I don ' t know what I expected . <| sep |> My advice would be dramatically different depending on if you want to have children one day . You ' ve only been dating 8 months and you are already are walking on eggshells . Do you recognize that this is verbal abuse ? What are your lines in the sand ? How much berating will you put up with ? If you write down your answer now and stay with him , you will probably think you were being too harsh in 6 months when you have normalized being belittled and disrespected even more . But to help him , I think you need to decide how much respect you deserve as a person and hold him to that . If he isn ' t doing serious work , you need to hold him accountable and don ' t enable because he feels bad after . Have another conversation where you clearly tell him your boundaries and then stick to that . My mother was you . It got worse . My childhood sucked . If you want children , get out now . They don ' t deserve to see their mother being put down . I feel bad for your boyfriend because he probably had a similar childhood but I also don ' t because it ' s not a pass to be abusive . He needs to do the work .