I am 28 with no children, my partner is 32 with one child. We have been together for 3 years, (his daughter was born a month after we met), I love him and his daughter to bits but lately he's been saying things that have really confused me. He has told me he loves me, but at least once a week he has totally flipped out on me, calling me names, all over trivial things like I didn't cook his food the right way or I haven't mopped the floor early enough.

When he flips out I just freeze and sometimes cry which makes him even nastier, he calls me a child for crying. I have moved 30 miles away from all my family and friends to be with him and whenever I try to say that I have no one here I can speak to he says it's my choice to come here and I know where the door is. But today is the worst. It's new years eve and for the third year in a row I have stayed in with him and not gone to see my family or friends, (he has only met them 3 times, he refuses to see them with me), because I haven't ironed all of his t shirts he has just told me to move out, so I started to pack my things and he said not to do it now.

Then while I was upstairs putting clothes away he text me saying if I want to stay I should make sure all the house work is done ASAP. I asked him if he loved me and he told me to shut up because he's watching football, so I went back upstairs to cry and he came up and started shouting saying that I obviously don't love him or the house work would all be done. I'd like to point out that I clean the house everyday and whenever I speak to my friends they tell me that I clean too much and joke that I have OCD, when really I'm scared if I don't clean he will shout at me.

Do you think he wants to end it with me and is trying to get me to leave instead?

No, he wants a slave that is dependent on him, and who raises no fuss, and will never leave.

You fit that bill rather nicely, since you never fuss, and shrink from his bad behavior, but will never leave.

When you allow bad behavior, you will get more of it. Why do you live in such fear??

No honey, he is trying to get you to leave on your own without kicking you out.. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, but it sounds like he has met someone else that he would like to see and you are making things complicated being around.. He's under pressure and does not want a steady relationship right now.. It's time to move on with your life.. If you were to leave and go back to your hometown and stay with a friend for a weekend and tell him you don't know if you will want to come back the way he has treated you, if he comes running and trying to love and chase you he really does care and love you.. If he does not, he simply wants you out..