Is leaving the only option?

[Wearyone]

Me and my partner have been together for three years in a couple of months. At the beginning of our relationship, things were stormy. They slowly got better, but whenever my partner drank, he became and still becomes verbally abusive and irrational. I responded to the worst of the verbal abuse, I'm not proud to say, by losing my temper and hitting him. Although he would restrain me and squash me, he never hit me back. I broke his nose once. Every time, I would leave, because I knew we were both wrong. But every time in no more then a week, we would be back together, usually because he wanted to work things out. Or we both did.

 

Until a few months ago, the drunken abuse and fighting spells had died down. But they flared back up. In the same pattern. He would go out, come home very late, call me something horrible, I would lash out, we would separate and then return back to each other. In a messed up way it was the "norm." The occasional norm, perhaps once every few months. Bt messed up nonetheless.

 

But last time it happened, something changed that has changed the relationship permanently. He came home about 1am, I wanted to go to sleep and was angry at him for being very drunk as "you know what happens when you get very drunk, we fight." He refused to let me go to sleep and turn the light out until the dog, which had run away (smart dog) when he got home came back.

 

I started to push him, trying to push him out the door and yelling at him to get out. He wouldn't leave the bedroom. Then I chocked him. I'm abusive too. It's not just him. I'm not blind to my own part in what happened next.

 

He was infuriated by me doing this. He pushed me onto the floor and batted/slapped me hard across the face. We wrestled for a long time. He was furious, and started trying to steal my cellphone to spite me for attacking him. I wouldn't let it go. I kicked and lashed out, and he slapped me twice more, once hitting me on the cheek with a glass cup. I now have a bruise under one eye, which I am hiding with makeup. It isn't a full on black eye. More like a small purple semi-circle. But the damage is done.

 

In the end he called the police after I got away from him and ran away. I was going to call a friend to pick me up but the cellphone we had been wrestling over was done from all the squeezing in my hands.

 

The cops picked me up and took me to a friends. Neither of us wanted to press charges so they didn't take me to the station.

 

The next morning he found where I was, before I had even had a chance to think. He was horrified by snapping and hitting me back, even if it was not with a closed fist. He agreed to breaking up at first, but then he begged for me to come home/cried ect. He wanted to fix things, he said. He hadn't meant to hit me. He hardly remembered doing it. I went with him to get my stuff and because I felt I couldn't stay where I was at the time. I didn't know what to do, I was tired and when I got home I just crawled into bed and went to sleep.

 

When I got up, we didn't mention breaking up. We just went back to "carrying on as normal." Living together, almost like we don't know what else to do.

 

Things are not good. He can hardly look at me because of how guilty he feels about hitting me back. Whilst I know he shouldn't have, I also know I am the one who introduced violence into our relationship first. I hit him many times before he even touched me, and even off his face drunk he only slapped me rather then punching me.

 

However I know many lines have been crossed and out relationship is close to it's end. I love him, whether anyone believes that or not. He loves me, and we deeply care about each other. Every forum I look at everyone says the same " leave, run, get out." But I feel like that is for people whose partner is abusing them and doesn't think it's wrong. We both know what we did is deeply wrong. We are both in a lot of emotional pain over what happened.

 

I don't even know if counselling is an option or would even help with mine and his anger/drinking issues. Or if those issues can even be dealt with inside our relationship. I just know even though everyone else is going to dismiss our relationship, I know it had value, that he loved and loves me and I him, and that we never wanted to hurt each other.

 

It just happened. I don't know why.

 

I just know that I wish ending it wasn't the only option.

 

Our guilt is pushing us apart already. He is starting to get distant. I am not cowering in this relationship because I'm too afraid to leave, and neither is he. Neither of us wants the good part of our relationship to end. But the bad part has destroyed us.

[travelbug1996]

If you don't want to break up and both of you are willing to go to counseling, you should.

 

The drinking has to slow down or stop. You can't control his drinking by getting angry, trust me, it won't work.

 

Go to individual counseling for yourself as well. You have a lot of anger and resentment and one of you can end up seriously hurt.

[whichwayisup]

You two are toxic together and no way should you be living with him. The drinking, out of control things that happen, him blacking out etc, it's all bad and it won't change until he goes to AA and stops drinking and you learn how to control your temper. This goes both ways as you well know, abusive reactions, words said that you can't take back and of course the physical hitting back and forth all has to stop.

 

End it and fix yourselves. Staying only enables him and you to keep up the abuse. Sooner or later someone is going to end up in the hospital!