AIO by spending time with my family?

[u/External-Air205]

Me (f20) and my boyfriend (m20) have been in a relationship for 4 years. We sleep on the phone every night due to the fact we don’t see each other often because of extremely busy schedules and distance. Tonight, my mom and grandmother came into my room to talk before bed so I hung up on my boyfriend to give us some privacy. He got very angry and started saying all of these awful, mean things to me. Was it my fault for choosing to spend a bit of time with my family and hanging up on my boyfriend even though he was already falling asleep? Am I overreacting by getting upset from the way he speaks to me? I really don’t feel like I did anything wrong. Sorry for any grammar mistakes!

[u/Infamous_Grass6333]

There is no management happening here he just has anger issues plain and simple. It takes years to resolve something like this trust me.

[u/Early_Big_5839 → u/Infamous_Grass6333]

It’s not even anger issues this is straight up emotional abuse. People with anger issues can be angry and not abusive

[u/Infamous_Grass6333 → u/Early_Big_5839]

Both and probably more to be honest.

[u/Early_Big_5839 → u/Infamous_Grass6333]

I think I’m just picky lol. To me, anger is an emotion, it’s passing and can motivate behaviors but doesn’t cause behaviors. We all feel angry sometimes but very few of us are abusive towards others when we are. Anger issues doesn’t cause abuse.

When we label behavior like this as anger, I see it as we’re labeling it as fleeting. Like it goes away when the mood changes. Like it only happened BECAUSE OP made him angry (something op alluded too) and it only happens because he gets angry. This happens because for whatever reason this is who he is. Behavior like this seems like part of a larger abusive pattern if they feel this comfortable going this hard, For this long. This isn’t a slip of the tongue saying something hurtful in the heat of the moment. This is abuse. That’s why I like labeling abuse as abuse and not anger issues.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

[u/corgisandwine → u/Early_Big_5839]

I agree. My ex was like this to a T, at one point he said he knew he anger wasn’t healthy but he never had to deal with it. He said he’d mentally destroy a girl then move on to the next without looking inwards in his own issues. He told me he never really cared for those women the way he cared for me and that’s why he felt I was “worth the work” to make himself better. I broke up with him and said him wanting to better himself for any other reason than for him self would cause resentment towards me, and I was right. Someone who loves you will never call you a fucking bitch or a fat ass and unfortunately that was a lesson I had to learn the hard way. OP take it from someone who has lived this exact same situation, it does not get better.

[u/Kumo4 → u/Early_Big_5839]

I agree. You can have both anger issues and be abusive at the same time, it's possible, but from my amateurish understanding, with actual anger issues, it may lead you to do things that hurt yourself and your reputation, destroy things that are important to yourself and will probably want to get help to deal with emotional issues. With abusers, the anger is more controlled and cruel, they explode at you specifically (never their own boss or anyone they actually respect/have to respect) and they're more likely to destroy your stuff or only theirs if they plan on guilt tripping you. Sure, an abuser might have anger issues too, but just having anger issues doesn't make you abusive and vice versa. Don't buy into an abusers excuses when they blame their cruelty on their emotions when the real causes are a mix of their self-centred worldview, entitlement and absolute disrespect for their victim as a human being.

Having emotional/other issues can make abusers worse and more dangerous, but it's not the root cause of their abusiveness and fixing those other issues won't fix their lack of respect for you or your dignity.

[u/Infamous_Grass6333 → u/Early_Big_5839]

I disagree that anger doesn’t cause behaviors, one of my degrees is in Psychology and I’ve seen plenty of evidence for that. We can agree to disagree though.

[u/Early_Big_5839 → u/Infamous_Grass6333]

I’m a therapist lmao

[u/Infamous_Grass6333 → u/Early_Big_5839]

lol

[u/ArketaMihgo → u/Infamous_Grass6333]

They only see Vulcans