So, yeah, this thing with my boyfriend yelling. It’s a whole situation, really. It wasn’t just him having a bad day here and there; it kinda became this pattern. And honestly? It’s super draining. Just sucks all the energy right out of you, you know?
When it first started happening more often, I guess I’d just clam up. Or I’d try to fight back, raise my own voice, try to defend myself. But that just always blew up in my face. It was like throwing fuel on a fire. We’d end up in these massive arguments that started over something tiny. Sometimes I’d cry, and then he’d get upset about that. Felt like there was no right way to react. I spent a lot of time just trying to not set him off, walking on eggshells constantly.
Living like that was pretty miserable, not gonna lie. I started to get that knot in my stomach when I’d hear his keys in the door, wondering what mood he’d be in. I’d avoid bringing certain things up because I was scared it would trigger an explosion. I was anxious all the time, always questioning if I did something wrong. It was bad for me, and looking back, it was terrible for whatever ‘us’ we were trying to be, even if he couldn’t see it at the time.
So, how did I even start to try and make a change? It wasn’t like I read some amazing article or had a sudden flash of genius. It was more like I just… broke. I remember this one particular day, he was going off, yelling about something so incredibly minor, I can’t even recall what it was. And I just stood there, and I felt completely empty. Like, all the fight had just gone out of me. And in that quiet moment inside my head, I realized I absolutely could not keep doing this. I had to do something. Not to change him – I figured out pretty quick you can’t really make someone else change – but to change how I was handling it. For my own survival, basically.
So, I started my own little process. My own practice, you could call it.
First thing I did was I stopped reacting immediately. When he’d start to get loud, instead of jumping in with my own words, I’d just be quiet. Or I’d say, trying to keep my voice super level, “I’m not going to talk about this while you’re yelling.” That was incredibly hard. Every part of me wanted to scream back or just break down.
Then, I spent some real time trying to figure out what my actual limits were. What was I genuinely okay with in a relationship, and what was a hard no? The yelling? That landed squarely in the ‘absolutely not okay’ pile.
The next part was the scariest. I had to actually tell him this stuff, but when things were calm. So, I waited for a quiet moment, and I sat him down. I said something like, “Listen, I care about you, but the yelling is really damaging to me, and it’s damaging to us. So, from now on, if you start yelling at me, I’m going to leave the conversation. I’ll go to another room, or I’ll just stop talking until we can both be calm.”
And then came the toughest bit: actually following through. The first few times he yelled after our talk, and I said, “I’m not doing this right now,” and turned and walked away? Whoa. He was not happy. He got louder, even followed me, trying to pull me back into the argument. But I stuck to my guns. It felt terrible in the moment, but also, weirdly, a little bit like I was taking back some control for myself.
It’s not like everything is magically fixed now. He still gets loud sometimes; I guess old habits are hard to break for anyone. But it is… different. It happens less. And sometimes, I see him catch himself. Or, if he doesn’t, I really do just walk away. I don’t get sucked into the shouting anymore. It’s still a massive work in progress, you know? Every day is a bit of a new challenge. It’s kind of like dealing with a big, messy system at work. You can’t just wave a wand and fix everything. You just try to manage your part, the best you can. And maybe, slowly, things get a tiny bit better. It’s an ongoing practice, this whole thing. Definitely not a one-shot deal.
