Dont get me wrong. He can also be very kind and affectionate at times.

I have an eight year old daughter. She has had a persistent problem with a schoolmate who plays rougher than she wants to play -- hitting, pushing, etc. She says "But when he's nice, he's so nice!"

I told her "If I put the most delicious looking milkshake in the world in front of you, and told you 'Drink up! By the way, this milkshake? It has a little bit of poop in it. Just a little! Like. . . one spoonful!' would you drink it?"

"Ew, no!" she said. "Poop is disgusting!"

"What if it was made of really, really good ice cream? Like, the best ice cream you can imagine?"

"No! Bleah!"

"What if it had even LESS than a spoonful of poop? What if it had only one SPECK of poop?"

"No, mom, gross. Even one speck of poop is too much."

"Okay," I said. "Hitting in a friendship is like poop in a milkshake. Even a little bit is too much; there is no amount of it that is OK, and no amount of greatness in the rest of the friendship can make even a tiny bit of hitting OK. I know you have fun sometimes and you want everything to always be great, but this kid's friendship is a poopshake. Don't drink it."

Miranda, it's not just hitting that is poop in a relationship milkshake. This kind of awful, abusive, gaslighting behavior is also poopy. Your relationship with this man is a poopshake, no matter how great some parts of it are. Dump it out.