Dear Linda:

I read your recent post and re-read the previous ones. You wrote in your original post that you are confused, that you are “trying to figure out what’s going on in his head”, and you were wondering if he is doing what he is doing “because he wants me to be the one that ends our relationship?”- to suggest answers to these, I am still referring to his childhood, because what is going on in his head now has a lot to do with those early years.

Here are my comments this morning:

1. The fact that he is from a different country and culture does not make any difference when it comes to a young child being beaten by his father and watching his mother and brothers being beaten as well. The child gets scared  even if it is “completely normal and acceptable” in a certain country to beat one’s children. The child experiencing and witnessing regular violence at home does not say to himself something like: oh, it is normal and acceptable, therefore I am not scared, I am fine, no problems. The child is damage just the same regardless of country, culture, race and religion.

2. If your boyfriend expressed to you that his father beat them if he “deemed it necessary and for their own good” and that he had “a very happy childhood”, that means that he is in denial of the reality of his childhood: his father beat them all not for their own good, but for his own relief and sense of power. He is in denial (minimally aware) of what motivated his father and of what he felt as a child.

But these feelings that he has denied for so long, they don’t accommodate denial and go away; instead, they keep getting activated in present life. This is why it is necessary to see one’s childhood as it was, so to place those feelings in the past, where they belong, and no longer experience them in the present where they don’t belong.

3. “He started getting nitpicky and quick to anger around 6 months in and since it has continued to increase in frequency and severity”- we all have distressing neuropathways formed in childhood, some more than others. People who have lots of those get triggered often in the context of relationships with people. Dozens of happenings a day or during one hour, as trivial as a person looking away for a moment when spoken to, trigger those pathways.

I am guessing that for six months it was a combination of him feeling in-love and that euphoric feeling replaced lots of the activations and of him controlling his behavior because he learned from experience that his angry behavior pushed people away.

After six months or so, the euphoria decreases, activation of distressing pathways increases, he is uncomfortable a lot, cares less about pushing you away, so I figure you have a point when you asked if he is trying to cause you to end the relationship.

If the relationship ends, so will his frequent distress.. until the next relationship. He is aware that his angry behavior pushes people away, so I think you have a point, he wants to push you away so to feel better.

-why don’t you suggest to him (in a public place, perhaps a quiet enough coffee shop) to end the relationship and see how he reacts?

anita