Thank you for saying this @Marie123. And I agree with you that it's abuse. As you know, I have been in multiple abusive relationships, and I have learned to distinctly identify what is abusive and what is not abusive. And this, as described, sounds like abuse to me. A healthy/non-abusive person does not kick someone when they're already down, and repeatedly. That is cruelty, and is not love. And a non-abusive person does not rain on their partner's parade in a controlling manner about buying a truck that brings great joy to their partner. It should be the opposite. A healthy partner would support anything that brings their love, their partner, joy and happiness. This man was the opposite - he was very controlling about it, and made her feel guilty and bad about it to the point where all joy about the purchase was squashed. And that is exactly what abusers deliberately set out to achieve: to squash their partner's joy and happiness, and also their self esteem, and self worth - kicking someone repeatedly when they're already down is abusive. It is not kind, it is cruel.

So while some members may downplay or deny that this is abuse, respectfully, I disagree and I also support that this is definitively abusive behavior. And abusers do not change simply by communicating with them about the disrespect and harm they inflict - quite the opposite. The more one tells the abuser how much it hurts, the more the abuser targets their partner's vulnerabilities. It simply arms them to continue abusing in the ways that they know will harm their partner the most. They will exploit their partner's vulnerable spots.

Abusers need intensive and long term individual therapy before change can even occur. Even then, abusers typically won't change unless they take full and complete ownership of their abuse.