Defensiveness and PMO addicts

Today is not a good day. Ever since I discovered his PMO use my partner has been extremely defensive and unwilling to apologize about anything. He apologized about the PMO but for whatever reason since he quit he is unwilling to ever see things from my view and unwilling to apologize for anything he does not think he did wrong except he never thinks he does anything wrong and he can never see that others may feel differently. So today we are talking on skype and he's talking about Tom Cruise and how great he looks for his age and it was because it was his job to look good it was easier. He then said to me"if you were paid to look good you would look like Jessica Alba and have a great body." This really hurt me. What I heard was your body is not great. The old me would likely brush this off. But the me who is insecure due to his PMO use got stung by it. I also do have a pretty good body close to hers but of course not perfect so for him to say that reads as your body is still not that which I desire. Now I understand that men don't always get certain things that hurt women. In the past he asked me to explain to him why I was hurt and so I did very calmly and not accusatory. I explained that I did not think his intention was to hurt me but before I could even get it all out he started yelling at me and got very defensive and said I was twisting his words and I was in the wrong. He yelled at me several times you are wrong. I remained calm and asked him if the fact that I saw things different than him and was hurt made me wrong? He said yes it does. I asked him if he can understand that not everyone sees the world like he does (as I've asked many times) and his response was that I was trying to change what he said and lawyering him. He then shouted at me that he was sorry and he was not discussing this anymore he would just not say anything and here I go with this again. I'm not sure what this is. I informed him that I no longer wanted to speak to him and hung up. I am not calling back.

Guys this happens anytime I try to bring something up that hurt me. He gets so defensive and as a result won't listen to my feelings or even allow me to explain why what he did hurt. All I needed was for him to listen to me and understand. It was not that big of a deal but now it is a big deal because of him flipping out about it.

I constantly feel like he's keeping score. Being wrong about anything is a loss for him and so he refuses to concede or even hear me. I have tried so hard. I am kind I don't nit pick about dumb things, I discuss it calmly but nothing works. The only thing would be for me to never again bring up anything he did that hurt me. And guys he's so angry at me and I don't know why. I have done nothing but be supportive to him. It's more important to him to be right than it is to stop and say maybe she is hurt let me listen to why so I don't do it again.

What to do? Why won't he listen to me? Why is he so angry at me? I just think that either he can't or won't change this behavior. This time I am not reaching out to him. Every time I do and he never does. So if he does not reach out we will never speak again. I'm at a loss I don't understand this behavior!

 

Thank you and that quote is spot on. After all if we only feel the need to apologize when we think we did something wrong no one would ever apologize.
It is also correct that he has not changed. I can never have any conversation with him about anything he perceives as negative so basically him throwing a temper tantrum everytime I do is an attempt to manipulate me to not. We are going on a week long vacation and if after that I don't see things resolved or feel any better at all then I am going to end things. But I don't think it will resolve . He just can't or won't change . I do not know if he's using again I suppose he could be . You are correct that he was not defensive like this prior to me discovering the pmo. Based on what he says I think that what happened there was that he feels like I always have the upper hand and so anytime he gets what he considers a loss in his corner (something he did to hurt me) it reminds him again that he can't win. No matter what way I try to explain to him that relationships are a team effort and you should listen to understand not listen to defend he won't change.
There is no way for me to know 100 percent if he is using pmo but the interesting thing is this defensive behavior is more concerning to me overall than the pmo use because a relationship with someone that has these type of communication skills will never work and I'm not so sure that fixing the pmo will fix this. I can't be with someone who is not on my team. And I read a lot about the big things that bring marriages down and defensiveness criticism and stonewalling are all three.
It's funny when I ask what caused his divorce 8 years ago he said one day she just up and left. I don't know why she said she did not love me anymore and was not happy. She never told me what was wrong. But looking now I suspect she told him exactly what was wrong over and over and he just chose not to hear it. Thanks so much ladies for your input and counsel. He does have some really good qualities but unfortunately the bad ones make him in my opinion incompatible for intimate relationships.