[lido78]

Although my romanic relationship has hit bumps in the road over it's 2+ year course, my boyfriend has almost always been sweet and caring. He's always been very calm and forgiving...sometimes too much so. People have taken advantage of his nature and I've tried to work with him about setting some healthy boundaries.

He's had a lot of financial/business stress over the last year and, to wind down at the end of the night, he sometimes smoked a small amount of pot (a few puffs off a joint mixed with tobacco; never the entire thing). After talking about how the smoking likely causes him to be less clear-headed and equipped to handle his problems, he has taken the very positive step of not having anything to smoke for the past two months. Although I am immensely proud that he's made this change, his personality has taken a bit of a turn since stopping the smoking.

Although he is now more determined to fix his problems and has more clarity and energy to do so, he now has some temper/anger issues. He is determined to enforce some boundaries with those who have put him in a difficult position with the business, but I appear to be getting the brunt of his anger.

Over the weekend, he was watching a sporting even with a friend and I came over to share the celebration (his team had won the championship). Unfortunately, I had just had a very bad fight with my sister and was a bit off when I got there. He asked me what was wrong and I simply said, "I had a fight with my sister, let's just talk about it later." Fueled by a bit more to drink due to the celebration, he kept pushing me to tell him what was wrong. When I finally said (in exasperation) "Please, I'd rather talk about this when you're not drunk," he completely exploded...threw a glass against the wall and broke a broom handle in two. I was so shocked that I burst into tears...I had never seen anything like this from him in over two years...especially not directed at me. I thought that he would immediately apologize but he seemed to think my being a downer during his celebration and not immediately telling him what was wrong somehow justified his rage. He seemed to be angry that I'd taken the one thing he'd been happy about during all of the stress...I'd ruined the celebration.

I am so hurt by his take on things that I have not realy been able to fully forgive the incident. I have been there for him for two years and held back sharing some of my own problems because he's been so overwhelmed. My probems are not very large and I can, for the most part, handle both mine and his. It's just the way that the women in my family are made. Although I was definitely a downer when I came over, I don't know why this provoked such rage...especially since I've spend countless hours trying to be optimistic and prop him up (it's usually he who is the downer because of his problems). He seemed to feel guilt over his celebrating when I was down and this made him angry...like I took away his happiness.

I tried to talk to him calmly the next day (assuming it was only the alcohol that made him so aggressive). He apologized and said that he didn't mean to hurt or scare me but he still seemed to justify the behavior.

I do not want to throw away two years of relationship over one very bad fight, however, I believe his behavior during this one incident to be violent (no, he didn't hurt me physically and stayed on the other side of the room the entire time) and I'm not sure I know who he really is now that he'd not smoking. We talked about him joining some kind of support group but I don't know if he'll go.

I used to be the crazy one and now I feel like I have to tip toe around him.

[Leed]

Obviously this would scare me too if I hadn't seen this type of thing in him before. Do you know any friends of his who might know if he had a bad temper prior to you knowing him? How about family members -- can you ask them? I think I'd want to know if the pot was just calming his temper, or what. No way would I want to be tip toeing around a time bomb!

I think like you -- I'd want him to seek anger management/counseling or something. There's something going on there. I doubt this was a one-time thing. And heaven forbid he should hit YOU! He needs to get help before something awful happens.

Best of luck - tell him he's GOTTA get some help or ???????????

Hugs, Lee

[lido78]

Thanks so much for the feedback Leed. I hesitate to reach out to any of his friends because I'm sure this would get back to him but, over the course of our relationship, any number of them have told me what a sweet and caring guy that he is (e.g., his brother, friends, former roommates) and how much he cares about everyone else. They've actually talked about how he doesn't always protect himself and seems to lack a temper of any kind (i.e., almost perceived as too placid; they call him the Prophet). I think the stress is pretty close to unbearable right now (I definitely would not have been able to handle it myself), and I want to help him find a good balance. I've read a bit that coming down off of a history of pot usage can bring out anger issues, but I don't think there was much anger (until the last few years) that anyone would have seen. As a side note, he and I together have done a lot of reading lately and determined that he likely has adult ADD and may be a reason that he started to self-medicate in the first place.

He's open to seeing a therapist for the ADD but I'm not sure that he realizes that he may have an anger issue...for now, I think that he thinks he's just finally imposing some boundaries. But, if I can get him some help for the ADD, I'm sure any therapist who knows what he's doing will bring up changes in temperment. I hope. :-)

[faerie_moon_x]

I am very curious about this because you say he has ADD. Both my husband and his brother and their father have ADD. All three of them have very bad tempers. They get aggitated and irritated very quickly and explode, very similarly to how you say. They have no patience for things similarly to what you describe. If my husband asks me "what's wrong?" He wants to know right now, not later. And if I dance around him (even if I'm doing it for good reason,) he gets frustrated which makes him mad.

I wonder if his small amount of pot was actually self-medicating him. And it was working to the degree that now that it's out of his system it may have caused enough change for this to happen? I'm not a doctor but that's the only thing you mentioned that makes me wonder where this change comes from.

[lido78]

Dark Heart...what you've described with your husband is exactly what has just started to happen with my b.f. After two years together I'd only seen momentary flashes of anger, but I would have called them justified (e.g., someone hitting a child in public). Since stopping the smoking, he's still pretty calm day to day but the incident over the weekend was after he'd been drinking. When I didn't "share" the fight with my sister with him right away, he was upset and felt I was hiding something from him. If the same set of circumstanced had occurred three or four months ago, he would have simply said, "Sorry about the fight with your sister, let's talk about it later when you're ready." I'm 100% certain the pot was self-medication for him...he's not American and ADD is not widely diagnosed in his home country...we've read 2 or 3 well known books on the subject and, based on the self-assessments and patient stories in the books, are pretty sure that this has been going on since he was young.

He also distracts himself with video games and a lot of internet reading (mostly history and sports) but after reading the books has tried to turn off the computer several hours before bedtime. He's very open to learning about this (he has also bought books on how to impose boundaries) but the explotion over the weekend was pretty darn scary to me.

Is your husband on any medication? I think my boyfriend will benefit from this but, right now, his health insurance doesn't have behavioral health benefits...he has scheduled an appointment with his primary care, so maybe he can prescribe something.