He prefers blondes - what should I do

[mogratpineapple]

My husband intensely stares at EVERY blonde woman or teenager ALL THE TIME. I am brunette, obviously.

Even on our special anniversary weekends I cannot hold his attention if there are any around. He says that he loves me and I'm the one he married. I get that, but...I feel second best.

I have told him how I feel, like the kid who doesn't get picked for the team, but it carries on. I refer to myself as the B Team.

I have decided that I must do something else to boost my self-esteem in these situations. I think maybe I should move away from the crowds when we're in public - maybe sit in the car or go off on my own.

Am I being pathetic though? Or do I need to stand my ground?

He's a knob-head!

Personally because I'm very childish about these things I'd dye my hair an even darker shade of brunette, Leave him and find my version of George Clooney. whilst pretending I looked like Amal

He's disrespecting you (and he's also disrespecting the women he stares at, by reducing their humanity to their hair colour).

Have your conversations on this had any effect at all - has he justified himself, or said he'd try to stop, or anything like that? Or does he just brush you off with the "but ILU"?

He said that he's working on it (six months ago.) He says that he loves me to bits and doesn't want us to split up.

Is he trying to claim that he can't control his own eye and head movements? He's not trying is he, if he was he would have succeeded

What do you get out of this relationship now?.

These comments of his are basically hooks designed to keep you further invested in this. Do not fall for such empty promises.

And no, he is not a lovely man. He is instead someone who is basically now dragging you down with him.

Teenagers? really!

Please don't stay with a man that makes you feel inadequate and worthless, seriously, no man is worth this, esp one that is a blatant pervert.

Wise up OP, get rid, he's got zero respect for you or any other woman.

I know someone who dealt with a similar situation. She was out with her bloke and he was ogling the barmaid. Everytime she spoke to him his vision would drift towards the bar. After attempting to ignore it it became so obvious ( others in company started taking he piss) that when he went to the bar she got up to use the loo and bunked out the window and fucked off home.

He turned up hours later asking her where she had been and that he'd been looking all over for her. She calmly explained that she wasn't putting up with disrespectful behaviour.

He didn't bother doing that again.

Personally I would do the above or respond in kind. Give him a day out where you spend the whole of it like a cat on heat commenting on every bloke in sight- noting particularly if they have different features from him and how irresistible they are. If he's bald than the full heads of hair get it. If he's dark haired then redheads are fantastically alluring to you. I know it goes against the grain but objectify every male you can. If you can go there mention the size of a blokes packaged and how blessed he is.

I don't think you'd get a repeat of the blonde fetish after that!

'He is a lovely man: kind, helpful, generous. It's just when we go out and blondes appear...'

They don't just appear...they are everywhere, because now you are very actively aware of them. But who are they? they are not simply the sum total of their hair colour, anymore than being brunette should define who you are.

Except for some men, yours it would seem, hair colour signifies something other than just what pigment you have in your follicles. There are all sorts of popular and historic myths about dark haired witches and wicked women who would seduce, or passionate and feisty red heads, and blondes, well I think they probably suffer the worst fate, blonde hair is usually represented in myth as belonging to virginal, young, and innocent women. What does this say about the male psyche that historically created these myths or the men who stare at women with blonde hair? Probably that they get off on the myth of corrupting young innocence, coquettish and flirty but with no actual sexuality of their own, just a sexuality that is there to be appropriated and used by men. Look at common porn tropes and classical paintings. Why is this? because men are afraid of women's sexuality, he must deny she has it except that it exists for him. In short your husband is pathetic because he simply thinks that sexuality and hair colour are a real actual empirical fact, the fact is however that only misogynistic scared men fall for this crap!

My advice would be to divorce the twat, if you think you are second best to him its because you are and he makes this "fact" of his known to you. So make him second best.

I guarantee he's no looker himself!

Quite Jan because scared, inadequate misogynist men are always bloody ugly whatever their outside appearance

Look at his actions not his words mograt.

He is continually disrespectful towards you. He puts you down the priority list after friends, hobbies etc. Those are not the actions of someone who loves you.

It is no surprise that there are issues in other areas of your relationship i.e. feeling low down the priority list. Leering at other women is just a symptom, not the cause. The cause is lack of respect for you (and other women).

And ew at the ogling of teenagers. Serious red flag.

Is he from another culture or country, OP? I'm only asking because blondes are hardly unusual here. He does sound like an absolute creep, tbh. Are you sure you want to be with someone like this? It won't just be outside the house that you're uncomfortable, either. What's he like when he's watching television? I would hate to see the history on his computer, particularly as he likes looking at teenagers.

OP my ex used to do this all the time.

Not just blondes but all attractive females, and it used to make me feel uncomfortable, inferior, insecure, upset etc. etc. I used to bring it up sometimes and I'd also get the 'I'm only looking' and the 'but I'm with you/I chose you' line.

We ran our own business and across the road was a catering college where you could get a fantastic cooked lunch for a couple of quid in a restaurant run by the students. Great value and really good food, so we'd go over there most days.

Lots of those serving and working in the restaurant were young attractive female students and I was sitting opposite him one day and watching him ogling these girls and I suddenly saw him in that moment for what he actually was - a pathetic middle aged letch, ogling girls who wouldn't look twice at him. It was literally a eureka moment when the scales fell from my eyes and and I saw him for the sad twat he really was.

After that it never bothered me and I'd just laugh to myself as he gawped at some lovely young thing as she breezed past and didn't so much as glance in his direction.

But I also started doing what others have suggested here and that is doing a bit of 'looking' myself. Just clocking nice looking blokes and making sure my ex saw me doing it. Also, there's an interesting thing I found and that if you 'look' at a bloke in a certain way, quite a few of them will return the look and make eye contact. I've not trying to make out I'm some raving beauty and I had men ogling me or anything like that. it may just be an automatic response and they may not even be aware of doing it, but men started looking back at me, and my ex noticed it and was not happy. I remember going to a gig once and made eye contact with this really nice looking bloke and after that he kept looking over and giving me the eye and my ex fucking hated it haha!!! It was also a massive ego boost for me, one that was so badly needed at the time after being made to feel like shit for so long by him.

He was an arsehole in loads of other ways (not just the letching) and I got rid not long after that, but dealing with that particular situation was a real turning point for me and after that I just got stronger and stronger and less inclined to tolerate his shit in other areas.

You shouldn't have to put up with this OP. At the very least its inconsiderate and disrespectful, but more than that it's insulting and demeaning and can erode self-esteem and self-worth hugely, as you are already discovering.

Glad that some outside views are helping OP!

To reiterate: if YOU had blonde hair, he would STILL act like this. He would still pant after other people in the street, making them feel uncomfortable and making a public embarrassment of himself.

He doesn't do it because 'he likes blonde hair'

He does it because he is a creepy bloke with a rather alarming lack of social ability and understanding of boundaries.

'drawn like a magnet' is really alarming. If he is 'working on it' and yet is still doing it, he needs to see someone.

To repeat, this isn't about hair colour. Something that might help overall is to really continue to frame it like this TO HIM. So instead of calling it 'your thing about blondes' call it what it is - 'your social problems' 'your inappropriate behaviour towards strangers' 'your issue with looking inappropriately at teenagers' 'your creepy public behaviour'.

Hmm just clocked the last bit of your post.

So in addition to being a creep, he is a shit partner in other ways.

Maybe start thinking whether he's worth it. He doesn't sound it.

Think there was a similar post to this last week. Lack of respect for you, it's horrid an it will make u feel crappy..No all men don't do this. Although I do know someone who does this but that would be a whole new thread in itself.. It will wear you down, sounds like it already has. I guarantee that there will be other issues here too.

He is a lovely man: kind, helpful, generous.
he is also a first class creep who cares very little for your feelings or the 'blondes' and young women/girla he is oggling, and puts you last on his list.

OP why do you think these are the qualities of a "lovely man"?

I do feel worthless in other ways, plainjanine, as if I'm at the bottom of the pecking order when it comes to his friends, interests etc.

He is generally a less than ideal partner then? Have you thought how you're going to deal with this, and what the 'consequences' might be?

This is childish behaviour at best, inconsiderate and bloody rude at worst but for some of you to suggest LTB in the first couple of replies is frankly ridiculous advice!

If you have not spoken to him do so! make it clear to him how it makes you feel, be brutally honest becuase sometimes guys just don't get it and you need to make him understand how it makes you feel.
If you have spoken to him then your words have not sunk in, be really brutal if you have to!
He can't go round acting like this, it's disrespectful!
If this does not work, humilliate him in public while he is ogling the blondes. Loudly, so people can hear too!

Yuk, creepy lechy man.

He owns his eyeballs. He can control where they point. He doesn't want to.

He doesn't care about disrespecting and upsetting you. He doesn't care about making those poor women feel awkward and unnerved.

IF he's generally otherwise an ok guy, just one with a very bad habit and not interested in changing it, perhaps he needs a shock.

Do you know any really gobby/confident blondes you can arrange to have appear when you are out? And really tear him off a strip for being a creepy perve. Loudly. for a long time. In a very public place.

OP, this not about blondes or brunettes. This is about your husband's own insecurities about his relationship with you. I haven't read previous posts but it seems to me he's not madly in love, but he's married to you, and he clearly loves you.

It doesn't mean you need to break up. Keep talking to him and try to understand what's going on. It's normal for couples to stop being madly in love with each other. But make sure he doesn't act on those fancies of him. If he's committee to you, he'll eventually stop looking at other women, specially if you've asked him to.

Some have a natural wandering eye, but it's more to do with their own insecurities, and the need to prove something to themselves, than anything else.

I have decided that I must do something else to boost my self-esteem in these situations.

You have a quiet word with him and tell him that you will leave the bastard the next time he does that.
It shows a fundamental lack of respect for you.

This kind of behaviour can be soul destroying for the other person and undermine their self-confidence. It is also an insidious form of control.

It's this type of thing that doesn't look like an immediate LTB, but works as the frog in boiling water.

Unless you are prepared to actually leave him, it will never get better, and at some point you will have to choose between him and self respect.

He is a disrespectful pig.If he was like this before then why the heck did you marry him.Men like him never change.They just get older,more lecherous,sadder and generally more disgusting.Get some self respect and LTB.