that I say after that point. He has been under a ton of stress for the last two years, and I feel as if I'm walking on eggshells.

Tonight, I called him after we'd parted company for the evening (we live separately) because there was a small leak in my house and I thought he could give me some advice. The phone rang twice and then went into voicemail, so I dialed again. It then immediately went into voicemail. I assumed his battery was dead and was about to go watch t.v. for the night when I got a text message from him that said "Please text me." I thought this was really strange (it was kind of a weird/formal text to send to someone you've been dating for 3+ year) and made me nervous that something bad had happened.

So, I just texted him about the leak but didn't hear anything back right away. About 15 minutes later he called, and he said he had been in the store and his hands had been full and couldn't talk. I thought it was strange that he would text me but not call me while in the store, so I just asked "Oh was your phone dying?" He said that it wasn't and we went on with the rest of our conversation. I still thought it had been strange that he could text but not speak, but didn't want to push the issue because I wasn't even sure what question to ask.

Because the whole thing seemed so "off" to me, I called him again before going to bed several hours later. It was late, but he's usually up way after I go to sleep. When I tried to talk to him about the weird text, he basically freaked out. He initially just said that he had not sent me a text, so I said "That's so weird, I have it right here." He then though I was accusing him of something when I said, "Did you mean to send the text to someone else?" To me, this seems logical but I can also see how it can be taken as an accusation of sorts. But, the bottom line is that I had a text on my phone and he was saying he had not sent me one. So, unless little green men had gotten hold of his phone, it looked as if he was not being truthful for some reason.

From there, the whole thing just spiraled out of control. When I said that I called him because our original exchange seemed really off and it was bothering me, he said it was "scary" that I was worrying about stuff like this and why would I call him so late when it could wait until the next day. While I get this, I assumed it was fine for me to call him as he was usually up at that hour and had only been brushing his teeth and not already asleep or in bed. But, he basically ranted that I just should have asked him about the text message during our original call and that something was wrong with me to still be worrying about it hours later.

He didn't seem understand/hear me when I explained that it hadn't really bothered me until later when I realized it was still on my mind. He also seemed pissed that I'd called him so late, when he is often up until 2 or 3 in the morning (it was 1 when I called).

We eventually figured out that it was an automatically generated text that can be sent by the phone, and that he'd accidentally pressed a button to turn this feature on. But he still seemed angry that I'd questioned him. I tried to explain that I'd never really been aware of this kind of feature and had assumed he'd sent me a weird text. But, he then said he was upset that I'd waited so long to ask him about it. He just couldn't understand the sequence of events and why any of it had been confusing to me....

The whole thing could have been a big laugh, but he seemed angry more than anything else. Maybe my asking him about the text would seem like an accusation to other people, but I had not intended it that way...and it was a weird situation...he seemed to still be angry at me even after realizing that his phone had sent the text without him even knowing about it.

I don't know, it's so confusing to me. I don't think I would have been angry had the situation been reversed, but if I was at fault here, I'd love to understand the other side of things.