Not sure what to make of this. Could I have some opinions please?

[MrsMorello]

I've been with DP for six months so fairly early days. Everything is good so far, we're taking things slowly and I enjoy his company.

However, I don't know whether this is me over reacting or not, but I'm starting to feel like he is publicly putting me down...on Facebook of all places. For example, I love baking and last week I made and decorated a cake for my nephew's birthday. I uploaded a photo to show my friends, only to find DP had written this response underneath: 'Good to see I've got a woman who knows her way around the kitchen!'

Other examples: I wrote a status which said I was looking forward to going to a bar with some friends. DP adds this comment underneath, 'Yeah good luck with that one you lightweight! You'll be passed out after one drink.'

He's made less than flattering comments about my driving and has also made reference to me being his 'chauffeur' after I picked him up one night in my [quote] 'banger of a car.'

I have two terriers and there are a couple of photos of them on my FB page. DP has commented and said, 'you'll never catch me taking those rats for a walk with their poncey pink collars! I'd never live it down!'

One of my male friends who I've known for 20 years and has recently emigrated wrote a message on my FB wall to say hi, how are you? That sort of thing. DP immediately picks up on this and writes underneath: "This is a bit too friendly for my liking!"

Is it me being over sensitive or is this quite a rude thing to do? I sort of feel as though by adding these comments on my FB page it's like he's marking his territory and also letting people know that he wears the trousers in the relationship, almost like he's showing off?

Facebook aside, when it's just me and him together he is quite sweet but does take the piss out of me a lot. To start with I used to give him some banter back but it's wearing a bit thin now especially as I've noticed his 'jokes' are actually quite personal. I've spoken to him about it and he has said he's just 'messing around' but he's still doing it.

Feeling a bit confused here, as though something's not sitting right with me but I'm worried I'm over reacting. This guy is in his late twenties by the way, although from what I've written he sounds like a child! Any thoughts would be much appreciated. Thanks.

ilike I'm single and would rather remain so for the rest of my days than get saddled with a prize jerk like this who's happy to put me down in public. So I can confidently say ltb

AndTheBandPlayedOn - very insightful post.

OP, he does sound like an arse. Sorry. I don't think you should compromise your standards or self respect.

When I look back on previous relationships, very often my only regret is that I tolerated arseholes for as long as I did and didn't get rid of them sooner.

This kind of "humour" is most unattractive. I think you need to inform him of that. It's unlikely I could maintain interest in someone so immature.

• He's a misogynist

• You don't owe it to him to fix him and it's vanishingly unlikely you could anyway

• You're not enjoying the relationship

• LTB

What a jerk. I would be embarrassed with the blatant territory-marking he did with your old friend.

Reminds me of a boyfriend who liked to kiss me passionately in front of my male friends, just to let everyone know that I belonged to him. That didn't last long.

'Jokes' with a cruel edge? It is destablising emotionally. First he is being nice, then he is saying things that only someone who doesn't like you would say.

If you continue being exposed to this kind of treatment, you will start to lose your self worth and confidence.

In the spirit of MN could you tell him that his jokes make him sound like a misogynist arsehole? Then dump him, life's too short.

My ex makes jokes at other people's expense. If you complain he accuses you of being touchy, moody or over sensitive. He is also possessive and would complain to me if a guy even 'liked' my Facebook posts or pics. The humour can be a form of verbal abuse which is difficult to deflect cos it feels like you can't take a joke. It wears you down over time, it's bullying and it damages your self esteem.

If say if he's picking on you to the extent you feel uncomfortable six months in I'd suspect there may be worse to come. I'd get the hell out if I were you. The jealousy comment prob the most worrying, as others have said.

You see I think, in isolation, some of those comments could be taken as light hearted banter.

But when you add them all up the banter wears pretty thin.

Throw the jumping in on a conversation with a man and I think it sounds very suss

AndTheBandPlayedOn The goal is to make you invisible, MrsMorello, so the focus will always be on him. That is what I was worried about and it seems that I have good reason to feel this way. You made such a good point about the cake, especially when you said he could have made a nice comment but chose not to. What makes it worse is that he can be lovely to some people on FB e.g. he wrote 'Wow, you look amazing,' under a photo of one of his female friends and, yes, she did look stunning. However, when I brought this up in our discussion about his dubious sense of humour he didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with complimenting other women yet actively making his girlfriend look like an idiot. His response: 'You're just jealous and being a bit sensitive.' Oh, right.

He seems to want to make me look like a fool in public, which is at odds with how he generally is behind closed doors (piss taking aside). He tells me I am beautiful, he says I make him really happy, he was said he'd really like us to book a holiday later this year, he says he's lucky to be with me etc and yet he just cannot let the outside world see this side to him. He just has to be cock of the walk in front of everyone else to the detriment of my feelings.

Just one more thing while I'm on this mini rant. His 'jokes' actually aren't only reserved for FB; thinking about it, his misogynistic bullshit has seeped into other situations. I give you this one: a very drunk man came up to us in a pub at kicking out time not too long ago and said to P, 'That's a nice lady you've got there, look after her.' P gave him a dirty look and said, 'Lady? Don't make me laugh.' Apparently that was a joke too As was announcing to a group of friends in a restaurant while out for dinner that 'MrsMorello will need help reading the menu as she doesn't understand long words!' Thanks you patronising wanker

Writing all of that was actually a bit pointless because it's a foregone conclusion that the man's a complete cock; re-reading this post is actually quite pathetic. Sorry for drip feeding btw, realise I have been guilty of that throughout this thread but it wasn't intentional.

Thanks all for your advice, I really appreciate it and know what I need to do now!

Wow OP, what a loser he is.

So glad you've come to a decision to eject him from your life!

Bloody well done that MrsMorello!

There's a school mum FB friend I have whose H ALWAYS makes some shitty remark about anything she says, or posts on others pages with some crappy remark about his Wife. I HATE him! She constantly trashes herself, and I think that's what he did to her tbh.

Please bin this idiot. He will only get worse, and your insticts are screaming out at you!

Thanks BerylStreep

Overall, the emotionally abusive strategy is known as 'Death By Ten Thousand Cuts'. Yes, BitOutofPractice, individually, the put-downs do seem petty; little "got you" ha-ha kind of making fun as the rude one freely admits to. If you complain, then their defense is blame the victim. It is like a paper cut. Insignificant. But if you had 10,000 paper cuts, it wouldn't be insignificant.

Your gut knows the score, your heart and soul know the score no matter how your brain will justify, ignore, forgive, excuse, reason, or just plain put up with it.

Loss of self esteem, identity issues, depression as a coping mechanism (and perhaps other things) are risks that come into play when the one being used becomes ensnared in this dynamic. Emotional detachment is a protective answer for those who, perhaps, are unable to disconnect physically... but if there are no barriers to disconnecting physically then yes, the gold standard is to leave the bastard relationship. Life is too short to lay down for emotional vampires like this rude beast.

X post, MrsMorello. Wow.

It ramps up, getting worse, but never reverses back to common decency and respect for a fellow human being (that'd be you ). It is amazing to me that he would say those things as though there would be no effect on your relationship...as though you are already invisible. Have you ever responded in the moment with "Not to be rude or anything", or "Ouch, you really are a nasty piece of work"?

Btw, he wasn't being nice to the other woman on FB in giving her a compliment. He doesn't give a crap about her, honest! That was him using her solely to engineer a piece of bait for you to comment on so he could label you jealous and sensitive. This is setting up the ground work for you to have to follow umpteen rules in the relationship and him to follow none. And then she'd be used, reeled in, as his "extra" when he casts about for some sympathy lovin' because of "how awful you treat him".

Oooh, he is properly unpleasant, isn't he? Nasty and cruel and put-you-down-to-build-me-up. :(
Sometimes it helps to write everything down and MN is as good a place to do that as any. Not drip feeding at all, just as you begin to write, sometimes you can't stop.

Now, more importantly, can we see eat the cake :)

What's worse than the put-downs, he's simply not funny. Your friends' silence on Facebook speaks volumes - no "likes", no "LOLs", no continuing the banter. And as for the rl "banter" - what a dick.

tall That is a very good point. If his 'jokes' were funny then surely others would continue the banter as you say.

AndTheBand I pulled him up immediately about the 'Lady? Don't make me laugh' comment and he said he said it out of anger as he felt that the man had 'over stepped' the mark and was blatantly trying it on with me. That made no sense whatsoever; surely if he thought the man was making a pass (he most definitely wasn't) then why on earth humiliate me? Utterly bizarre. With the comment about me not being able to read long words, I retaliated with a 'joke' and he didn't like that at all.

I saw him last night and told him I wanted to knock things on the head. He couldn't understand why I was ending things over a 'few jokes.' He just didn't get it. I told him that the FB banter was bad enough but his recent jibes about the way I talk and look were unacceptable and hurtful.

This morning he text to say that he'd been thinking about things and is convinced that there is 'more to it' and said that I've ended things as I've clearly met someone else. He said my reasons for dumping him were 'shit' and he is demanding to know who the OM is. Apparently his mates agree with him. So now I'm the bad guy in all this.

Bullet dodged there OP. What a tool.

Ignore him.
You can finish it because you want to. You don't have to justify yourself.

He doesn't accept your reasons because he doesn't want to be in the wrong. His problem.

If he starts pestering you tell him to back off or you'll report him to the police.

Send back "Think what you like. If you find it impossible to believe that I didn't dump you just because you're a twat then that's your problem"

Then block his number.

Prick. Well done for ditching him.

Don't read his messages. He will turn it all against you, it's in his nature. You don't need the aggravation. Ignore, busy yourself with something else.

He's a controlling, sexist wanker.
And he doesn't like that you dumped him for what he see's as perfectly fine behaviour.

Ignore him; you don't have to give him any reasons for not wanting to be around him, or email him this thread. We'll give him plenty of reasons

Seriously, what a dick. Well done you for standing up for yourself and expecting better, especially with your parents normalising it and your friend downplaying it.

What Calamity said. That. Text that.

He's just proved how correct you were to dump him.

What an arse.