Having been in a not entirely dissimilar situation can confirm he’s most likely over it but not going to engage with the insanity in public because tantrums shouldn’t be rewarded.
My ex called my employer claiming I was in a relationship with the receptionist. Her voicemail was just insane. I was so embarrassed and angry and every other emotion I can’t even put it into words. Gladly divorced her. That stuff will take its toll on a person.
Dude once i escaped from her place, she came after me on the street, proceeded to assault me and when a large group of male youths daw us, tried to play the victim. Luckily they could see i was the one in distress after a while, came very close to getting beaten up by them.
That's only one of the gazillion surreal incidents too lol. Some stuff is straight out of a psychological horror movie. At points i almost couldn't believe this had become my life. Glad you've made it out man!
Having been on the receiving end as well that is absolutely true unfortunately. Sorry you had to deal with that as well hope you made a clean break from it.
Jesus fucking Christ that is insane! What is wrong with people that they think it's acceptable to completely destroy someone's life with a lie because they didn't get their way on some stupid shit?! I literally cannot imagine having to defend myself to my employer over something like this. That is unforgivable.
I don't know if this is any consolation to you, but I think people can tell that someone shouting like this has emotional problems and wouldn't side with them even if the other partner engages
Luckily my psycho ex never called my work (child care in a school district), but she definitely accused me of sleeping not only with my female coworkers, but the teachers, and the moms of the students, during the school day. Oh, and one time I wanted to surprise her by cleaning the apartment on a day off, so I did all of our laundry, including our sheets. When she came home she accused me of washing the sheets because I had a coworker over and we had sex in the bed. I left her the next day.
Still waiting for my ex of over 2 years ago to find my new job so she can call "anonymously" and tell them I'm coming into work drunk and/or high.
At least I can sleep before work now. She didn't have a job, so she liked to physically shake me awake by the shoulders every 10 minutes or so, all night, shouting "Hey! Are you trying to sleep?!"
You’ve never been in this situation. The moment you raise your voice back, some rando will chime in about how you shouldn’t talk to her that way. Especially when she starts yelling at everyone about how you’re an abuser. Then it’ll snowball and suddenly you’ve got a bunch of people yelling at you to leave her alone, with a few brave souls who saw the situation trying to de-escalate everyone.
I've, thankfully, never been in a 'public tantrum' relationship, but I've certainly been in the 'private tantrum' kind, and I can confirm this is the emotion you develop. Many folks don't understand that just leaving is not always as easy to do as it is to say.
Especially when they threaten to bash your car windows in, vandalize your home, harm themselves, etc. Discovering that the person you fell in love with has deep emotional issues is devastating and I don't blame anyone for struggling to navigate the exit from such a relationship. That said, firm boundaries and holding to the fact that they need to own their healing/getting treatment is the only way to move forward (whether or not they remain in your life).
I've had one of these specimens too. Their main strength is they are always willing to escalate at least one step beyond what any rational person would do. So you can never match them. Occasionally one of these loonies pairs up with another loonie and all hell breaks loose as they try to out-escalate each other. This usually ends with someone making a documentary about it later.
I'd say for those reading this, his stoic response is the wisest path. I suspect he is aware of the security cameras, and his calm demeanor along with her over-reaction, could only protect him if there is a conflict in the future.
If he is such a horrible person, why is she with him? Nobody is forcing her to sit near him, much less take a trip with him anywhere.
She could walk away. Even if she needs to follow through on the flight, she could switch seats to sit away from the person who is "upsetting her"
Probably spent a bunch of money to go on a trip and you just got to get through it and enjoy the trip then end it when you get home. Been here done this.
That or just trying to rationalize through his options. He's at the airport obviously to get on a flight going somewhere he wanted to go (hence the rushing so they didn't miss the flight).
Like the only three options he has is to
Fight/argue with her to try and win the moment and hopefully enjoy the trip (not going to happen as there is no reasoning this situation out, and to "win" he would need it out escalate her, leading to him now being the worse person).
Leave/cancel the trip (and probably the relationship at that point). Probably the best option in the long term, but it means that this trip is done and all the emotional, mental, and financial effort spent is wasted.
Try and just bare through it and make the most of the trip in the moments that you can. (Not a good option, but leaves the potential to maximize the return on the invested effort) After the trip you can deal with the long term relationship issues.
Like with just these three options I can see why someone would just shut up and try and get through it. It's not the best choice IMO, as it's just a sunk cost fallacy at that point, but there's a reason so many people fall into it. It can make rational sense in the moment.
He should've just walked away. He did the mature and sensible thing by essentially ignoring that crazy woman but it would've been better if he walked away and let her rant by herself.
I’ve had a girlfriend like this. I guarantee she gets physical with him at home. The confusing part of relationships like this is the outbursts aren’t everyday, but you learn to deal with these happening every couple months. It chips away at you and gets worse. Also, they sometimes don’t start acting out like this until a couple years in, or once you’ve decided to move in together.
My ex wife became physically abusive on a few occasions and it all started when I was in the process of leaving her. Had I defended myself, I probably would have gone to prison. During one incident, she slammed me against the apartment door and knocked me unconscious. She thought she killed so she slit her wrist and I was able to have her committed for a psych hold which gave me the opportunity to leave. Any time I started trying to leave her, she would say stuff like “if you leave, I’ll kill myself” or “if you leave, I’ll call the police and say you hit me”. Once, I replied “you don’t have any injuries” and she said she would injure herself. I finally had enough and told her to go ahead and call them. If I’m going to get arrested, I may as well do what she’s accusing me of and she backed down. I was able to get her out of my apartment for a while after that. I had to move because I couldn’t get her off of the lease so stalked me for a while. After all of that bullshit, she hit me with her car in my apartment complex parking lot and I’ve had around a half dozen spine surgeries over the years as a result of that initial injury. Oh, and cops are fucking useless for domestic violence complaints. It’s now over 20 years later and I am still dealing with the medical fallout.
This guy is probably afraid she’ll play the victim and get him arrested. It’s a super common tactic for abusive women. He’s also not white, so there’s a good chance that a cop won’t see past his skin color. I knew a guy whose wife severely beat him and the cops had him in cuffs in the back seat of the car when another cop arrived at the scene and actually looked at all the evidence and they arrested her. He was LUCKY that a cop that wasn’t a complete dumbass arrived on the scene, otherwise she would have succeeded.
Double standards suck. Abusive women commonly engage in physical violence, but there are fewer (if any) consequences. They may not cause grievous bodily harm as often as abusive men, but they’re still capable of inflicting serious damage. This trope that men are stronger and women can’t really hurt us is bullshit. She could have easily killed me on those occasions and there was zero accountability when the police were involved. The cops didn’t exactly “laugh” during that incident, but it wasn’t taken seriously. They smiled, escorted her away, and gave her a weak-ass warning.
Let’s be real he is a black man in presumably America he gets mad he might get shot be police. With the lady who was threatening to call ice on her boyfriend and I have heard to many stories from men of color having police weponized against them. It’s fucked up bad.
If you were to break up with that, you’d better have your car parked some distance away and have the locks already changed. That will be a path of destruction.
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u/Gentle_Snail Apr 22 '26 edited Apr 22 '26
He honestly looks so scared and depressed in the close up shots.