Why does he badmouth me?

[Anonymous]

Hi, I have been in a relationship with this guy for an year. Everything was fine in the beginning when we were just fwbf. Later he forced me in to the relationship. I didn’t want to as I had a bad past with being in relationship. He is obsessed over my ex and he couldn’t stop bringing him in every discussion. I do have some stuff that belongs to my ex and I’m waiting for his parents to pick it up. He just never understands that it is not in my hands. He always brings up my ex no matter what and he drives me to edge every time with that. One day when he did the same, I was very hurt and I went silent telling him that I can’t talk rn, I need some space and I will talk later. He just can’t handle when I get silent and he gets psyched. He never gives my space when I’m hurt. Sometimes he yells quite loud in anger and I would get terrified as I had someone in the past abused me. When I’m terrified I am silent and I tell him that I am I’ll talk later. I need some space rn. He never listens and drives me to edge everytime. One day, he went to his mom and told her that I’m a narcissist who’s giving him a silent treatment. Why would he say that? He never told her why I’m silent even though I’ve explained him several times why I’m silent. He never told her how he drives me to edge in order for me to get hurt. He also provokes me quite lot. When he provokes, if I don’t say something, that’s a problem, if I say something, that’s a problem. If I say something, he calls his friends and badmouths me, instead of telling them how he provoked me or how it all started. Why does he do this?

[coldmarch]

Well this relationship is clearly burning down and your communication attempts failed. He screaming and you being silent are just the ultimate proof of a horribly failed communication... If you want to fix it you -both- have to work on that.
Going silent during an argument can be excruciating for the other person because is left with 0 tools to understand what is going on or what to do, left overthinking in the darkness for undetermined amount of time. It's very easy to explode in anger as a response, blinded out by adrenaline accumulated. He shows to be anyway extremely insecure as he brings up your ex continuously, so it's quite obvious why he goes psycho in response of that. He badmouths you because he finds himself damaged and needs to find support from his relatives so he makes things worse without telling them the context (really most of people do this when talking about another person they have problems with).
On the other side probably if you're bad at dealing with conflict as well (it looks like so) he should understand that being loud and aggressive won't fix anything but make things worse day by day. He should also get over this thing of your ex, and I think if you want to help him with that you might try to compare him to your ex by saying how much he is so much better than him etc. If it's true, of course...
Either way, my personal opinion is that this relationship is not recoverable, the trust is completely gone both sides and it's not something you fix in like, a year. Scars will stay and will come up over and over occasionally. Even if things settle, you know he could get mad as hell any time, and he knows you could get silent any time. You'll keep knowing this in the back of your head.
But what's more important is that as far as I understood your relationship is not bringing you any joy, relax, care, support, freedom or good laughs, let alone long term perspectives. To both, I guess. So you're probably, both, following the ghost of what it was your initial period of infatuation when the friends with benefits period started, but that never comes back anyway. The relationship is what it is now, and it's objectively going very bad. But afterall, it started bad: he forced you in the relationship and you accepted, and it says it all... I really think this aberration should quit, for the good of both.

[Asker]

Thank you for taking time and sharing your opinion. Yes. I understand that it’s not recoverable. I did try to help him with his insecurities but he never made an attempt to listen to me. Also dying arguments.. I keep on telling him that’s not this or this is this but he doesn’t listen and keeps on raising same thing over and over. What I’m trying to say here is, he doesn’t listen to me when I’m explaining him, instead he shouts louder and louder which is why I go silent cause he is not listening or trying to either. We did sit down and talk about it and I’ve tried to communicate better instead of going silent but he never tried to listen like usual. There was time he didn’t even let me speak and pushed me over to the edge where I literally wanted to jump off the running car. Prb it’s best for us to stay this way broken apart

[boggboss]

The better question is why are u with someone that forced you to be with them and then wondering why you are not happy

[Asker]

I eventually did love him for what I thought he was

[boggboss]

Loving someone don't mean they are ready for a relationship or will even be good in one tho he is clearly not in the mental space to be in a relationship and by the sounds of it you are no able to stand up for yourself so equally shouldn't be

[Asker]

Yeah I agree. But why does he have to tell them only half of the story, why make me look bad when all I did was to help him, build his confidence and take care of him etc

[boggboss]

Because he clearly didn't care about u and used you also people rarely take responsibility for their own deeds

[glennos89]

Better run as far away as you can from him. Sounds like a toxic person to me the way you describe it

[Staximus]

It's time for you to end the relationship, and make sure your ex is out of your life before entering into a new relationship

[Anonymous]

That guy is way to toxic, why are you still with him?

[Asker]

I broke up with him cause I couldn’t take it anymore. He replaced me in just a month. He told me that I’m love his life and all the bullshit and in just a month, he threw everything away

[Opinion Owner]

Awesome decision on your part.