Is he an argument addict?

What you've got here is a man who can't let go of his anger. When something happens to annoy your fiancé, or when the two of you argue and he gets furious, some part of him actually doesn't want to stop feeling like that.

Why? Because when he feels angry, he doesn't have to face the fact that he himself may have done something wrong or that he may have some responsibility for the original problem. When he feels angry, you take all the blame in order to make peace. When he feels angry, you give him lots of attention because you hate to see him hurting. When he feels angry, he feels in control - in control of himself, of you and of the relationship. He gets a lot of goodies out of being angry - no wonder he doesn't want to stop.

All that said, my bet is that your fiancé doesn't want to feel so furious. And it isn't that he is deliberately setting out to be furious. It's that somewhere in his past, he got so very hurt that now he's putting up big barriers - and getting angry is the biggest barrier you can put up in a love relationship.

You've got two ways forward here. The first is to talk things through with your man, tell him how unhappy you are, and ask for a commitment to change. You may want to read my book Stop Arguing, Start Talking (Vermilion, £6.99).

If your fiancé won't listen or isn't prepared to change, then there is another option; if you change what you are doing, that will have a knock-on effect on him. So rather than taking the blame, trying to make things OK, doing absolutely anything to try to win him back, you could opt out - tell him you're not prepared to be around him when he's so emotionally cold, tell him to phone you when he feels better, and then simply not see him for a while.

That may sound brutal. But it might just give him the shock he needs to make him snap out of his anger - and give him the space to chill out and get back on top emotionally.

In any case you have to get it sorted. This pattern of rowing is incredibly painful - not only for you but also for your fiancé - and in the end, no relationship can survive it. The bottom line is that if the two of you don't find better ways to resolve your conflict, you shouldn't just be taking a break - you should be cancelling the wedding.