would you end a fledgling relationship over this?

[FolkGirl]

I've been seeing someone for about 3 months. A couple of weeks ago i was unsure if I should end it over my own insecurities for his sake. I tried to, he became upset and persuaded me that I need to take a chance on another person at some point and that he was only interested in me. I'm going to preface this with the tired description of him as a really sweet guy, loads of friends close to his family, very respectable yada yada that I know means nothing.

So a couple of conversations/throwaway comments over the last week have made me question things. Again.

My boundaries are a bit shit, so I'm trying to work on those and it's finding the balance between, "you deserve better than that" and "fgs, FG, he's only human!".

So...

A comment that when he and his wife were still together, he and a couple of his friends/colleagues really fancied a very attractive woman at work and they used to flirt with/talk about her (I can imagine what was said). Basically, being a bit lechy. He said they were all in relationships so there was no intent there. And when they realised just how much younger she was, it felt a bit wrong. "Just harmless banter" though. Just feels very disrespectful to the young woman and his wife, although sthe woman flirted too. We all flirt at work a little, but it just felt a bit seedy. Timescales wise this would have been about 3 years ago. But he will still meet a lot of new young very attractive women. It goes with the job. Not sure I want to be with someone who is looking and flirting that openly.

In same conversation, he said it was hard letting go of wanting to be with a young (e.g. 25 yo) woman. He's early 40s. He said that (before meeting me, of course...) he had to remind himself that that attractive young woman he'd just seen wouldn't be interested so he had to look at older women seriously instead. I kind of feel like I've been 'settled for' because he's realised he can't do any better and get the sort of woman he wants anymore (which is one of my big hang ups because I was told that was all I'd ever be good for).

There are a couple of other little things that just don't sit quite right with me. But I don't know if that's just me and I have impossibly unrealistic expectations, or what!

So if this were you, what would you do?

Am I being unrealistic?

Don't listen to your friend. She may appear self-confident but to me she sounds as if she is just hiding her lack of confidence under a thick shell.
She deliberately chooses "blokey" men because she somehow thinks that hearing their "jokey" put downs of women is normal. She is single because she only likes the unobtainable. She would probably dump any guy who seemed sensitive and and to be interested in her as a person.
She is not a good role model for you.

Dump him - as you said you'd rather be single than with someone like him. There is no reason to be in a relationship with someone you feel that way about.

You friend might be threatened by this attitude as she doesn't have the courage/self-knowledge to make it herself.

You will be happy when you do what is best for you, and seek out to have as friends and more those who value you for who you are. You can be far happier not in a relationship than in one!

Disagreeing with her warped view point is not running her down. She could be a great friend but have some wrong headed ideas about men.

Ultimately this is your relationship and you have to be happy. You don't have to settle.

Thanks. Yes. You're right, there are many women saying the same thing. He did seem like one of the good guys and, fundamentally, I think he is. He's also very mainstream and conventional amd it feels like he just has very 'mainstreamm attitudes towards this.

Sad thing is, he wouldn't stand a chance with any of these women that he's looking at. And he's going to throw away something that could have been really good amd real for them.

I think he's just not really done with the sweetie shop phase of finding yourself newly single. Or maybe he's always been like it. Who knowa.

Any man that behaves that like in front of his, GF/W is a complete asshole, it is tactless and rude. He shows a total lack of class. You were right not to say anything, what would be the point. To him, he's just looking, whats the harm!
I remember when I was about 13, I was over in my sisters house, we were watching a movie and there was a lady in the movie who looked really sexy. Fair enough, but I'll never forget the reaction of my sisters husband, he was like a dog in heat, his reaction and comments were disgusting. I'd never seen this before and I remember thinking he's a total asshole. Needless to say, my sister got rid of him a few years later and I could completely understand. The ridiculous thing was my sister is an absolute stunner!
She is now much happier without him.
These type of men never change. Its just in them.

Please don't put up with this type of shit. You deserve so much more.

Don't focus on your low self esteem, focus on the good things in your life and what you like about you.

All the best.

Noticing attractive persons of the opposite sex is pretty natural and I expect most of us do it at some point or other. Craning to look at them (aka open perving) is something else. Craning round the person we are going out with for a protracted look at someone else is the most appalling manners - both to the date and to the woman he's ogling. (Don't you remember being told as a small child not to stare? It doesn't stop being rude when you grow up!) It's not a compliment, it's disrespectful in the extreme. He could see her perfectly well with a little sideways flick of the eyes. By stretching past you he was almost making a point of demonstrating to his date that he was looking at someone else. What kind of man does that?

Anyway: knob radar has been checked and pronounced functional. Bring on the next candidate!

ps I would like to take a time machine and go back to the first time your mother said something unkind, and shoot her. Most of us believe our offspring are the most beautiful creatures in the world even when they aren't. (Fortunately, of course, my DC were the most beautiful children I have ever seen so I didn't have to pretend ) We love them because they are ours, and we want to make them happy and confident. Any parent who does the opposite... well, you know all this.

Oh, one more (shallow) side note: not all men like big boobs. At all. I'd say the majority do prefer (as my dad rather crudely put it) "something to get hold of", but there's also a lot of interest in women who are "small but perfectly formed". Although that said, your figure sounds on the full side in a good way so heaven knows what your ex was talking about. As for a tiny waist emphasising your bum: have you noticed how comic books and games draw women? Wasp waists and rounded buttocks all the way. Men - again, many men but by no means all - like that stuff.

Right.

I signed up to WW a couple of days ago and it's going well so far. I'm going to lose the weight I need to for myself, because I'm not happy. And I don't trust the men I'm going to attract at this size anyway. I think they're going to be attracted to me for the wrong reasons. Plus it's not healthy and I've grown out of my clothes and don't want to buy more!

I'm going to be single for a while. It was 5/6 months when I met this chap and I thought that would be enough. Clearly it wasn't.

Thing is on paper, I look ok. Professional career, 2 creative outlet hobbies that come with a good social life, a few good friends, several good acquaintances, fair bit of charity work, 2 fantastic children, I like my own company doing my own thing, I'm not needy (happy for someone to have their own space and do their own thing)...

But it still doesn't seem to be enough. And no matter what validation I get from these other things, they don't change how I fundamentally feel about myself.

He's not one of the good guys - he's a pathetic loser.

Thanks Annie. The woman he looked at yday was in the car next to us at a junction. I was in the way so he leant forward onto the steering wheel to see her. He couldn't even see her without doing so. You're right. That's not noticing. He seems to not be able to let a young woman pass without checking her out. Not because he's noticed her and she's particularly striking (when I'd look too!), but because he appears to not want to miss out.

He passed a rather unpleasant comment about an 'older' woman yesterday too. When I looked, there was nothing special about her in either dirction. She was just not young (prob late 40s/early 50s)

I did pull him up on that comment tbh. I said there was nothing wrong with her and she was just not young anymore. I think he felt a bit bad and tried to explain it away as a joke and I just said she was going about her life bothering no one and didn't deserve to have jokes of that nature made about her for just living.

But that will be me in a few years...

He sounds deeply unattractive to be honest.

That will be him too to be fair.

Ha I suppose it will!

The thing is, I'm more than happy for any bf of mine to have their own life and do their own thing. I just don't want to be worried about what they're doing/saying when I'm not there. You know?

"I've been talking to a friend this morning who thinks he is probably being a little rude but that I'm looking for something that doesn't exist if I expect a man not to be like this."

This is utter horse shit.

Of course men look at women. Women look at men too. But people who aren't twunts and who respect their partners do it in a discreet way, and they keep it brief. It's the twunts who make a point of obviously looking and letting their partner know they're doing it.
I'm in my 50s. I've had lots and lots of relationships.
I've only had one boyfriend who did this, at the time we were both 19. I told him I considered it the height of bad manners to gawp at other women when he was with me. He stopped the gawping. I'm sure he still looked, but he learned to do it in a subtle way that wasn't offensive to me because I no longer noticed him doing it.

OK, now you've related what he said about an older woman he comes over as even more of a twunt. What you said: she was going about her life bothering no one and didn't deserve to have jokes of that nature made about her for just living was exactly right. He seems to be one of those dreadful types who think women were put on this earth for him to look at, and take it as a personal affront if a woman who they don't find attractive goes around willfully existing in their line of vision. It's a milder form of the guys on Twitter who seemed to think they have every right to be hideously rude and even threatening to women who they don't consider shaggable (Mary Beard the most obvious example). I think the word I'm looking for is objectification. It does make for a bad partner, as he can never see women as equals, only as accessories/eye candy. Sad though it seems, he has done you a favour by showing his true colours fairly early.

"I've been talking to a friend this morning who thinks he is probably being a little rude but that I'm looking for something that doesn't exist if I expect a man not to be like this."

Your "friend" has very low standards and is, quite franky, talking shite. I've had many boyfriends and only one of them looked at other women indiscreetly in my presence. He leant across me to eyeball someone else and I told him, in no uncertain terms, that although I don't expect him not to notice other women, I expect him to be discreet about it. We were both about 17 at the time so I could blame immaturity for it.

You are worth more than this treatment. And good for you for pulling him up on his comment about the older woman. He's an absolute arse.

Annie, I think you're right.

He texted me earlier telling me to have a good day and to keep amiling (I'm having an unrelated stressful couple of days) because I look more beautiful when I smile.

First unprompted compliment in weeks and even that's an insult!

OP just to say...I've been with my dh for nearly 20 years now and I can state in all honesty that he has never letched over/checked out/commented on/ogled at another woman in my presence. Not. Once.

He is not some base animal at the mercy of his instincts ffs - he's just a shallow, disrespectful, misogynistic prick. You do get them. You don't have to date them though. I never have.

He seems quite fixated on the importance of aesthetics when it comes to women doesn't he? As though they are ornaments to be compared.

Lose the loser.

And What, yes. What he's doing isn't even noticibg an attractive woman. It's checking out every potentially attractive woman who walks past (eg young/nice hair/slim/short dress) on the off chance!

He really must like me for my personality, because he is not looking at overweight 40 year olds at all!

And while I sure your friend's advice was well intentioned, it wasn't wise of her to offer it because what she said simply isn't true. If that's what she truly believes, then her experience of men has been pretty poor and her self worth is low. She won't realise that of course, and her advice would have been given in good faith...but her normal doesn't match up to anything like mine.

I expect (and get) better. And I'm not a looker by any means either.

he needs to have the guts to go and find a 25 year old hottie if thats what he truly wants. i suspect in his mind he is settling by being with you, after his nasty comment about the older lady. i wonder if he sees you as an experiment? i know lots of men his age and they all prefer women around their age so please dont see his view as the majority.
i think he is chipping away at your self esteem, when you really need people to big you up.
im older than you and i get chatted up by men of all ages but mostly younger. do they care im a size 12? not at all. when i asked one did he prefer older women he said 'no i just like women'.
dont let this man warp your view of the ageing process, let him go.

Im willing to bet that when hes out with his mates hes one of those twunts who yells out nasty comments to women in the street who dont pass his "fuckability test"

I used to get shit attitudes like this before i lost weight.

Afterwards one of the guys who used to yell out nasty comments to me in the street actually asked me out.

Telling him no AND the reason why was better than an orgasm.

FG the bloke you know (i cant bring myself to say your boyfriend because he isnt worthy of the title) sounds like this type Shallow misogynistic and a complete wanker

Helena, that's the thing. He really isn't. He's quiet and well mannered (other than this!), he's intelligent, educated, very careful not to say or do the wrong thing, doesn't seek to offend, shares my social attitude, doesn't do football, prefers a pint in a quiet country pub to a nightclub, not a 'bloke' on any level. Other than this.

He's the sort to challenge poor attitudes and social injustice. And has done. This other emerging side to him is a bit of a shock, if I'm honest. It just doesn't sit right with everything else I've learned about him. But then I can also see that I'm not mistaken.

I said that I wouldn't tell someone again if they were doing something I didn't like. I don't want to change someone or for them to pretend to be something they're not. If I'm not prepared to accept someone as they are, I'd rather walk away.

I just don't know what to say :(