Partner with a temper

I appreciate you taking the time to read through this threat and reply.

You make a really good point! She is my sister and we have always been very close. I know that she wants what's best for me and her opinion is that I can do better than my current partner. I had not thought of that myself and it takes off some of the agitation I felt towards her in the belief that she was just telling me what to do because she never liked him.

I have thought about if I am clouded by love, or all his good qualities. It is the reason I have posted on here. I have doubted a future with him because of his anger issues (among other things). While I do sense that this is a flaw of his I am wondering if this is a flaw that can be improved upon, or one I am willing to put up with. Mostly I worry about this issue for the rest of my life. We are in our early/ mid 20s and I can't predict if this will lead to unhappiness when we buy a house and share finances. Most of all as someone who wants children I worry what this would look like if we ever get to that point.

I said at first that it isn't violent to explain that the situation is not quite at that extreme. Additionally I said it again because my family kept asking me if it was violent and I wanted to prove to them. As someone who has stuffered through trauma in both childhood and again in my late teens I have had huge trust issues, especially with males, so maybe somewhere deep down inside of myself I will always wonder if everyone in my life would hurt me. My inquiry on this forum is mostly questioning if it is my own paranoia, my families worries, or valid red flags that have lead to this feeling of uncertainty with my boyfriend. Which is to say questioning what is "normal".

We have taken the first step of talking it through in a calm, open, and understanding way. Now he needs to take the next step of doing something about it.

Regarding the bolded above:

I think it's natural to question people's trust, if you have abuse in your past. I still question people's trust, due to my own past abuse. And I'm in my mid-40s, and have done therapy for the past abuse and trust issues. What I've concluded is this: trust needs to be earned, not freely given.

And your concern over your boyfriend's anger could be tied to all three outside influences; your family's concern, valid red flags you've seen from his behavior (the sulking, the silent treatment), and your own intuition.

Now that you've had an open discussion with your boyfriend about how his anger effects your relationship to each other, it really is up to him to change. If he chooses to sulk and give you the silent treatment after an argument, which is not a healthy way to express anger, then it's up to you to decide if you want to stay with this man and have children with him, or to end the relationship now, after just two years, and eventually try to find someone who expresses their anger in a more healthy way.

No amount of therapy changes a persons basic character and personality, IMHO. He is who he is. Whether or not it's worth putting up with his anger depends on the value of his positive qualities. No one can weigh that out for you. No one on earth can tell you what is, or isn't, a deal breaker. Only you can decide that.

You seem to want to come to a decision that your family will be okay with. You say you have a history of being passive and letting your family decide things for you. Only you can decide whether you want to continue that approach to life. To my way of thinking, this is your life and what your sister thinks has nothing to do with anything. Does she reject boyfriends based on whether or not you like them? The future is uncertain, but here is what is most likely to happen: Your parents will eventually die and your sister will eventually be busy with her own husband and children. At the point, all you will really have is the life you make with the partner of your choice. You'll see family on holidays, but you'll eat, sleep and live with the man you select almost every day for, hopefully, many many years. I think you should choose a life partner based on what you want for you.

How things go when mom and sister visit isn't that important. They won't be staying all that long. What matters is how happy you are being with this man after they're gone.

Oh, Olive!
If you knew how similar our story is!
I also moved from my state to stay with him. My boyfriend is having little to no patience and bad temper. He is not hitting me or calling me names but he gets agitated when angry. He volume up his voice as well.
I am still concerned myself about this anger issues. He realizes that he is overreacting — FORTUNATELY! And finally apologize when he realizes he has gone too far for the situation.

I used to get pissed when he was getting angry but not anymore. His negativity isn't mine. That is HIS. Surprisingly, I stay calm and just do not even look at him. I just continue doing my stuff and focus on things I enjoy instead. I am breathing. I mentioned he has anger issues but he doesn't think he needs to see someone. I promise myself that someday, if it doesn't change and cannot deal with this anymore (because let's be honest; I don't want that in 5 years ; or raising kids in this atmosphere). His negativity. Not mine. Certainly not my future children either.

Thank you! I have learned the same, trust is something that is built over time.

I suppose my issue is that I trust him now but I know that trust can be broken and that is always a fear of mine. This incident made me question a future with him.

It is difficult to throw away a relationship that has lasted 3 years. A relationship that is my deepest and most trustworthy relationship with a romantic partner ever. Now that it is out in the open I will give the relationship a chance before I walk away right away.

Thank you thank you thank you! I really needed to hear that. As someone who is easily influenced your words are very empowering.

Part of the reason that I was happy to move in the first place was in search of greater independence from my family. At least until I have done some soul searching. I was hoping to find that once I've settled in more with a job and have made my own friends.

Part of me wants to please them and the other part of me knows that their concerns have validity. My family has not liked anyone I have ever dated, and I have liked all of them. You are correct about me being the one living with him every day but I always imagined my parents and sister being close by and seeing them much more than holidays. My boyfriend and I have agreed to move back near them once we finish our education. However I know that ultimately the decision is mine.

I am one of those people who wonders how each decision will affect me 20,30,40 years later and I doubt this relationship because I don't know what will make me happy 30 years from now. Or what he will be like with children involved. Do we ever really know?

I am puzzled about this statement because you also said that there was a time that your mother loved your current boyfriend.

But clearly she does not like him now. Remembering that they never like your boyfriends might help foster your independence in making relationship decisions on your own.

My previous statement about her always loving him was not the full story. She didn't like him, then did, and now doesn't again.

If you do ever leave your bf, go live on your own. Then you could, really become your own person.

Unless your bf is flamboyantly rude to your family, they need to shut up and mind their own business. You are the judge of what is good for you.

You are correct! Dont you think it's possible to become your own person in a relationship?

He's not rude at all! While they were visiting he single handededly cooked them dinner and breakfast, picked them up from the airport, drove them around, and even went two hours round trip out of his way one night to pick us up. He ended up raising his voice at me in front of them and that was enough for them to wish us to break up.

Yes, it is possible, perhaps. I don't think it is good for a woman to move in with a man, unless she pretty much has decided that she is very much in love, and loved, and thinks this will be permanent. I don't really believe in living with a man to try him out, like test driving a car you might buy. I think people should date, until they are sure they want to be together.

I don't think you would move in with a guy just to see what it's like. I think you do love this guy and want to be with him. But part of you has never emancipated yourself from your family of origin. So you staying with him seems to depend on whether you can stand the tension this creates with your family.

Something you said strikes me as very naive and pollyanna-ish: "I know my sister wants the best for me." Human motivation is way more complicated than that. Your sister - like all human beings - is best able to judge how something affects her, and she, naturally, wants that effect to be positive for her. She's responding to how she feels being around your boyfriend. Unless she is gifted with some super-human trait, she can't possibly know what is best for you. Both of my sisters selected husbands I would not have picked out for them. The man I'm with is not someone they would likely have picked out for me.

I can believe that somewhere in the world there probably is a guy who would be better for you than the guy you're with. But who says you're ever going to run into that guy? Is your sister going to find him for you? There's going to be something wrong with any guy you meet. That's how human beings are. Your sister, with her judgement unclouded by being in love, is easily going to see your guy's faults. But she can't see how being with him makes you feel. What she can see us how being around him makes her feel. You can't pick out a mate based on how that guy makes your mom and sister feel. Well, you can, but I think that would be kind of crazy.

I think your mom and sister are way out of line in trying to undermind your feelings for this man. Being prone to anger is a serious character trait that might totally turn off some women. That doesn't mean it has to be a "deal breaker" for you. You have to look at the total package of how this guy is put together, in terms of how you feel being with him. You're never going to get a guarantee of what your life will be like in 30 years.

Make up your iwn mind. Don't keep telling yourself that your family knows best. They don't. They can't. Your sister can decide what man is good for her. That's all she can figure out. Family does well to advise a member against getting involved with a total loser. This guy you're with doesn't sound like that. So the decision is harder, and you have to make it.

Your mom and sister are actually being very disrespectful of you by insisting that you made a bad decision being with this man. Also, it is disrespectful of the love you have for this man for you to be sitting with your family pulling this guy apart.

So back to the issue of you becoming your own person: develop some boundaries. It should not be okay with you for your family to denigrate your choice of a man to be with, as though you are some poor dummy who needs others to figure things out for you. If you go to a restaurant with your sis, does she order your food for you? Actually, it would be better for you to be with the wrong guy that you selected, than to be with a better guy that they picked out for you.

Thank you for your words and your time! Maybe you will never know the positive power your words had for me. I feel empowered just reading them. It's really nice to hear someone saying that my family is out of line/ disrespectful. It is so easy for others to see flaws when they are not in love. And no one can know what makes me happy better than myself. While my family has said "the choice is yours" they are still stopping short of outright telling me what to do and it's nice to have someone say that is not okay.

You are correct. I moved in with him because I love him and I can imagine a future with him. However I also need to search deep inside myself and decide if he truly is the one I want to spend my life with. I moved out of my parents house the day after my 18th birthday but even a few cities and a few states away they have always had an influence over me. After some years on my own I made the difficult decision of moving in with him and that is not sitting well with my family.

It makes perfect sense that she is responding to how she feels around him because she admitted to having never liked him and keeping it quiet for three years. Even if she does not know what's best for me she believes he is not what's best for me.

I never believed in soul mates- the idea that there's is only one person out there for each of us. I believe that we CAN possibly fall in love with multiple people in our life time. I also believe that, as you said, we may never find that other person. Or someone we meet early on can affect the way we see love and future relationships. I've never felt a love this strong before in my life and that is not worth outright throwing away for a flaw. As you said everyone will have some flaw or another and it is up to me to determine which flaws I am willing to deal with and which ones I am not. At this stage I am uncertain about my current boyfriend. No matter who I am with I can never predict if they will make me happy 30 years from now.

They do not go as far as ordering for me but they do urge me to take certain actions in life like how to spend my money, what decisions to make, jobs to have, etc.

Conclusion: I need to work on boundaries with my family while deciding for myself if my boyfriend is someone I want to be with forever given his temper.

Thank you, Olive, for letting me know I was helpful. In your post above, you show a great deal of wisdom. I have a strong feeling that you will make sound decisions for yourself without any help from the peanut gallery.

There are families where the members stay way over-involved with each other in ways that are inappropriate. Though I'm a big believer in staying connected with one's relatives, I do believe that a person's main relationship should be with their spouse/sig. other/domestic partner. Some families don't want that. They want their members to be primarily loyal to the family of origin and, only secondarily, attached to their partner. That, IMO, is very unhealthy. These kind of families get upset that a member is putting someone before them. Whoever you end up with, that man should be first in terms of your loyalty. I think that's the direction your mom and sis see you headed in, and it doesn't sit well with them. Your guy has even remarked that you need to be more independent of your family. They probably sense that he is encouraging you to be more emancipated, and I'll bet that's really what they don't like about him.

I knew a woman who ended a relationship with a man who was considered unsuitable by her mother. The mother had reasonable grounds, as the man drank a lot. So the woman broke up with this man she was very in love with mainly to please her mother. On the rebound, she met and married another man whom her mother approved of. (He had no bad habits.) The problem was that she felt little passion for the guy she married and missed the guy she left. Pretty soon, she developed a very serious drinking problem herself. If her mother had just left her alone, she probably would have married the first guy. Maybe that marriage wouldn't have worked out. But she might have grown from the experience. People have to be free to make their own decisions and - yes - even make their own mistakes. Ironically, the guy she originally wanted to marry ended up dying very young of alcohol related problems. So, had she married him, she would have been free of him fairly soon anyway. Her mother saved her from marriage to a drunk, but she became a drunk herself. Ironic. The old Law of Unintended Consequences.

Don't let anyone choose your destiny, but you. I've known a number of individuals who overly acquiesced to parental wishes - particularly in regards to romance and how they related to their partners. In the long run, they had bad outcomes. It starts off seeming like a safe way to live, but it leads to profound unhappiness and a stifled spirit.

Your conclusion, stated above, is an excellent one, IMO.

My granny used to buy me books like Pollyanna . I never read it. I got a good way through my friend Flika but I couldn't relate so I abandoned them. In real life - lets take "perks of being a wallflower" - there is no rebel English teacher who takes the shy but gifted student aside and recommends the best under-rated books to read that draw parallels with your own life. I am done with academia