Partner making suggestions about appearance and how to "maintain" body...

[lizzedays]

My closest friend confided in me the other day that her partner of a year regularly makes comments about appearance and how she should 'maintain' herself.

Let's call her ellie. Ellie is attractive, wears make up often but not when she doesn't want to (and still looks good without it!) and is generally confident. He partner is always begging her to get a Hollywood wax and she has never wanted to, he's even offered to pay for it. When they have been out for dinner he will ask if she is going to wear heels. He will often suggest she gets a fake tan. None of which is said critically but as ellie said, she feels he isnt happy with her as she is. his response to this is that he is just trying to be helpful and wants her to feel she can do these things and he will help financially if needs be.

Ellie is a girly girl, but like most women who grow up, we don't always wear platforms when we have a meal out. she's pretty relaxed and does look good all made up but at the same time i can see why you wouldnt want to do that every single day! in her words 'shes not 18 anymore and doesnt want to spend every minute getting fully made 'up every day.'

she doesnt have mumsnet and so it's out to the mumsnet posters.. is he being a normal man or is this unfair?

He's a misogynistic twat. If he feels he can do better than Ellie, she should let him get on with it.

It's not a good sign. I dated someone once who started with little comments about how he liked my make up and nails to be natural. Then he didn't like me to fidget in a particular way. Then he started telling me off in restaurants. Then he made me out to be crazy and suggested I go to therapy.

I had a lucky escape from that one.

If he feels he can do better than Ellie, she should let him get on with it.

If she were tough enough to do that, then she would have told him from the start that she wasn't changing her habits so don't ask again, instead of a waffly Actually, Maybe I could decide to do things your way statement ("whilst she actually doesnt mind him having a preference and sharing that, she doesnt want to feel obliged to do it" )

I wonder what difference is between a Nag & a misogynistic twat?

Similar situation with a friend of mine. She's attractive in many ways but her man does the same to her. He's popular and involved in running social events. Ok looking guy. But keeps comparing other women to her saying they're good looking, pretty, great figure etc so now her confidence has gone.

I hope she leaves him, just as your friend should leave this stupid man. I can't understand how a woman can hope to find joy and love with an insecure (or is it arrogant?) man who's basically saying other women are better than her.

Does this lovely partner of a year like similar treatment? His partner constantly harping on about his grooming and how he can maintain himself and how “most men do ....blah blah” I expect not.

I hope to god she tells him to do one before her self esteem is eroded and she constantly doubts herself. What a twat he sounds.

Sounds like he might have a porn addiction? Hollywood wax? Fake tan? Sounds like someone who doesn’t respect women at all.

God this has just reminded me of an ex who sulked for days after we went out for his friend's bday to a restaurant and I wore heals which I never normally do because they hurt my feet. He sulked for flipping ages because "you dressed up for him, you never dress up for me". I hadn't dressed up for his friend ffs, I just wanted to make an effort at the nice restaurant! It was my first relationship after my abusive ex so my bar was still pretty low and I felt really guilty. I'd totally forgotten about that until now. Ellie should tell her BF to fuck off, he sounds like a nasty sexist POS!

his response to this is that he is just trying to be helpful and wants her to feel she can do these things and he will help financially if needs be.

If this was genuinely the case, it would have been said once and then never again when she said it wasn't what she wanted.

He does not respect her.

He is trying to control her.

This is the early stages of abuse - breaking her down so she doesn't have any sense of self worth and will accept his increasingly poor treatment as all she deserves. Getting her used to being told what to do, and having her thoughts, feelings and opinions undermined and ignored.

I'm curious. She thought she was just being sensitive, when's your immediate reaction (and ours) was the absolute opposite. Do you know if that's because he's told her that she was being sensitive when she stood up to him?

I ask because it's so incredibly common for women who are experiencing any degree of abuse to have been told repeatedly that they are being over sensitive for reacting or being affected by what the abuser has been doing, and then coming to believe that to be true so when they do confide in someone they write off everything they've shared with "but I know it's just me being too sensitive" etc.

His comment about "just reminding" her to take makeup on their walk settled it for me. There is nothing innocent or inadvertent about what he's doing. It's the early stages of coercive control and she needs to get away from him before he gets worse.

She will not be able to change him or fix him. He is doing this because he wants the power it gives him over her. His talk of low self esteem is just an excuse - an effective one as its resulted in her accepting his mistreatment and vowing to stay to "help" him.

Oh, and the "kind and generous" part makes no difference to any of this. Abusive men almost always having charming, community- or family-minded outward personas - all the better for making it harder for their target to convince anyone what he's doing behind closed doors, and for attracting targets in the first place.

Nobody would get into an abusive situation if the abuser was a monster 247 from the moment they met. Interspersing the abuse with "kindness" is how they get their hooks into people and keep them trapped.

However, his complete lack of respect for your friend should be reason enough for her to end this right now. It's not right, normal, or healthy.