Why is my boyfriend always mad at me
Why Is My Boyfriend Mean to Me?
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Have you ever been with a guy who s turned on you and raged:
You did this! You did that! You re such a you-know-what. I know who you really are, you
[BLEEP]. That s a verbal attack.
It s not just him being angry. It s him trying to make you feel horrible.
Why do men do this? And why does it work so well on us?
If you re like me, when you re told that not only did you DO something wrong, but you ARE something
wrong, you tend to take it on board. You think, Oh, gosh, really?
You feel embarrassed of yourself. You may not understand what he s on about,
but you feel ashamed nonetheless.
That s why those attacks are so successful. What he s hoping for is that you ll feel shame
Shame that will keep you from responding in an empowered way.
He can see his blows land. He wants you to feel bad about yourself.
Because then he can control you.
Hi, I m Amy Waterman. I am a love expert here at YourBrilliance.com, and in this video I m talking
to all of you who ve been raged at by a man. Look, it s happened to me, too. So let s talk about it
and why it happens and how we can deal with it in a way that protects our fragile hearts.
When a guy goes off at you, telling you that you re this and you re that,
what s your first thought? Is it:
That s completely unacceptable. That s not how someone who loves me behaves.
Or it it: OMG, I m such a bad person ?
It doesn t matter how ridiculous his accusations are. You feel ashamed.
You feel horrified that he sees you this way. You feel sick that you re fighting.
Everyone thinks you re such a great couple. What if they knew about this?
You know you can t tell ANYONE what is going on. Because if you told someone, they d ask you what
he said, and you d have to repeat those gross words out loud. It would make them real.
So you just try to forget about it, try to forget this ever happened, in hopes it will go away.
But, of course, it doesn t go away. He s seen how well this works on you.
So he does it again. And again.
Any time you re getting a bit too confident, or you ask too much of him, he can bring you
right down with a few well-placed accusations. Shame is an effective form of manipulation.
Think back to your younger days. Remember how guys used to shame girls into doing something
they didn t want to do? If you didn t say send him a sexy pic, you were a prude. But the moment
you did send one, you were loose. These guys learn from a very young
age that shaming works on women. It s our nature as women to want to
make people happy and do what s expected of us. We re susceptible to the message that If
you loved me, you d do this for me. I don t think any woman reaches adulthood
without having been told some terrible things about who she is.
Things that are completely untrue. Things that were told to her as a way to control her.
We carry those secrets inside us like poison. We know we shouldn t care what
people say about us. We know we should just let it go and forget about it.
But you can t take in poison and expect your body to metabolize it.
You ve got to get it OUT of you. You ve got to take all of those things that were
said about you and give them a good airing. You can do this in a number of ways.
You can make art. (Remember that Nasty Woman meme?) You can tell a friend about what
happened. You can talk to a counselor. You can share anonymously on a forum.
Once those words are out of your body and into the fresh clean air,
they lose their power. They shrink. You can see how completely ridiculous they are.
When a man says horrible things to you,
he wants you to feel so ashamed that you ll never tell a soul what s going on.
Shame researcher Bren Brown writes that shame loves secrecy. The most
dangerous thing to do after a shaming experience is hide or bury our story.
When you share that shaming experience with someone you can trust to respond in a supportive
and empathetic way, the shame evaporates. Think about what you would say to a friend
who told you that her guy was saying the same things to her as yours said to you.
Wouldn t you be worried about her? Wouldn t you immediately want to support her?
That s the kind of support available to you, if you find the courage to talk about it.
You can know in your head that a guy is trying to shame you, but
that doesn t stop you from feeling sick inside. It is gross to listen to a man rage on about you.
That s why I recommend that all women carry a shield. It s something I call the
Mirror Technique, and I ve already made a video about it. I ll put up a link.
Something that compounds the shame is when you get so triggered that you react badly.
You shout back at him. You say things you know you shouldn t have said.
So now you definitely don t want to tell anyone, because you re embarrassed of how you responded.
I want you to hear a quote by Lundy Bancroft, the author of Why Does He Do That?
which is a must-read for any woman who s dealing with a man like this. He writes:
Your abusive partner doesn t have a problem with his anger; he has a problem with your anger.
Lundy continues: One of the basic human
rights he takes away from you is the right to be angry with him. No matter how badly he treats you,
he believes that your voice shouldn t rise and your blood shouldn t boil.
The privilege of rage is reserved for him alone. When your anger does jump out of you as will
happen to any abused woman from time to time he is likely to try to jam it back down your throat as
quickly as he can. Then he uses your anger against you to prove what an irrational person you are.
When I read that quote, it was like Lundy Bancroft knew my life.
If someone rages at you and you try to fight back
Are you at fault because you tried to defend yourself?
Once you ve dealt with your own shame, you stop feeling so reactive about it.
Everything nasty and mean that could be said about you has been said. You
ve talked through it with people you care about. It doesn t trigger you in the same way anymore.
You can listen to his nastiness and not feel anything. You feel detached, like you re watching
a grown man make a fool of himself. You realize what you re seeing now.
You re seeing behavior that isn t okay. Behavior that isn t
loving. Behavior that s actually quite cruel. Do you want to be with someone like that?
Sure, maybe he has a temper. Maybe he gets carried away. But the real question
is whether he feels entitled to treat you that way. If he does, there s no hope.
But if he feels ashamed of how he behaves, if he feels remorse,
then you can get help and work through this. I really hope that you have the support you need
to talk about these things. Sometimes our friends can t do it for us.
Sometimes we need the help of someone professionally trained in the art of
holding space for people and supporting them through their worst times.
If you can, find a counselor who specializes in abusive relationships. There are some
low- or no-cost options in some areas. And I just want you to know that I get it.
I don t think many of us women have escaped being spoken to like this.
Last year I interviewed Patricia Evans, the author of The Verbally Abusive Relationship,
and I really encourage you to watch that one next. Let me know if you have any other questions for me
that I could answer in future videos, and let me know how you re getting on. See you next time
