My girlfriend and I have been dating for about a year and a half, and have a newborn child between us. Honestly, I don’t even know where to start with this story. I’ll try to be as concise as possible, but this is long. Also, sorry if there’s something wrong with my post, it’s my first to reddit, let alone r/relationships.
Let me start off by saying that I was raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses when I was younger. I was sexually and physically abused when I was really young, so I don’t remember too much of it, but I think it has left a lasting effect on me. I correlate anger with violence because of other experiences I’ve had. Recently (around the same time I started my relationship with the mentioned above) I finally had the courage to leave that religion and continue on with my life. My girlfriend at the time was very supportive and helped me so much as people cut ties with me. Since I hadn’t gotten close to any “worldly people”, her and one of my siblings were the only people I was emotionally close to.
My girlfriend also told me about being abused. I don’t want to go too much into detail because it’s not my place to say, but that’s one place we have commonality. Because of those experiences, we react to fear and anger differently. I hardly get angry, and when I am, I’m very sure to not slam things around, and try to stay quiet so I don’t say something I’ll regret. I have a deep rooted fear of things getting thrown and getting hurt, so I wouldn’t want someone else to feel that way because of me. My girlfriend doesn’t get angry often either, but when she does, she’s like a completely different person. She throws things, gets petty, very loud, and will not leave me alone, even if I ask her repeatedly to.
During one especially bad time last month, she threw the mattress we were sleeping on off to the side and threw it back into place. She said everything she possibly could in order to hurt me, which sent me into an anxiety attack. I shut down, couldn’t talk, and started hyperventilating. Once she realized I was in an anxiety attack, she snapped out of her anger and went to try to console me. Luckily, our daughter was at a friends place during the incident.
I was so frazzled by that night, and ever since, my fears of confrontation that I already had have been extremely heightened.
Fast forward to yesterday, me and her have been on edge and barely speaking to each other. There will be good days, but more bad days than not. At work, two people got into a verbal fight which almost turned into a fistfight, which flooded back memories of that night from a month ago. When I got home, I called my sister to let her know of what went on at work, and it felt so nice to be able to talk to someone and have them understand and be able to joke around. Once I was off the phone, my girlfriend got angry once again. I tried explaining to her that I want to be able to confide in her, but that I just can’t after what happened. She continued being angry, and then started questioning my ability to parent because of how I reacted a month ago. She said she couldn’t understand my fear, and that “obviously” she would never actually hit or hurt me. I called her a “manipulative p.o.s.”, which was a first for me, and which I highly regret now. We went to bed angry with each other with a pillow between us. She called one of her friends to come and grab our daughter before any of this happened.
This morning, we briefly talked and she told me she doesn’t want our daughter to be afraid like I am, that it’s not normal, and that she hopes I don’t rub off on her that way. I think she sees my fear as weak, which makes me feel awful. I told her that I don’t want her temper rubbing off on her.
There’s so many little details I’m missing, but I think I got the gist out of what happened written. All in all, I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t have any other emotional outlets other than her and my sister, and I’m starting to question if something is wrong with me.
So my questions are: Is something wrong with me? What should I do now to try and fix this? And most importantly, what would be the best course of action to take so that our daughter isn’t subjected to this type of environment?
TL;DR - My girlfriend and I are both abuse victims, and she takes issue with how I react when faced with confrontation.
Submitted August 24, 2019 at 05:35AM by cagen_inc https://ift.tt/2ZqIaJ6
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