Is he trying to change me? Or am I being stupid and oversensitive?

[Rubiesandrainbows]

Im in a very good strong relationship and its been going for a year and we are talking about moving into together. I have a child from a previous relationship and he is great with him, no problems there.

The thing is, I think he is looking for the perfect girlfriend, I get on well with his friends and they agree this is the case, but say they all want "the perfect girlfriend" really (strangely, for me perfection = boring. I dont want to be perfect, it would be a life of dissapointment)

Anyway, over our time he obviously tells me what he likes and doesnt etc and the same vice versa as happens in all relationships. But lately, he's making comments on my choices like clothes, hair and makeup. He doesnt say he wants me to change anything but it seems like he does. My style is pretty sassy and fashionable, and i dont care too much about what others think, just go with my style.

A few weeks ago he mentioned hed likes longish french manicured fingernails and I always have short square nails in dark red, black, paradoxal etc. Anyway, yesterday I went to the nail salon and had the gel nails put on with the french manicure and when I got home I saw myself in the mirror with these nails and thought "my god, im changing into someone else" and I cried and told my partner I wanted some space.

Whats wrong with me? They;re just nails fgs. I feel like im being childish....but its really rocked my deep roots of our relationship. I feel like im just never going to be what he wants and I'm thinking about ending it.

Am I being oversensitive and reading too much into this? Help!

Garlic Thank you very much. I'll have a good old look and learn.

perhaps change could have a mosey at those links too, and educate him/herself a little bit, eh ?

I notice he/she hasn't been back since there have been further charming insights into this man's misogyny on this thread

funny, that...

We can hope, eh, AF.

Bibi, this is from the Heartless Bitches page:

An emotional abuser may make fun of his partner, or make subtle or not-so-subtle disparaging remarks about her while with other friends, and encourage the friends to make disparaging remarks. He will then be sure to tell her about the jokes they made and act surprised when she doesn't find them "funny". He may even tell her that she is overreacting and that it was "all in fun" and that no harm was meant by the "joking".

You might recognise quite a few things there! What really impressed me was where she talks about 'disappearances'. That was one of X's specialities; I hadn't seen it mentioned anywhere else. But, no, turns out I hadn't imagined it or misunderstood things at all! (Well, there's a surprise )

Change/Hans This guy is so clearly controlling and manipulative - there are red flags flapping wildly in the wind for miles around. I mean where do you start? The 'slutty' friend, the 'helpful' remarks about OP's nails/dress, the punishment for cancelling a date, the 'low social value', the 'flat shoes'...and on and on. The insight and advice on this thread has been amazing.

I get frustrated too when regulars say 'he's a knob, leave him' to pretty much every post. And unfortunately it paves the way for people like you to scream 'overreaction!' on threads where posters are spot on and trying their very hardest to make the OP see sense and save her a lot of heartache.

Anyway - your man's a cunt, OP. Sorry.

Please listen to Garlic and others who are so perceptive - and RIGHT.

Sorry, yes, meant to apologise for my hijack earlier.

I just had to read that extract from Heartless Bitches three times Garlic before it made any sense to me.

At first I thought 'that's not relevant to what I asked at all'

Quite shocking really.......

The language and tone used by some speaks volumes about the mentality of some of the posters here who seem to think that there own online abusive behaviour towards someone they don't even know is somehow mitigated by their own screwed up view of helping the OP. You are in fact hindering her and painting a false picture !

Proudnscary ... and unfortunately it paves the way for people like you to scream 'overreaction!'

I never said that at any stage and with the increasing evidence and details from the OP as the thread went on my advice changed from saying he seemed "ok" to saying it (what he was doing) was very worrying and nasty. Do you think I wasn't trying to help the OP to the best of my ability as are the other posters?

At no stage did I "scream" or suggest "over reaction" and at no stage have I insulted any other poster.

What do you mean by "people like you"?

Change: Not in the least. The worst thing that could happen from following advice like I've given is that she bins this man and he's not, actually, abusive, just a socially clumsy thicko with his foot permanently in his mouth. But SO FUCKING WHAT? She doesn't have children with him, nor shared assets or finances that will be tricky to disentangle, she can just dump him and walk away. What on earth is wrong with that?

On the other hand, she could follow the advice of the average mundane, or of people like you, and overlook his rudeness, his bossiness, his passive-aggressive whinging, his step-by-step isolating her from all her friends, and end up tied to him financially, or having kids with him, and trapped .
It's always better to end a relationship when it's not working out, and the sooner the better. Unfortunately, because it's percieved as in society's interests (ie men's interests) for women to stay in bad relationships because men are entitled to own the services of a woman, too many people believe that being single is somehow a bad thing, when it's not.

change is currently popping up all over MN whining about how a load of us man-hating, bitter and twisted women are going round trying to wreck perfectly good relationships

all bollocks, of course

sgb...average mundane ?

many us mundanes would not, nor expect other people to, put up with shit like this

not once, not ever

only a person who hates women would make the kind of comments that change keeps banging on about

AF: But you're not, actually, a mundane. It's not being heteromonogamous that makes a person a mundane, it's an obsession with making everyone else behave just the same and never do anything unusual. A mundane loves the status quo and resents and attacks anyone who challenges what 'most' people do or think. And a key component of mundane thinking is that women who are not owned by a man In A Relationship are failures or, more to the point, Wrong. Because if women start dumping men for unsatisfactory behaviour and not feeling guilty about it then WAAAH the world will end and more men will have to do their own housework. Oh, and learn not to treat women like shit. And that would be AWFUL because it would mean CHANGE! (and never was a poster more ineptly named, either)

I am not a mundane ?

I always thought I was !

Blimey, you have made my day, sgb

< sails off on wave of unmundanity >

< wonders if that is really a word >

what is the opposite of "mundane" then ?

I can be a bit piss-takey about things like swinging which I actually cannot help but find amusing (you have told me off for that before) but I absolutely think people have the right to do what they fuck they like, unless they are in danger of harming themselves or harming others.

I have virtually stopped pisstaking though, because I have learned loads from you and others on this site (and via some links I would never have known even existed )

Well I'll be eternally grateful to the 'man-hating', 'bitter & twisted' members of MN for 'ruining' my 'perfectly good' relationship!!!

< sorry for hijack, folks >

Hans, I respect the fact that you have changed your mind on this thread and are willing to really listen, see what is not being said ie. read between the lines (not ^making stuff up from our own heads as change would have you believe) and accept your initial observations were a bit off-beam

nothing wrong with that, at all

Sorry Hans

Good for you hans.

Change, I genuinely would like to know what you thought of the comment about him being confident that she would meet his high expections and he only wanted her to be happy, even though she thought she already was happy. Does that not set off some alarm bells.

You also called the OP oversensitive and emotional too which isn't entirely objective .

Rubies, I think it is very telling that the people on this thread advising you that this is emotional abuse, are the people who have personally experienced it.

Certain others who are saying ''what's the big deal?'' have no such relevent experience. I can understand that from an outsider's perspective, these small things are easily explained. But us who have been there know that it is the culmination of all these things that results in an uneasy feeling that things just aren't as they should be.

Read some of the links posted above and you will soon begin to be able to put a label on that uneasy feeling. And the sooner you have done that, the less ''stupid and oversensitive'' you will feel, and will hopefully spare yourself the exhaustion of continuing with this relationship.

sorry peeps I did something bad earlier to my boyfriend:

He came to my house this afternoon, and I was on the phone.
I came off the phone and he said something like "oh obviously you are too busy for me, I'll come back later shall I?"
So, I just couldnt resist.... I said "oh stop being so oversensitive" (!!!)

Well, he kind of looked at me in a strange way, and tried to splutter a response and ended up walking out of the house and then sent me a text asking "if I'd calmed down" (!!!)

haha! Sorry is this just totally immature of me....? I'm sorry I just couldnt resist.....

No problem AF, Proud and TwoF :) ... hope it all works out for the OP. I think I'll have a read of "why does he do that" by the person known as Saint Lundy to get a better grasp.

I have some knowledge of and done some work with "difficult people" but only from within a work perspective and areas of life like abusive people / relationships are a bit outside my world. I wonder if it's on audiobook as lots of study time in the car whilst driving?

Off for a wander round Mumsnet.

Naughty Rubies!

I think he asked for that...

Good on you Rubies! IMO not an immature response at all

... he hit you with a blackmail type sentence from cover, you clearly showed you'd spotted it and called him on it ... he ran and then tried to hit you from cover again. Keep doing what you're doing

R&R

It is good that you are able to stand up for yourself and give him a taste of his own medicine.

But it is not the way to a healthy, happy relationship.

Do you really want to be with someone if the only way you can protect yourself is by being as horrid as he is?

And look at how he turned it round on you again: 'when you've calmed down'.

So him being huffy about you being on the phone is fine (in his world), but you calling him on it is overreacting apparently . He's warped.

PMSL Rubies, well done! Mind you, Thistledew is right really: better to get rid than spend the next 20 years point-scoring, there are plenty of much nicer men out there.