Sorry about the length of this post.
I've been with David for around 7 years. I consider him my best friend and we share friendship groups, hobbies, and interests so it's hard not to get a little codependant. 99% of the time he is kind, funny, considerate, and super loving.
Yesterday, he was helping me with something and messed it up kinda badly, beyond repair. I was pretty frustrated as it's something we've done together before without issue, but I also know it was an accident. I told him I was frustrated at the situation and not with him. He didn't apologise for the accident or try to make me feel better, and said “nothing I can say would make you less pissy so I'm leaving” before… storming out of the house? I asked him not to leave us on a bad note and he said it would be better for him to calm down.
I waited 20 mins before cracking on with some work to distract myself. But I was scared of what felt like a massive escalation of a minor issue and dreading his return. This has happened before, where I get upset about something and David leaves for hours or ignores my calls. He knows I have PTSD from being abandoned by my mum as a teenager, so it feels like punishment for having feelings rather than him stepping back to calm down… especially since he doesn't normally come back any calmer.
After a few hours, he returns and asks me if I'm ready to talk. I said, quite honestly, that I was ready to talk at the time, but now I'm feeling a lot more upset.
He went off on a tirade of personal attacks about me. Apparently it's my fault for asking him to help with something (I had just helped him with a similar task) because I have “ridiculously high expectations”. Apparently I should have known he didn't want to help in the first place (even though he didn't say so). Apparently I am incredibly judgemental and he can't be himself around me. Apparently he barely shows me the real him because I make him uncomfortable and I think I'm better than everyone. Apparently I am not receptive enough of his feelings and I never listen. Apparently he won't even choose songs to listen to in front of me out of fear I will judge him, based on something mean I said FOUR YEARS AGO when I was sick and he woke me by blasting music (even though I promptly apologised for having said “please turn down your shitty music” at the time, and it was actually a band we both listen to). Apparently nothing is ever good enough for me, I'm “a monster”, and the sentence which keeps reverberating in my head: “nobody will ever love you as much as you need to be loved”.
He wasn't yelling or anything but he just quietly told me all of these awful things and it only made him get meaner when I tried to defend myself, reassure him, or ask for actual examples of me having been judgemental towards him or others.
I'm in therapy and try hard not to freak out too much when being criticised, but I tolerated this barrage for maybe an hour or so before I had a panic attack.
Unfortunately that ended all talk because I had to lock myself in the bathroom to calm down and get my breath. When I came out he refused to talk about any of it or our future and just said “sorry” repeatedly. He said he would do anything he could to make me feel better and offered to make a special dinner. I declined, feeling totally confused and exhausted, and fell asleep on the sofa for 18 hours. He woke me up briefly to kiss me on the forehead and say he doesn't want to lose me. Now I'm awake, he is asleep, and I'm wondering where the hell to go from here.
We have argued before but nothing like this. There's no question in my mind that the wedding is off, but is the relationship over? Or am I being dramatic and this is normal to accept in an otherwise good relationship? Can you come back from personal insults and apparently longterm resentment?? Can all of this be fixed in couples therapy or has it gone too far? I love him to pieces but right now I just feel empty and awful. I'm struggling to reconcile that the David I know and the David who said all of that are the same person.
I know this event paints our relationship in an absolutely awful light but most of the time he is so doting and kind. I feel absolutely blindsided and I don't know whether to chalk this up to a rage attack (still not acceptable) or genuine longterm resentment. I try constantly to validate and encourage him and improve his confidence around things he's insecure about.
So uh, help? I guess? If you got this far, thank you for reading.
Tl;dr: Fiance stormed out after minor problem, returned to hurl abuse and reveal long-term resentment, I had a panic attack, he was then overly placating and we both went to sleep. Don't know where to go from here or if this is normal.