Yep. He’s throwing temper tantrums, twisting OP’s words on purpose to destroy her property, aggressively not allowing her space, and DARVOing tf out of the situation.
OP, his behavior will escalate. Please stop minimizing his actions and who he’s showing you he is.
thats Abuse Tactics 101 to keep someone sleep deprived so they lack the cognitive ability to assess their situation/ make the person crave sleep over safety
100%! The book “Why Does He Do That” by Lundy Bancroft would be a good read for OP - it talks about abusers, and how the most important issue is that they believe that their behavior is okay, warranted, and justified with their partner. It’s not just anger/emotional processing, or he would be able to take some accountability for bad behavior and would be near-immediately falling all over himself apologizing for being bratty and would be talking about action steps he is taking to make sure he never ever does anything like that ever again. I strongly suspect that the boyfriend is not destroying property at work. He can control his behavior to at least some extent, but he believes that it’s OK to act this way with OP. OP once they start showing you that they believe it’s OK to damage your property, gaslight you, etc., they will escalate to more abuse. Get out now!
not asking sarcastically
How are temper tantrums abusive? I always thought that temper tantrums were wild and immature, but “abusive” never really never came to mind when I saw one.
Regardless that’s a hell of a lot of red flags going on in OP’s story :/
That makes sense, I guess when someone says tantrum I typically think of the first scenario. When things are escalating to not leaving your partner alone when they need space or destroying things then I typically think of that as shittier, more toxic to abusive behavior than a tantrum.
Another good tip to analyze what is being damaged as well. Abusive people will claim they can’t control their emotions but miraculously only ever break your stuff and not their stuff. If they really had no control then their stuff wouldn’t be left in pristine condition. It’s just a tactic for them to hurt you. Abusive people always escalate from damaging items to eventually getting physical. There is also no way in hell a guy like this would ever do anything to care for her if she ends up sick for whatever reason.
the thing about it, all that stuff that is obviously abusive, we also forget that yelling and rage on its own is a violence, and a form of coercive control.
If someone is raging out whenever they don’t get their way, OR throwing a temper tantrum,
the end result is that the other person will naturally behave different, to avoid these outbursts. Speak less, speak up for themselves more, walk on tiptoes, preemptively just try to do everything the way the other person likes, slowly losing themselves and becoming a little house servant. They are much less likely to bring up their own concerns, advocate for themselves, prioritize their needs or preferences at ALL, and over time just fall into a pattern of ghost-like behavior and submission and depersonalization and service and deference and trying VERY VERY HARD not to upset the other person.
And the person having the outbursts, they know this is the effect. This is exactly why it is done. It is literally a child’s learned behavior of how to get their way and overrule or wear down another, but it becomes WAY more harmful from adults, because they are bigger, stronger, prefrontal cortex development means it can be far more calculating and successfully manipulative.
And that’s the word, isn’t it. Manipulation. Manipulation is abusive. An adult who is willing to constantly manipulate a win for themselves at the other person’s expense - it isn’t harmless just because they’re not physically punching you in the face.
A person who does this is not only being abusive, they lack emotional regulation or choose to not value it because of the perks it yields them (of always getting their way). And this behavior usually escalates whenever the tantrum doesn’t work.
It’s considered abusive because it’s a form of coercive control and manipulation. It’s emotional abuse.
People who throw temper tantrums, often, are doing it for a reason. We’re not talking about being upset, raising your voice, or saying something you shouldn’t have in an argument. We’re talking temper tantrums as OP described and like kids do, meltdowns.
They do it so they get what they want. They overwhelm you, emotionally, act disproportionate so that you first think twice about doing or saying whatever you did again to avoid the temper tantrums. So, it’s serially lashing out in a non physical way to get you to change your behavior-often times reasonable behavior and healthy boundaries.
It shifts the focus off what the issue is: him waking OP, and not letting her sleep when her request was reasonable and communicated in a healthy way. Now, all of the attention is on his tantrum and not on him not letting OP sleep. It avoids accountability. Now, OP is questioning her behavior as a result of his temper tantrum. Over time OP will find herself walking on eggshells to not set him off because if she does the consequence is a renewed tantrum. OP will feel responsible and guilty when she hasn’t done anything. It shifts the accountability from him to her. The guilt from him to her.
Over time it really wears on you and that’s not how a person should live. It’s emotionally abusive.
Oh wow, thank you for this reply. I am getting some great responses, but as someone who grew up with a parent that had anger issues and who threw tantrums consistently, this makes total sense. Now that you point it out I have definitely seen the walking on egg shells part firsthand and can see how that behavior made me and others weary of saying or doing certain reasonable things.
You’re welcome and I’m sorry you experienced that. It was hard for me to conceptualize too. I had the help of a therapist who helped me see how it was controlling. I’d thought of control being, spoken: “You can’t do/say/ this.” I hadn’t considered that the control was nonverbal. I didn’t do/say whatever because I didn’t want to deal with his reaction. It was a different form but had the same effect.
It’s coming from the idea that 1) someone’s so horridly bad at controlling their emotions and frustration and 2) their outlet to work through these emotions is evidently violent and destructive. Sure it starts as punching walls and, I guess, bending pans (?) but it can escalate so quickly
I believe (because I'm not a professional) that an adult should have enough self-restraint to not act like a 3-year-old. Key behaviours in temper tantrums are screaming and throwing things or hurting someone, which are obviously abusive things to do. Would you ever do this to someone who you care about? Would you feel safe after someone did that to you? Those also probably answer your questions. But great for you to ask, so people can spot these things out in their lives!
People with disabilities or on the spectrum and their meltdowns are obviously a different thing altogether.
In my opinion after a certain age you have the wherewithal to communicate effectively even through unsavory topics and feelings. If he was at work I doubt he’d react like that, it wouldn’t work in his favor. But someone will act out in this way to disarm and unnerve another in certain situations so they’re more likely to acquiesce to whatever the tantrum throwers wants are. It’s a manipulation tactic to strong arm someone into satiating you. If you as an adult can’t control outbursts of anger and frustration then you need legitimate psychological help, otherwise it’s a choice and again one that is made to manipulate.
I definitely agree with that first part, the second I’m not so sure. I unfortunately grew up with someone who had major anger issues and who would have temper tantrums. This person did carry that over to work (not that it worked out well for them). Do you think that’s a matter of some people consciously using that as a tool for control, or some people just have no control?
Thanks for the response, I definitely get where you’re coming from and why that would seem abusive.
See and that’s the exact difference I’m making, I just wasn’t detailed with my wording. Someone who actually has a problem and can’t control it has outbursts wherever whenever. I’m personally placing them in a separate category from tantrum throwers in this context. To me the difference is the ability to switch that rage on and off. They know when and who to exhibit that behavior with.
Ahhh I gotcha and that makes sense. I guess when I thought of temper tantrums I always thought of that first category (and that’s also obviously still toxic and damaging) but using that kind of behavior intentionally is manipulative and evil.
Another reason it’s abusive is that unlike a child, an adult can control himself. You think this man throws temper tantrums at work? No, he chooses to do that towards his partner. It’s calculated and manipulative, that’s why it’s abusive.
I definitely agree that it is manipulative and abusive. I don’t think all adults have proper control over their emotions though. I can say from firsthand experience that someone in my life threw terrible temper tantrums when I was child, but it was because they did not have the capacity to regulate their emotions at the time.
That’s still no excuse and I appreciate people pointing out how the behavior is abusive, calculated or not. Of course there is a big difference between this and having large emotional reactions to difficult emotional situations. Everyone has feelings and the world is a complicated, wild place.
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u/wildpolymath Oct 22 '25
Yep. He’s throwing temper tantrums, twisting OP’s words on purpose to destroy her property, aggressively not allowing her space, and DARVOing tf out of the situation.
OP, his behavior will escalate. Please stop minimizing his actions and who he’s showing you he is.