Need help with step-dad’s bad temper
Super short summary to catch you up to speed: I’m a young adult, my mom’s husband is old and very conservative. I try not to butt heads with him too much because he gets harsh and critical (I assume it’s because of his military background), but it’s hard to avoid conflict when he will get mad at you for even making small mistakes to “toughen you up.”
I got sick a while ago and instead of helping me, he just criticized me the whole time by nitpicking my habits and ignoring the fact that I felt like shit because he just wanted to give me a lecture to teach me a lesson because in his eyes, being “brutally honest” is better.
Is there a way I can just change my attitude to avoid getting into more conflict with this angry old man? Because I literally can’t read his mind with half of the random stuff he gets mad about. I did learn to just ignore him and let his rants go in one ear, and out the other. But recently it’s been getting harder for me to control my temper because he’s getting mad more frequently, and I’m assuming it’s because of personal reasons that he keeps bottling up, so he just ends up exploding on everyone else in the house. I think my only solution is to no longer open up to him as much because he always spins it in some sort of way. I could try to talk to him about it but it’s difficult because you never know the right time to talk to this guy, as an, you never know when to catch him in a calm mood.