Dear Karen:

Very often adult children who were beaten up by parents excuse the parents, expressing nothing but appreciation and admiration to the parents, but the anger they experienced while being beaten (and while being mistreated otherwise by parents), doesn’t go away. It stays and gets expressed at people they don’t admire as much.

Coming to think about it, when he came back Wed night, he did seem fearful, from your description. It is as if he was afraid that you will beat him up or punish him somehow. He was afraid of you following him to his car and threatened you about what he might do if you did follow him.

Likely he was a beaten child, not only by his father, but maybe by his mother and by a few of  his older siblings. This means lots of anger in him.

How did he behave with other people, co workers and such- was he people-pleasing, worrying about not making them angry- did you notice?

anita