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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Am I being unrealistic in my expectations?

154 replies

NewStart571 · 08/10/2019 20:08

I have been with my boyfriend for years. We split up last month briefly but have now got back together.

We split because of his cold hearted behaviour towards me. This culminated in him saying that looks wise I was a 5 out of ten. This was a devastating blow to my confidence. To hear my own boyfriend basically call me ugly was just horrendous.

We have discussed matters and I told him he needed to stop criticising me and that I felt that I had to beg him for a kind word. He told me that I was asking him to be someone he wasn’t.

So today, he was discussing his best friend’s wife with a mutual friend in front of me. He rated her a 7/10.

Am I being out of order to absolutely despair at this? Like he has plenty of ability to praise his friends wife (he also says she is a brilliant cook whilst criticising my cooking) but can’t even say a single nice thing to me.

I’m not expecting lavish declarations of my brilliance. But he literally does not say anything nice about me. He makes me feel unreasonable when I ask him to be a bit kinder towards me.

OP posts:
Gemma1971 · 08/10/2019 21:05

Snatches his hand away... OMG my ex did that too.... he would let my hand kind of slide if I took his in public... I now believe it was so he could keep his options open.

Did you post about this before... a few weeks ago... the asking him to rate you? It sounds familiar...

Are there other abusive actions and words? What else does he do?

Original poster
NewStart571 · 08/10/2019 21:05

I don’t know. He always seems to convince me that I am being unreasonable.

OP posts:
shiningstar2 · 08/10/2019 21:05

His comments are deliberately calculated to diminish you. He discusses women's appearances. He called someone else's girlfriend a '7' in your hearing when he knows he had upset you by calling you a '5'. Only people who have no self esteem/confidence ext themselves do this to others. He wants to bolster himself up by making you feel less. You deserve better than this op. Don't allow him to diminish you. Warn him that you are not staying around to put up with this kind of treatment. Giving women a number about their appearance is to objectify them. You are more than the sum of your looks. It's not easy but try not to let him see it gets to you. If he calls you a 5 laugh and call him a 3. If he keeps it up do consider leaving as this kind of treatment is very destructive to your well being.

Original poster
NewStart571 · 08/10/2019 21:05

Hi yes that was my post last month.

OP posts:
Gemma1971 · 08/10/2019 21:07

At some point you will have your last straw. Usually that comes when you finally stop seeing yourself through any other person's eyes.

Most of my friends said they would have walked after a miniscule fraction of the shit my ex pulled. I bet if you thought more highly of yourself, you would not even have considered trying again.

Gemma1971 · 08/10/2019 21:11

Ah ok. So you ended it, rightly so, well done.. but he wormed his way back in.

They usually do that, these types. And read from the same old script.

You CAN do better and you are NOT a 5. You are a woman who is beautiful in every way in her own right and nobody can rate you. The fact you even asked him screams to me that something has been fundamentally wrong for a long time.

How about you trust yourself? Trust that you made the right decision to end it the FIRST time and he is the same MOTHERFUCKER that he was before, with the same behaviour and the same tired old lines.

Isn't life too short? I wasted the best years of my forties on a moronic asswipe just like this. His redeeming qualities were his penis... and his cooking.

Eventually even that got old fast and a relationship is not based on haute cuisine and regular sex.

C0untDucku1a · 08/10/2019 21:12

He is awful. Dump him. Raise your standards.

Gemma1971 · 08/10/2019 21:18

I used to ask the same question(s) about my ex on different forums expecting someone to say tell me something different, when all the time he was an abuser and there was nothing, I repeat NOTHING wrong with ME, other than the fact that he had got into my head and lowered my self-esteem to rock bottom.

Just get rid and do yourself a favour.

Whatever good qualities he must have for you to take him, they ALL get wiped out by his need to hurt and provoke you.

And who gives a shit about why he does it. Not your job to fix him. Your job is to have a happy, healthy and prosperous life without being hijacked by assholes.

Don't be afraid to be alone either. And he is NOT the only man on the planet. And he is NOT the only man who will love you as much as he does, ever want you or bla fucking bla... whatever manipulation he has pulled, bin that shit and tonight, look in the mirror and say "I LOVE YOU and you DESERVE THE BEST. You are BEAUTIFUL"

Do it every day and clear his toxic fucking programs out.

funnylittlefloozie · 08/10/2019 21:18

If you're "only a 5", why is he with you? Why hasnt he fucked off to find himself a 10 or whatever he thinks he deserves? He's nasty and pathetic, and wired-up wrong inside. Please stop putting yourself through this torture, and start valuing yourself more.

MikeUniformMike · 08/10/2019 21:19

In asking him, you were giving him an opportunity to make you feel crap.

Aside from that, he is not making you happy. Dump him.
Work on your self-esteem and move on.

Original poster
NewStart571 · 08/10/2019 21:21

@Gemma1971 I’m not worried about finding someone else who will love me more. He has never said he loves me in our years together.

Some of my colleagues probably love me more than he does.

OP posts:
DonKeyshot · 08/10/2019 21:21

You deserve so much more than begging for crumbs at this obnoxious twat's table.

End this relationship before you end up self-loathing and suffering from body dysmorphic disorder.

When telling him to do one say that you rate his personality as 1, his sensitivity as minus 1, and his sexual prowess as minus 5. Smile sweetly as you wave him goodbye and walk confidently into your bright future.

A poster ( nugget ?) on another thread made this astute observation:
There are 3.5 billion men on this planet. Fill your boots.
And I sincerely hope you do.

Shoxfordian · 08/10/2019 21:22

Dump him and don't get back together
It doesn't even seem as though he likes you
I'm nicer to random strangers than he is to you
Seriously
Dump him

Gemma1971 · 08/10/2019 21:22

"In asking him, you were giving him an opportunity to make you feel crap."

Maybe.. but a KIND partner would have given a very different response, e.g. You are perfect to me, I don't rate people like that, I adore every inch of you...

This is not the OP's fault, even if she was quite insecure to start with. He knows it and uses it to his advantage.

Bluntness100 · 08/10/2019 21:24

Yes your standards are low. Very low. If they weren't you wouldn't be with this guy. No one should be with someone who treats you like this.

Don't get me wrong, you shouldn't be expecting him to tell you your the best woman in the world, that's overly gushy and ridiculous, I agree with him there, but he should compliment you, and make you feel loved and cherished. Secure in your relationship that he is attracted to you and only you.

Just end it and walk away.

Sron · 08/10/2019 21:25

OP, regardless of whether, according to Mr Wanker, you’re a 2 or a 10, only creepy, entitled sexist dinosaurs go about giving women marks out of ten on their appearance. Why would you have a conversation, far less a relationship, with a man for whom all women are Strictly competitors, desperately strutting their stuff in front of a judging label?

Thatisme · 08/10/2019 21:33

Run as fast as you can and never look back.

cacklingmags · 08/10/2019 21:37

He is toxic OP and a real and present danger to your self-esteem and mental health. He will not change - he can't, because he has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. These people destroy anyone who gets close to them. Leave him. He will make that difficult because he needs you around to destroy you further. You deserve a full and happy life with a partner that loves you. This man is absolute poison to your happiness. Run.

RaymondStopThat · 08/10/2019 21:38

The longer you stay in this abusive relationship, the more he will destroy your last shreds of confidence, and it will become almost impossible to leave. That's why he's doing it.

I was married to an abusive man like him. Eventually I lost all sense of what was acceptable behaviour and it seems that is where you're heading. Please do the Freedom Programme and escape this abuser. These Flowers are for you.

Gemma1971 · 08/10/2019 21:45

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3681244-WWYD-if-your-DP-said-this-about-you

OP you posted this at the start of September. Is this before you broke up with him or after?

Gemma1971 · 08/10/2019 21:51

You are clearly still hurting and smarting from his teenage-like rating of your appearance. It looks as if you ended it in September, am I correct?

It is early days, especially if you had low self-esteem to begin with and then got involved with an utter twat like your ex.

Took me waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long.. years .. to heal.

But... check out Richard Grannon, Inner Integration, Lisa A Romano and Balance Psychologies on YouTube for a ton of free advice and counselling on self-esteem, abusers and how to heal from their barrage of shit.

Cherrypicker01 · 08/10/2019 21:52

Wow what an absolute Pig. No one would settle for that OP. No one.

My partner tells me I’m beautiful, gorgeous, lovely, sexy etc about ten times a day and I wouldn’t settle for much less now I’ve found that.

If he even gets a whiff of me criticising myself he has serious chats with me trying to explain that I’m the opposite of what I have said.

There will be someone out there that not only will tell you you are beautiful daily, but it will be 100% fact in their eyes too.

Get rid OP, get your confidence built up and don’t ever settle for less than you are.

Gemma1971 · 08/10/2019 21:56
SignedUpJust4This · 08/10/2019 21:57

Hes right. Its perfectly normal for misogynistic cunts.

namechange4052 · 08/10/2019 21:57

All men, without exception, who 'rate' women out of 10 are cunts. I really wish you would leave him. You would be so much happier - I bet he wouldn't.