Yeah. This sounds scary.

Drew,

I have been with my boyfriend for 4 1/2 years. We live in the same
house (in different rooms). We have both obviously been through a lot
and have changed individually and as a couple throughout the time
we've been dating. One thing that has been pretty consistent these
past years, though, is my boyfriend's attitude during fights. He
cannot control his emotions when we're fighting. We bicker over silly
little things, which often escalate to some extent, but not to
life-altering status. Still, it's as if he can't handle the situation
at all. He has been known (in the distant past) to throw incredible
tantrums, some with crying and screaming, some with pounding his fists
on his head, some with flinging himself into things, etc. While he no
longer takes it to such extremes, what he does now can still easily be
defined as throwing a tantrum. He still cries easily when most people
would say that the situation does not call for it (for example, I
often cry when the fight is a large or saddening one, but he only
cries when he is frustrated that the conversation is not going how he
wants it to). He has recently done such things as pound on the locked
door to my room when I tried to get some space from him, climb into a
garbage can when he was sad, follow me into my room when I had work to
do and refuse to leave, and flip me off at a gas station and then cuss
out a stranger who had smart-assedly said, "Oooooh, you shouldn't've
done that!"

It's funny, because writing this out makes it seem like we have an
endlessly bad relationship. It's great about 98% of the time. We DO
have positive debates and small tiffs sometimes. We are consistently
thoughtful of each other, and we almost always work out problems that
arise in a productive, rational, and caring way. We have discussed my
boyfriend's tantrums on many occasions, but we have only recently
begun to address them as something we can acknowledge and work
through. Upon doing a little research, we decided that when he was
starting to show the warning signs of a tantrum, I would say, "Calm
down, and then we can talk," and leave the room. Additionally, we
decided that I would not be so quick to anger during his tantrums. In
the past, I have been known to call him a "psycho" when I felt he was
yelling at me for no reason. Clearly, this does not help the situation
and often escalates the tantrum.

Anyway, tonight we had a fight. It started off really small and silly,
but after a while, I started to notice the beginning of the tantrum,
so I told him to calm down and that we would talk afterwards. The
tantrum got worse, so I told him that I did not want to talk about it
when he was so upset, and I tried to go to my room. He threw a pillow
at me and followed me into my room. I would like to mention that I did
not fall into my former habit of calling him a psycho or anything like
that. I just said that he was way too upset to talk and that I
therefore didn't want to talk to him about it anymore. He then
proceeded to follow me around the house, purposefully trying to make
me uncomfortable. An important note is that I have talked to him on
multiple occasions about how I believe therapy would be beneficial to
his functioning and to our relationship's success, but he is rigidly
and adamantly against it. So, I guess what I'm saying is, how do I
prevent these tantrums? How can we stop them before they start?
Alternately, how can I get him to understand that therapy is helpful
to many people (myself included)?

Thanks for your help.

You ask how you can prevent his tantrums, to stop them before they start.

This would require you to be able to control the emotions of someone else, someone who seems to indicate a highly volatile and histrionic nature.

What you're asking is impossible. Surely you can be more sensitive, more understanding every second of every day, but it doesn't sound like you're the combative type. If you're not stirring him to fight intentionally, what you have instead is a situation in which you're walking on eggshells because of his temper.

This sounds very unhealthy to me. It's not that far off from the attitude of a battered wife, who explains that she and her husband are happy most of the time, except when he gets crazy...but that's all her fault, in her mind.

People in relationships have disagreements and fights, it's a part of life. But if they live in fear of one another, fear of the heights of their partner's rage or anger, then that relationship will slowly erode, piece by piece.

Your boyfriend obviously has anger management issues he needs to work out, but if he refuses to do so, you're going to enable him to continue to treat you inappropriately when the two of you get into a fight. Obviously fights are designed to be dirty, to hurt one another when anger suits you, but when it reaches a place of any kind of physical act, whether it be self-inflicted or otherwise, that's when you need to start worrying a bit.

His highly volatile nature and need to encroach your physical space, not to mention his desire to hover around and intentionally disturb you when you need distance, speaks to a profound disrespect and immaturity. His anger blinds his logic, transforming you into an enemy, an object he needs to harass and defeat through means of intimidation and fear.

This is bad news, no matter how you slice it.

You asked how you could make him understand that therapy is a helpful venture? Well, again, the first step to recovery is acceptance, and until he takes responsibility for his problem and actively seeks to rectify it, you can't make him change. That's up to him. You can encourage and inspire him, motivate him to take a healthy step forward in improving his own life, but it will always come down to the same question: Does he feel the need to change? Not the desire, because desire doesn't always necessitate action, but the NEED.

People often find themselves in situations where they're constantly taking care of someone else, usually when their partner demonstrates an inability to be stable or independent in any way shape or form. It's the reason you hear people say they're afraid to break up with someone because the other person may not survive without them.

How many boyfriends or girlfriends threaten suicide or worse when panicking in the throes of a hysterical episode?

It's my belief that such people are unhealthy to be around, that the weight they put on your shoulders is too much to bear and only serves to drag the both of you into a dark and muddy quagmire of resentment and fear.

Love shouldn't be fueled or undercut by fear. Obviously your boyfriend needs professional help to get his behavior and anger under control, but if he refuses help or to listen, then you have to start thinking about what a life with him is going to entail.

I have recently had the experience of speaking with someone who suffered through an unsuccessful first marriage. At the time she believed things would eventually get better, and that it was her own fault that her partner treated her poorly. The point being, she wasted years of her life because she didn't think she could find anything better.

Life is too short to settle for people who do us wrong. Why get stuck with someone who's going to continue to make you feel trapped or encumbered?

You sound like a young woman caught between two sides of a man you can't let go of. If he's unable to reconcile himself, you're going to have to find a way out.

You don't want to be the woman who wakes up in ten years wishing you'd had the strength to get away when you could.

Send all of your questions to askdrewlindo@gmail.com.