My [22 M] Dad [52 M] has very little patience, and is quick to get irritated, snap, and yell at me. Whenever I try to defend/explain myself it just makes him more furious. I don't know how to handle situations like this.

Hey Reddit. All my life I have struggled with this issue with my Dad. He's a good guy. He works hard to provide for my family and I, and is very intelligent. The thing is though, he has a temper, and very little patience, so it's not hard to agitate or irritate him quickly in some way and set him off. He gets really worked up over small things, sometimes without me having any idea it's bothering him. I'll do something thinking I have reasonable justification for it, and it will set him off and he'll raise his voice and yell/lecture me, and if I try to explain/defend myself it makes him angrier.

When I was younger and living with them most of the time I learned to manage, but now as an adult and having space/independence from him, I'm finding it difficult to revert back to my old ways of keeping the peace. Now it just feels like whether its certain discussions, hobbies, activities, etc, I always feel like I'm walking eggshells around my Dad.

For example, yesterday when were getting ready to eat, my whole family was sitting around our dining room table passing the food around to serve each other. I was the first to start the chain, and had finished serving myself, and saw that everyone else had currently had a serving dish in hand. So I decide to start eating. My Dad makes me jump in my seat by immediately raising his voice and yelling at me "U/UNDAUNTED_DANTE!!! YOU NEED TO KEEP PASSING DISHES DONT EAT". I try to calmly explain A.) I thought everyone mostly had their food already since most of their platers were full and B.) If someone needs me to pass something I'll gladly pass it to them when they ask but NOPE. He immediately got furious at me trying to explain and just continued to yell at me till I shut up.

Now you might be thinking, the above example isn't that big a deal, and you're probably right. The thing is though, it's always like this, no matter what the disagreement is. Whenever I do, say, or think something contrary to my Dad, he is quick to snap, lose his temper, and argue with me. If I try to defend or explain myself, it just escalates the situation further and you can't calm him down. There have been instances where my Dad has screamed, threatened, or striked me because I kept arguing (though that has been rare, so take it with a grain of salt). So I've learned to just back off.

This relationship dynamic is problematic for two reasons. One, because we can never handle disagreements in a healthy manner, a lot of this shit is never resolved, its just him yelling getting irritated and me backing off. The second reason is as I become an adult and define my opinions, interests, personality, if it goes against what he thinks he will also get agitated in the same way. We've gotten into arguments about politics, about where I want to live, about what I want to do with my life, about my identity, what I think about certain situations etc, and most of the time it ends with him being bitter and salty and irritated at me.

I don't know why he's like this. I'm not a problem child. I don't do drugs, flunk my classes, disrespect people, etc. I don't know why he treats me this way. He's a military man, so I always thought it's just cuz he's used to being around hardasses and high stress environments. But my moms in the military too and she doesn't act this way. I also theorize it my be because he perceives me challenging his authority, or if he just doesn't understand younger people in general.

Does anyone else deal with this? How do you handle someone who is stubborn, impatient, quick to get angry?

TL;DR : My Dad loses his patience and snaps at me all the time. Whenever I try to defend/explain myself, it escalates the conversation further to the point it scares me, as he has yelled, threatened, and hit me before. This is a problem because we can never handle disagreements in a healthy manner.

Edit for grammar.

Submitted December 30, 2018 at 11:52PM by Undaunted_Dante http://bit.ly/2F216s2