Dear Jenny Lynn:

I  don’t think he has an “Anger Management, Bipolar… Depression… Narcissism” problem. He was hurt as a  child, not treated well, treated less than others, and so he is still hurting  from that. This old hurt gets triggered  again and again and will continue to be  triggered  and re-experienced (and expressed to you) until he becomes aware  of that old hurt, process it and  heal from it.

If he is not aware and  is not willing to become aware of it, then it will continue to be painful for you to live with him. It will be an ongoing  problem leading to you indeed walking  on egg shells,”Border lining pins and  needles”. There will be arguments and fights.

Regarding him not having friends, it  is not that he is  unwilling to do what you have done (“listening, or not cutting people off, or seeing that my perspective is not the only one, or not jumping to conclusions”- good things, by the way!), it is that his experience with people, possibly with his parents to  start, was  such that people did not give him such good input, but instead criticized him, put him down, maybe ridiculed him. So he doesn’t  want that experience and  therefore he avoids people.

Regarding his shirt, I would  let him keep it  on. And regarding why he  is working so much, maybe in the context of work he feels good  enough about himself. In the context of living  with you, particularly at this point  when you want  him out, he feels badly about himself, inadequate, rejected. His work is like the shirt he wears to cover his perceived inadequacies and  inferiorities. So he wears  it longer these days.

anita