FIL thinks I’m too ugly and fat for his son.

[ims0rrydarlin]

Just that really.

Was pretty upset about this. Doesn’t really want his Son to marry me because I’m not as attractive as his ex wife.

I’m a size 12-14. Always have looked after myself and considered myself Atleast average on a bad day.

We’re both Asian and families do like to meddle but this really threw me off.

OP,

Asking for full length photos of a woman are what parents do in arranged marriages ( awful bloody institution). This is an arranged marriage. Your future husband is seeking his parent's approval, and that quest will never end. There are better Asian men out there. Honestly.

The world is always out to criticise women but it's because we are powerful.

EvaHarkness is right. Men (culturally and sociologically) feel the need to control women because they fear us.

Let him see your strength by not considering him for a moment longer.

You will have a dreadful life if you marry into this family. Years of snide comments, unwarranted criticisms, and as someone else has said, every time you have a disagreement with him, he'll throw this back in your face.

@ims0rrydarlin - is the house owned jointly by you and him? If not, it's still his house and him renovating etc is a bit of a red herring.

It's a bit "cart before the horse" to get this far down the track of thinking about marriage etc without considering your families in law - especially given how important this is to you, culturally.

You deserve better.
If your partner really valued you he would have told his father to pull himself together .
I agree that your partner himself doesn’t sound very pleasant if he takes this very shallow approach seriously.
Get out while you can and before you potentially have legal ties to him through marriage

At the same time dont let someone else's opinion bother you this way

THIS ^

Co-incidentally, only yesterday I was with a group of friends, and over coffee the conversation wandered onto - "If you had your life again, what would you do differently?"

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US agreed that we would take no notice of other people's opinions of us. If we were happy with how we looked, dressed etc, we wouldn't allow anyone to bully or embarrass us into looking/ dressing differently.

And this especially applied to the opinions of people we neither liked nor respected - we all had a tale to tell about how we'd been made to feel like crap by someone's nasty comment - often at school - by a bully, surprisingly often at work - by a bully, occasionally on a night out - by a bully we didn't even know, but whose spiteful comments made us feel humiliated and destroyed our confidence, often for months.

Your BF's father is a bully. He's bullying his son, and his son is bullying you. As PPs have said, this is a way to control and manipulate you - it will get worse, and one day you will turn round and see that you are married to his father, because the two will be identical in all the ways that matter.

I'd be willing to bet that your BFs mother and sister lead miserable lives at the beck and call of this horrible man - and that will be you, too, if you continue with this relationship.

do something that makes you feel good about yourself, with someone whose company you enjoy if you can - go out for lunch with a friend, have a makeover if you still feel that you have "flaws" (we all do, my love - it's part of being human - you're only conscious of your own minor imperfections because these bullying men have forced you to concentrate on them).

I have met stunningly beautiful girls with nothing behind the mask and who are as boring as fuck - and I've met very plain ones who were incredibly sexy because their personality shone through.

The odds are that you lie somewhere in the middle regarding your appearance - and I'll bet that when you aren't worrying about your appearance , you are an absolute joy to be with.

Get rid of him - he isn't worth (to put it crudely) the team off your piss!

He will most probably come snivelling back to you - ignore him. He is looking for someone he can manipulate and control. Perhaps his first wife divorced him because of this, rather than his infertility (you've only got his word for that - I assume he hasn't shown you his sperm count report - it could be a play for sympathy).

Keep busy, meet other people and be happy - you won't be with him.

See I think his fertility is relevant. Because if we are talking about currency, and how many points a person will score, which is clearly what the FIL is doing, then sadly his son doesn’t come up very highly on the TTPSITP scale.
OP you could be Scarlett Johansen and he would still call you ugly. It is nothing to do with the way you actually look and it’s a way of them trying to put you on the backfoot.
It’s deeply misogynistic to say that as soon as a woman puts on make up she becomes ugly. (You sound very well put together by the way.)
Also you may no idea whether you want a family now, but who is to know how you will feel in the years to come? ICSI, which is the high intervention IVF it sounds as though your husband would need, is running at about £6,000 a cycle now, I believe. Just think if you needed 4 or 5 cycles, which is the average.

It would be worth all that heartache and financial outlay if you’d found someone wonderful but you really, really haven’t.
Keep giving yourself time, with no contact from him. They are a toxic family.

• trying to put someone in their place

*steam, not team

I lived abroad for a while in a culture not too dissimilar and women in this culture and Asian cultures ARE openly berated for being divorced and infertile

Op could lose weight if she was so minded, but he can’t fix what’s not working with him.

She’s a catch, he most definitely isn’t.

If he were a good woman in his culture, he’d never be remarried he’d be alone for the rest of his life or... forced to put up with an abusive arsehole as a partner because (s)he’s have no other choice.

This fiancé and his sub par family started this character assassination exercise, she can finish it by showing them that she’s better than that and he’d be lucky to have her given that he and his family offer so little

Random “good” snuck in there

Asian culture can be very shallow, from personal experience.

The other huge issue can be skin-tone, with lighter skin being highly prized.

Is there an element of that going on here too? The emphasis on photos rings alarm bells for me.

Run. Fast and far from that shit show.

He's going to beg his father?! Is he 12?
The only acceptable response was for him to TELL his father he is marrying you and that his father can welcome you or fuck off. Seriously you can do better.

I would be devastated if one of my daughters ever had to deal with this and while I'd never tell them they couldn't marry I'd tell them I really believed they are worth more.

Agree with pp that your marrying the whole family. Everyone one on his side will be your auntie & uncle. You could be living with your in-laws at some point and it’s highly likely you will.

There ARE far nicer Asian men out there. Look at your own family. Have you not any nice men in your family circle? ( cousin of cousin who’s not really related) that’s YOUR parents approve of?

I don’t agree with arranged marriage but if it something YOU consider important then ask your parents to put out feelers. Date for a long time, get to know his family ( ok you say that’s hard but it’s not impossible).

Don’t do this, I bet that’s why he is divorced. Maybe FIL made his sil life hell

@popupshopper

There's a huge difference between mentioning compatibility and future heartache related to fertility and talking about how he is "barren", shooting blanks and saying his body might be actively stopping him reproducing because he's a horrible person.

Those of us upset by the infertility comments were upset because of the nastiness of some of them, not because of the topic of infertility itself.

Nobody on MN would get away with saying those things about a woman with infertility struggles and rightly so.

Good for you. I think you are doing the right thing by giving yourself some space and thinking time. I’m no psychologist but I did read once that people who feel their partner has to know the truth, as in telling them about an affair, are laying the responsibility on the partner. In my eyes need to tell the truth and not lie are different.

Because everything worked out so well with the slim and pretty one, right? What a twat. FIL clearly does not have his son's happiness at heart. I'm so sorry that you are in the middle of this.

As you recognise, what your husband says/does is crucial, but with a father like that, I would not have high hopes.

His Dad thinks women are second class citizens and pieces of meat there to service men. I guarantee the son has some of this engrained in him. The son thinks he is there to do as the Dad wishes.
How dare anyone ask for full length photo.
I am so sorry that you are going through this.
How dare your DP say he'll 'fight for you'. Wow. No one needs to fight for you. You are perfect the way you are.
You should tell you DP that Mumsnet says he's a sexist shitbag, and an emotional abuser, but that you are 'fighting for him' on Mumsnet at the minute.

Noticed flaws I didn’t notice before when I was getting ready this morning

Imagine having to put up with this type of damage to your self esteem daily/weekly, every time you or him see his Dad? Imagine taking this for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. This relationship will never make you happy, it will only damage you.

Run >>>> hills

Do please post a pic of your delightful fil. Maybe we could all critique him and decide whether he’s good enough for you!
I would think very carefully about marrying into a family like this. Sounds like life will be an uphill battle.

Oh I'd run a mile, and then some. It is true that you will be marrying the whole family, not just your DP.

I would have been apoplectic if someone made that comment about me (and I'm no "looker"), but if this has happened even before you are engaged, let alone married, you have to look at how things will go years in the future. Please think seriously if you want to go ahead with the relationship.

This will sound brutal.

So the potential FIL thinks you’re not skinny or pretty enough to marry his divorced, infertile son?

You realise women back home will not want the above in a husband unless they just want to come to the UK? I bet these gorgeous women the father keeps mentioning never materialise.

I think the father knows exactly what he’s doing, he’ll have you begging to marry his son, so in future you can’t complain and will forever be on a back foot.

You begged to marry his son, so you then never have a right to complain if his son does anything and must always be above reproach after all you were desperate to marry him.

Cut him loose, find someone who’s family accept you with love and open arms.

I think you need to move on. Even if your partner is completely super in every way (which he isn’t), if you marry him, his family becomes yours. You’ll be stuck with them for decades - he isn’t worth the grief.

The bit where you say he cried during your latest call would have pissed me off. Reminded me of a friend’s fiancé who told her a few weeks before the wedding that he’d kissed someone else, then cried because he was sooooo sorry. My response (in my head) when she told me - ‘ bloody pull yourself together you self pitying infant. You fucked up, it’s my friend who should be upset/crying, not you’. And I wonder why he bangs on so much about how you complete him etc. Im always a bit suspicious of that sort of thing....
I’m so sorry you’re feeling shit about your appearance. FIL is an arsehole. If you’ve not worried about your appearance before then please don’t start now! I bet you’re just fine. What a dick.