I need help understanding a conversation that happened between me and my boyfriend of 5 years.
Boyfriend came home from work with a new yeti cooler and I asked “oh that’s new where’d you get it?” He said “why does it matter?”
This of course made me confused and I asked “what do you mean?” He went in to turn his xbox on and ignored me.
I asked again, “what do you mean? All I asked was where you got the yeti?” He got mad again and said “why does it fucking matter? I got it from my mom.”
He doesn’t talk to him mom normally so I was surprised and asked, “oh your mom came to your work??” And he said “no!”
I was surprised and asked, “why are you getting so angry?” And he responded, “because you’re asking stupid questions!”
I probably should have just left it there but I was genuinely curious because he hasn’t seen his mom since last August and also because he’s adamant about not leaving work to the point he orders delivery for lunch every day so I said, “oh so you left work and went to “his moms workplace”?”
He got so angry he threw his controller on his desk and said, “will you just shut up??” And went to the bathroom.
I was really shocked. I worked from home today and was waiting for him to get home for some human interaction. Maybe I took it too far. Why would he respond this way?
TLDR: my boyfriend got really angry when I questioned him when he got home and I’m not sure why?
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Maybe he’s an asshole.
Your bf was rude to you. You were just asking a question. Sounds like he got it in a sketchy way and didn’t want you to know the truth. Then he lied and dug himself deeper so his response was to throw a tantrum. If he does this often you should consider if you really want to stay in a relationship with him.
Yeah he probably didn’t have a good time meeting her if he did see her, otherwise he’s cheating
“Occam’s Razor” is to take the simplest answer with the fewest moving parts as the likely answer.
He stole it.
Saw it in someone’s truck bed or a picnic table, no one was looking, and he ran off with it. He hadn’t prepared his cover story because in addition to being a thief, he’s an idiot, so he wasn’t prepared for your quite reasonable and simply curious question.
And, like the dude nabbed by the police carrying a computer out of broken store window, he panicked and blurted out the first thing to cross his mind without being ready for any follow up questions because IT DIDN’T HAPPEN (getting it from his mother). I mean, whose mother buys a fucking $400 cooler at all much less to give it to her asshole son who she never sees?
Everyone steals, but most of us limit it to a few pens from work. That he was willing to steal from a particular person, who spent a lot (WAY too much, IMO) on that cooler, and didn’t even bother to craft a plausible cover story indicates to me a level of callousness, impulsiveness, and stupidity (plus his hostile and verbally violent response to your understandable Qs) that you might want to reconsider the kind of person you’re in a relationship with.
?? That little boy better start talking to you right, what the hell. Disrespectful for absolutely no reason at all, YOU should be the one angry right now.
You didn’t take it too far. He owes you an apology, at the very least. Does he often get angry at you for asking benign questions?
It likely has nothing to do with you and the cooler being associated with his mom. If he has not seen his mother in almost a year, I wouldn’t assume they are super close. You asked a perfectly normal question and showed reasonable interest in your partner and his day. Im sorry he was mean and responded with anger. You didn’t do anything to instigate a fight if he was already upset after one innocent question. There is a polite way to say that he didn’t wish to talk about it
It’s time to find someone who doesn’t treat you like crap
Your initial question was reasonable. But after he said it was from his mom and was visibly upset and you knowing the history, I think you should have dropped it. After that point it sounds more like an interrogation than interest.
Something is wrong.
If this is new behavior after five years, you can keep trying to approach this. “Hey, you got upset, and it really isn’t like you. Something is bothering you, and I want to help if I can. Please, talk to me, let’s see if we can help you feel better.”
If he doesn’t normally talk to his mom, and this gift suddenly appears, it is possible that his mom is a source of stress in his life, and he felt he couldn’t refuse the gift, and was upset that he couldn’t stand up to her and refuse it. He doesn’t have a good way of dealing with this, and so you see him trying to self-soothe with video games, and then get snippy with you when you are trying to bring this up.
He needs to learn better ways of dealing with things.
But if this is new behavior for him, you can keep trying to reach him. However, if he keeps being angry at you about it, there are limits to what you can do.
“Hey, I don’t know why you are angry, and yelling at me. I think something is bothering you that you don’t know how to deal with. You can talk with me about what it is, and we can figure it out together. If it is private, say so, but don’t yell at me.”
If you say that and he still yells at you about stupid questions and things, then you might want to start planning an exit, even if a temporary one. He might do better being alone than bothered by you and your “stupid questions,” and you can make clear that you aren’t leaving for good, only leaving until he can calm down.
It is a yellow flag if he’s yelling at you when you didn’t do anything. He has to learn to manage his emotions better, communicate better, and so on. Even if he’s stressed and won’t or can’t share what’s really bothering him, there are better ways to say that so he doesn’t take it out on you. If he can’t learn to do that, you should leave the relationship.
But, if this is new, you can give him a chance to open up and see what is going on. You can read r/JUSTNOMIL to get an idea of some of the ways parents can manipulate children. There’s a series of pages starting here on abusive parents (this is the series that talks about the “missing missing reasons” when parents say they’ve never been told why their adult children don’t talk to them). I can also recommend the book, The Drama of the Gifted Child, by Alice Miller (gifted here doesn’t mean intelligent, but how each child has the gift of numbing themselves to neglectful or abusive parents).
It is quite possible that your boyfriend needs help, but getting him to acknowledge that is going to be very tricky. He has to make that change himself. If he can’t, you will probably have to withdraw from the relationship for your own mental health.
Three reasonable explanations :
1/ Your boyfriend is a AH.
2/ Your boyfriend is not telling the truth.
3/ Your boyfriend was pissed off by something and you became his punching ball, big jerk.
He has not roght to speak to you this way, you were too passive though I can understand at some point because it was so sudden. From what you told us, if nothing is missing in your story except your bf POV, he needs to cool down and gove you a solid excuse and explanation. The lack of respect is unacceptable.
He’s acting shady af. Doesn’t really matter what he’s hiding, his behavior is not appropriate for a partner
There is so much more going on here than just this incident that we don’t know.
There’s a lie (probably quite a few) at the heart of his story, and he got angry in self defense. Whatever’s going on, he’s not being straight with you.
He sounds like he’s hiding something. Lost his job? Regular contact with mum? Anything to do with mum is triggering? Could be anything.
But this is still him abusing you. If this is how he acts, he’s not ready for a relationship and needs to sort his shit out BEFORE being with someone. Don’t put up with this shit, OP.
An actual Yeti cooler? He got mad when you asked? Cuz he lifted it from somewhere. Obviously. But why’d you keep interrogating him about it? And how do YOU know what a Yeti cooler is? If you know, you know he stole it.
Cause that possibly came from his other girlfriend, not his mom. People don’t defensive like that unless untie trying to hide something.
He got it from another woman.
At a guess, his other girlfriend got it for him. He’s cheating on you, and can’t even come up with good lies, so he blusters and bullies.
I agree with some of the other responses. By your account, you didn’t do anything wrong?
You may need to have a conversation with him. It’s not fair to you to have to be on eggshells for simply being interested in his day and in something he brought home. What’s the alternative to you communicating? Likely you withdrawing from conversation and the erosion of your relationship.
You acknowledged that this has happened before. You’re going to need to coach him on how you wish to be treated and if he doesn’t change then you may have some decisions to make.
IMO, issues like these can lead to a deterioration of your relationship so best to nip it now.
He didn’t get it from his mother who he doesn’t even communicate with. He got it from someone else or he bought it himself. He’s angry because he’s lying.
He had a bad meeting with his semi-estranged mom. His reaction was childish and he owes you an apology.
Time for a new boyfriend. He sounds miserable.
While there might be various reasons of why he became angry I see this as typical behavior of someone who is hiding something. I don’t want to make any assumptions but there is no reason to get angry just because your partner is curious.
You did nothing wrong and he does owe you an apology.
He’s not even smart enough to come up with a cover story before he gets home?
Sounds like if he’s being honest then he likely lacks emotional intelligence. He’s probably having a hard time saying whatever his feelings are. But that’s inappropriate behavior either way. He needs to rectify the situation an show emotional/psychological growth over how he behaves in these situations. Otherwise you would be doing yourself a favor to find someone with emotional intelligence or these situations will only get worse.
He’s prob cheating
You asked normal and relevant questions. His reaction is the equivalent of you coming home after getting a haircut at a salon and him saying – nice. Did you get a haircut? And you responding with- wtf is your problem. Leave me the f alone!
Clearly something happened at his moms which has him all riled up. We can only speculate. Talk to him and have him explain. This is not rational behavior
He doesn’t do this all the time, just enough to make you walk on eggshells I’d wager. He is an asshole and your questions were perfectly reasonable and seemingly asked without any type of accusation.
The fact he doesn’t apologize directly and specifically is a massive issue and you’re just letting him get away with it because you don’t want to be on the receiving end of his vitriol (understandably). This just reinforces that he can treat you like his punching bag and disrespect you because he “had a bad day” not that he is even bothering to give you a reason.
This dynamic is pretty toxic and I think a much bigger issue than just a one time instance of lashing out. I’d keep an eye on this. Stuff like this often escalates.
That’s the cooler for the picnic lunch with his girlfriend
Say goodbye to him. This is not okay. PS. He got it from another woman!
He’s lying about somewhere between one and all of the answers to your questions.
psycho. this is asshole behavior. you are doing what therapists call minimizing. ie making excuses for his abhorrent behavior. nope. don’t. deal with this terrible behavior
My ex would get mad at weird stuff just like that. Our divorce eventually also had a restraining order. He hated “unnecessary questions”, and I’m chatty. 🤷♀️ I wouldn’t be asking questions because I was suspicious of any nefarious reasons, I was just genuinely curious. A few simple words, and I would have been satisfied. I was also expected to be psychic and know when he was in the mood to talk and when he wasn’t. Sometimes he would want to have conversations when I was in the middle of a show, and even if I really didn’t want to chat right then, I chatted with him because that’s what you do when you live with someone and actually like them. (Eventually though, I didn’t like him anymore)
He’s being ridiculously aggressive and acting like an asshole either for no reason, ie had a bad day at work and is taking it out on you, OR….hear me out…his Mom didn’t actually give it to him and he’s feeling guilty.
Girl…
Who cares why he’s angry (probably deflecting and who knows who gave him the cooler—not his mom).
He’s not a good man, let alone a good partner.
I am a mother of women your age and want to talk to you exactly like I would talk to them. Sweetie, he is an A-Hole. He doesn’t like you, and he probably wants to break up. At best, he has trouble self-regulating, and at worst he doesn’t want to be in a relationship. I don’t give a flying f*ck how bad a day he is having, no one should speak to someone they supposedly love this way.
You have 2 options: 1) sit him down and tell him you are done being his punching bag. Tell him if he wants to save the relationship he needs to explain why he reacted so badly and take steps to fix himself or it is over.
Option 2): just tell him you are done being his punching bag and it is over.
Either way, you need to gather your self respect and get off this ride. You deserve better and I promise you there is someone out there who will treat you with the respect and kindness you deserve.
He doesn’t want you to know, so he is making it painful to you to inquire.
His side piece gave it to him. He found it on a crashed spaceship idk doesn’t matter. What matters is you stop tolerating him treating you like shit to the point you’re second-guessing yourself to the point of asking strangers for help justifying his bullshit. Dump him
because he’s trying to cover something up. If my husband brought home something, he’d be stoked and not shut up about it.