My boyfriend (45m and now my ex) and I (38f) were individually going through a rough time while we were together. I wasn’t able to make his grandmother’s funeral, New Year’s or Christmas for perfectly legitimate, practical reasons which were beyond my control. I was really sad about this, but thought he understood.

He confronts me via text and tells me he feels I wasn’t prioritising him. He told me “you can drive to see X, but you can’t drive to see me”. This wasn’t true at all. I was very sick and didn’t drive to see anyone. For 9 months I drove to see him weekly despite being a very nervous driver.

I very calmly and politely corrected him and told him his accusation wasn’t true. He started bombarding me with insults, calling me immature and saying I had an inflated ego and a whole list of other things. I told him I felt this was unfair and he accused me of ‘playing the victim’.

He claimed that because he was in a bad place mentally I shouldn’t have defended myself. He claimed that because he’d always been patient with my insecurity in the past (which is not strictly true) that I shouldn’t have reacted how I did.

There was a pattern in our relationship of him throwing a series of insults at me and when I complained he’d say I was playing the victim. I was sick of it. I told him we needed to break up and he subsequently said “you’re a weird woman with a weird body who is only good for sex”. Previously he’s insulted me saying I’m ’hideous’ with ‘bad skin and a weird ass’ and that he can’t believe he was with someone so ugly. He’d blow up over nothing and yell at me before storming out then returning to yell at me some more while I sat there in silence.

AITAH for telling him I wasn’t failing to prioritise him? Should I have just sat and listened? I’m still so confused by this all and it’s causing me so much anxiety.