My partner has extreme anxiety that causes them to act out in aggressive ways when they are stressed. All our shared life events have ended up with them freaking out and verbally attacking me. e.g., on our wedding day, buying our first home together and joint bank accounts, etc.

I do feel compassion as I see how this makes their life stressful, but I’m not sure what having compassion for myself would look like here. I’ve tried doing models around the specific things they say, and I can’t get to a place where this feels acceptable for me. So at the moment, all my memories of these big and exciting events are overshadowed by what I would call their abusive behavior – this makes me feel so sad. I also now feel nervous about new undertakings, thinking that this is part of the package. I know that I can’t change someone else – but what can I change about myself so that this doesn’t feel so crappy?

Ironically these ‘outbursts’ have become worse since all these significant commitments. I sometimes think if I had known that they had this behavior in them, I might not have chosen to marry them – I can’t make sense of it. Please can you give me some guidance on how to use these tools to get me to a clean place with this situation as one of my options would be to leave, of course, but I’m not sure if that decision would come from a clean place at the moment? I’m inspired by the stories I hear in LCS, where you love the person and focus on yourself, and the relationship magically changes for the better without the other person doing any work.

I would love some guidance on how to come at this from a place of emotional adulthood etc..thank you!