Being in love with a man who has anger issues is like being a chain smoker trying to get out of your dirty habit. You know it’s going to ruin you in the long term, but you do it anyway because you’re so hooked on it; you’ve convinced yourself that you need it.

You need him, but you don’t want him. You don’t want him because he’s bad to you, bad for you. He’s taken all your purity; he’s taken all your morals. You no longer have a heart for your chest to hug because he’s taken it from you. And honestly, you’re too scared to ask for it back. You have this hollow shell in your chest where your heart used to be with some dying hope left at the bottom of the shell that you try so hard to scrape up on the days you need it the most.

Those days you need it the most are when you’re praying so hard to God, and you don’t even think he’s listening because he’s got a million other issues to deal with besides some unstable teenage relationship. You pray anyway, knowing eventually God will sit down and listen to everyone’s prayers through his voicemail machine; you just hope he gets the chance to listen to yours too.

This man you love has a pit of anger inside of him that is strong and foul. Every word you say, every move you make, must be done carefully. He is a walking grenade but with no intentions of wanting to go off. He is fully aware of the tendency he has to say and do things he doesn’t mean because of the anger inside him that consumes him. It possesses him and uses him as a puppet to make him do or say whatever it wants. Then, when the calm after the storm comes and all the damage is done, there will always be an exchange of words consisting of “I’m sorry” and “you didn’t mean it." You brush it under the rug and continue on with your day, but you always have the one time he called you pathetic in the back of your mind.

Sooner or later, there’s this big awkward lump under the rug of all the times he’s made you cry in the bathroom while you two were trying to have a nice dinner or of all the times he’s made your self-esteem plummet yet again. He tells you to forget about it all because he didn’t mean it any of it, so you try walking around the lump under the rug, but everything is still under the rug. It bothers you because you were taught to forgive but never forget. It’s hard to let go of these things he’s said and done to you when it’s really not him talking; it’s the anger, but you know deep down inside that it’s still him talking. This anger is a part of him and a part of your relationship with him. You learn to accept it but never welcome it. He tries to tame it but some days it seems more like surrender than battle.

Loving a man with anger issues seems more like a curse, but there are those rare moments when he opens up his chest and lets you take a look into who he really is. When you strip off the bruised armor he wears, you find that he is a man with a sweet tongue and a soft soul. He is a man of delicious mystery and charming humor. Fact of the matter is, he is a man: a man wanting to feel loved and loved no matter what. Eventually, you learn to look at him as not a man with anger issues but more as a man wanting to love you. You forgive him each time, because all you want to do is love him too.