My (24F) housemate (24M) has a history of violence. Should I be concerned?

Yesterday I got into a pretty bad argument with my roommate (let's call him Alex) of 6 months' after he told me he was suspended from school 7 years ago for punching a younger kid who was annoying him. I said he should have been suspended, and that I felt sorry for the kid. And he started to say things that I think were aimed at hurting me. (E.g. he said he attended an all-boys school. Punch-ups happened all the time. He still had a better schooling experience than I did at my mixed gender school because the majority of women are crazy and bitchy). He's vaguely told me in the past that he's also been violent with his abusive mother several times during stressful periods in his life after she's pushed him far enough. One time was fairly recent. I thought his actions were understandable, but not justified. He thought his actions were understandable and justified. Basically the long and short of our argument was that I think he's a bit of a jerk and he thinks I'm a bit judgemental (and ok, there's probably some truth to that).

We tried to resolve it today. I started by saying at the end of the day, the things I was demanding from him were respect for myself and other women and the right to feel safe in my own home, while the things he was demanding from me were to not feel uncomfortable about his opinions. We just didn't have the same sort of skin in the game. I asked him if he ever regretted his actions, and he said he didn't, because he thought it would be pointless to cry himself to sleep every night over them. He had left them in the past. I asked if he was looking into any techniques to deal with conflict with his mother in healthier ways, and he said he was getting distance from her, which was helpful, but that he didn't need to look into any other techniques because "I don't pay $250 for therapy every week to waste it practicing breathing techniques. I don't go to therapy to appease my roommates. I go for myself." He felt like he had opened up to me about his past in a way that he hadn't with anyone else before and was upset that I was now throwing it in his face, branding him for life as a violent woman-beater just because of a few actions that he had left behind. He didn't understand why I felt unsafe around him, when I probably passed by plenty of worse people in the street everyday. I said I wasn't sharing a house with those people, and he said that we had shared a house for 6 months and he had never harmed a hair on my head, why was I suddenly scared of him now? I told him I wasn't scared of him, but I was seeing a lot of red flags that I didn't see before this conversation. He didn't seem to regret his actions and he wasn't working on healthier ways to deal with stressful situations. I asked him to please assure me that he would never physically hurt me, and he couldn't even promise me that. He said he didn't want to lie to me, because sometimes he couldn't control his actions.

Eventually we got our other roommate (24M) in to mediate. Our other roommate (let's call him John) asked him a few questions similar to what I had already asked, but eventually came to the conclusion that Alex was being so defensive over his past because he couldn't leave it behind despite his protests to the contrary. Alex feels like he's a bad person and that's why he couldn't assure me that he would never hurt me. John said he had full confidence that Alex would never hurt me. And I also said I didn't think he could hurt me. Alex broke down and we hugged him.

And look, I like him. I think he's a good roommate, and I want to avoid moving out if I can. It makes me sad to hear what he's been through and it genuinely warms my heart that he feels a bit more at peace with himself now. I sent him some messages telling him that I loved him and assuring him that he's a better person than he thinks he is. But I still have questions about those red flags, and I feel like I shouldn't reopen the conversation with him now after I've told him that I accept him and his past and I think he's a good person. It goes back to what I originally told him, in that I had concerns that I thought were more important than his desired to not be judged. It feels like they weren't resolved. How do I resolve them?

tl;dr my roommate has alluded to situations in the past where he's hit his mother and others. Should I be worried?

Submitted September 19, 2019 at 11:47PM

Yesterday I got into a pretty bad argument with my roommate (let's call him Alex) of 6 months' after he told me he was suspended from school 7 years ago for punching a younger kid who was annoying him. I said he should have been suspended, and that I felt sorry for the kid. And he started to say things that I think were aimed at hurting me. (E.g. he said he attended an all-boys school. Punch-ups happened all the time. He still had a better schooling experience than I did at my mixed gender school because the majority of women are crazy and bitchy). He's vaguely told me in the past that he's also been violent with his abusive mother several times during stressful periods in his life after she's pushed him far enough. One time was fairly recent. I thought his actions were understandable, but not justified. He thought his actions were understandable and justified. Basically the long and short of our argument was that I think he's a bit of a jerk and he thinks I'm a bit judgemental (and ok, there's probably some truth to that).We tried to resolve it today. I started by saying at the end of the day, the things I was demanding from him were respect for myself and other women and the right to feel safe in my own home, while the things he was demanding from me were to not feel uncomfortable about his opinions. We just didn't have the same sort of skin in the game. I asked him if he ever regretted his actions, and he said he didn't, because he thought it would be pointless to cry himself to sleep every night over them. He had left them in the past. I asked if he was looking into any techniques to deal with conflict with his mother in healthier ways, and he said he was getting distance from her, which was helpful, but that he didn't need to look into any other techniques because "I don't pay $250 for therapy every week to waste it practicing breathing techniques. I don't go to therapy to appease my roommates. I go for myself." He felt like he had opened up to me about his past in a way that he hadn't with anyone else before and was upset that I was now throwing it in his face, branding him for life as a violent woman-beater just because of a few actions that he had left behind. He didn't understand why I felt unsafe around him, when I probably passed by plenty of worse people in the street everyday. I said I wasn't sharing a house with those people, and he said that we had shared a house for 6 months and he had never harmed a hair on my head, why was I suddenly scared of him now? I told him I wasn't scared of him, but I was seeing a lot of red flags that I didn't see before this conversation. He didn't seem to regret his actions and he wasn't working on healthier ways to deal with stressful situations. I asked him to please assure me that he would never physically hurt me, and he couldn't even promise me that. He said he didn't want to lie to me, because sometimes he couldn't control his actions.Eventually we got our other roommate (24M) in to mediate. Our other roommate (let's call him John) asked him a few questions similar to what I had already asked, but eventually came to the conclusion that Alex was being so defensive over his past because he couldn't leave it behind despite his protests to the contrary. Alex feels like he's a bad person and that's why he couldn't assure me that he would never hurt me. John said he had full confidence that Alex would never hurt me. And I also said I didn't think he could hurt me. Alex broke down and we hugged him.And look, I like him. I think he's a good roommate, and I want to avoid moving out if I can. It makes me sad to hear what he's been through and it genuinely warms my heart that he feels a bit more at peace with himself now. I sent him some messages telling him that I loved him and assuring him that he's a better person than he thinks he is. But I still have questions about those red flags, and I feel like I shouldn't reopen the conversation with him now after I've told him that I accept him and his past and I think he's a good person. It goes back to what I originally told him, in that I had concerns that I thought were more important than his desired to not be judged. It feels like they weren't resolved. How do I resolve them?tl;dr my roommate has alluded to situations in the past where he's hit his mother and others. Should I be worried?