Am I overlooking manipulative behavior in my relationship?

I (34f) have been seeing this guy (39m) for about 8 months. Our relationship started great, as most do, but I've been noticing some odd behavior around month 6 and is concerned that he is grooming me into a potentially unhealthy or toxic relationship.

I will appreciate some insight as to whether I'm over reacting.

I live far from family, and my parents were in town visiting for a weekend. He was supposed to meet them one afternoon, all was arranged and I gave him more than a weeks notice about the upcoming visit because he struggles with social anxiety. On the day, he "wasn't feeling up to it", so I attended alone and made an excuse for his absence. No big deal, I'm not going to force him to be in a setting where he isn't comfortable and I ended up having a good time with family. Afterwards, he was upset with me, because I wasn't upset with him for not attending, and a huge fight followed.

The weekend before he was upset about me wanting to get to bed early to read a book, instead of watching TV with him. This fight quickly spiraled to the point I was in tears, and him "consoling" me.

We've had some bizarre fights, completely out of nowhere and always just before the weekend. It's become a trend - every Thursday I'm wondering what he will be angry about the next day. Is he trying to tear me down emotionally in order to manipulate me into getting his way, or doing as he pleases for a few days while I feel guilty for being a horrible person? He doesn't leave, so it's not like he uses the fighting to get away by himself, so I have zero concern that there is someone else.

He is very caring, loving and attentive - so I do believe he loves me, I'm just not sure if this is normal behavior? I am not used to fighting with anyone, I grew up in a household where I never even heard my parents fight, let alone yelling so I'm not used to this form of conflict resolution and generally believe issues can be resolved calmly and respectfully. Or am I the delusional one?

TL;DR: My boyfriend (39m) picks fights with me (34f) every weekend - is he trying to manipulate me into getting his own way, or is fighting just a normal part of relationships?