Dear Clara:

You are welcome, and thank you for being as kind and gracious as you are!

“I think you have a point, that my emotions just go up and down or go in no directions..“- emotion regulation (the ability to exert control over one’s emotional state), and anger management (recognizing when you start feeling angry, then taking action to calm down before acting on the anger) are things to look more into.

“I do give credits to my current on a break partner, I think she did try to make me feel a lot more secure. Once I am secured, I don’t have the fear/ anger responds, other than at times I overreact when things go unexpected“- things in life do go unexpectedly sooner or later (often in the same day), so you feeling secure because of her support cannot be more than temporary.

A seems like a decent, non-abusive person, from what you shared. You entered the relationship in your 30s insecure. Expecting her to make you feel secure is not realistic and a burden to her. She’ll fail no matter how hard she tries!

“I don’t think (just for my perspective) that the current relationship is abusive. My previous one might be indeed, the indicators were more obvious, I was more explosive like my dad“- notice your wording: you were more explosive in the previous relationship. In the current, less explosive may be .. explosive enough to scare A.

“There were…  no verbal abuse (bxtch etc.), no physical abuse“- words are as good as their definitions. The abuse I think that you perpetrated against A is this kind of emotional abuse: a pattern of behavior in which the perpetrator generally instills fear in the other.

“I don’t think I threaten her/ gaslight her in any sense, nor did she. But I know I have a very serious look when I get irritated or angry, she might be sensitive to other upset“- everyone is sensitive to others’ expressed anger. Animals are very sensitive to anger expressed by other animals, feeling threatened by it.

Inherent in the emotion (e-motion/ energy in motion) of anger is an energy toward harming the object of one’s anger. Inherent in one’s anger is a threat to the safety or security of the other. Therefore, repeated expression of anger against a partner who is not abusive (A) is.. a pattern in which one instills fear in the other.

“I re-read again. When I read you said the anger part took over and made me do stuff that I normally don’t (being empathetic etc.), I do agree. My feelings were my head was exploding, and I was a bit out of control“- again, emotion regulation and anger management will be very, very helpful: both your inner experience (head exploding) and the outer expressions of your anger will calm down a great deal.

“The pattern you found was accurate, I started to blame my close one”– repeatedly blaming a person for what they are not guilty of is also a form of emotional abuse.

“I don’t think I leashed it out without regulation at all“- yes, you did exercise some emotion regulation not calling her names or hitting her (if at the time you felt like doing these things).

“Sometime I do leash out, sometime not“- how about never?

“The emotions and the pattern is there indeed. The pattern was not resolved as well“- the pattern of under-regulated anger and blaming her for what she is not guilty of, is the emotional abuse I am referring to.

Here is how it looks like to be emotionally abused: “I sometime have some overreacting and made her scared, she takes my emotions as her responsibilities and it seems those are too heavy for her” (June 27), “my reaction makes her feel she was at fault all the time” (July 2), “she is very cautious of what I say and tip toes“ (July 5).

Your under-regulated anger scares her.

I happen to be the victim of under-regulated anger as a young child and onward. My mother exercised some control over the expressions of her anger: she hit me but she didn’t break my bones (she literally told me that she is not stupid enough to break my bones and get into trouble, that she is careful). She called me names, she blamed me for her .. insecurities. She severely shamed and guilt-tripping me with the words she said, yelled, repeated.

As a younger adult, I used to have this recurring dream that very much puzzled me at the time: in my dreams, I would see my mother. No one else and nothing else but her body with her face intently looking at me angrily. No words. No hitting. Just anger registered in  her face.

Her anger still vibrates through my body every day, every hour, for more than half a century, in the form of (very uncomfortable and sometimes painful) motor and vocal tics. Her anger  is literally in-motion: moving the muscles of my body (diaphragm, shoulders, face) by itself, without my consent.

Having been abused, I proceeded to abuse a few others, and it’s difficult for me still to admit it to share this. It’s been very difficult for me to forgive myself for those incidents (after no longer being abusive). It’s still painful to remember or think about. This is why I admire you for being willing to look into this difficult topic.

anita