Oh god. My ex was like this and only since doing extensive work on myself, therapy and many domestic abuse education courses, my IDVA and many and any other sources I am disgusted further at what I put up with or didn’t question. He never crashed his hands after the toilet. He never or rarely brushed his teeth.
He did shower but not regularly. He would come home from his very manually physical work and get into bed in his clothes and sleep in them then get up next day! He drank heavily but you’d not know it unless you knew and oftentimes he wet the bed. He smoked, drank, down the line I found out he took speed or GBA is it?
Steroids and coke at work in the day. I had no idea. He slept an insane amount of time. Back then I went into full mummy mode with him. After some time I moved in with him, I found myself cooking multiple times at night before I had even ate - he wanted cooked meat and steam veg for dinner and the same for next days lunch.
He never cooked. Ever. Would sometimes get a Deliveroo but only for himself and eat it in front of me and the children without any care. I erupted when pregnant once at him because he wouldn’t walk to the shop to get me gaviscon and at one point he brought me a can of coke and announced how much he had changed as it wouldn’t have occurred to him to have thought about something I might like when he went to the shop. It began with a seemingly normal man.
Very soon it became clear he had mental health issues such as anxiety but all I wanted to do was take care of him. Months down the line he turned abusive. His standards he claimed, were so high and far higher than mine, I couldn’t do anything correct and the double standards were unbelievable. I learnt early on not to bring things up. Same as you, he would internalise it, later on I learned that he was actually simmering with rage and contempt for me. He I believe is a ‘vulnerable narc’ and they are the worst ones of all.
They expect everything of you, call them out in anything from not helping clear up some cups to actually physically abusing you, they erupt back saying all the irrelevant non connected slights you have done, silent treatment, withdrawing sex or affection and if I would raise that he’d tell me to add on another two weeks as my raising anything ‘set him back’ he had NO grace for any anxiety or sadness I had, especially when I was unwell. I look back and I think to myself how I had zero self esteem to have become conditioned to that, allowed myself to get to that point but yet I did, always chasing the representative you first meet.
I know it’s terrible but I would avoid a man who showed a speck of a red flag for the above, it isn’t worth the risk and being on this forum had opened my eyes to just how common sadly these types of men are and all the insidious ways they show up, creeping bit by bit, weaponised incompetence, mine liked to humiliate me. In subtle ways. He could ‘just’ be a slob, but it could be a precursor for a more maladaptive at best, abusive st worst, man. I’d never date a man with mental health issues unless he was taking full responsibility and in therapy etc. even then I’d be very cautious.
It’s easy to say know your worth, it just doesn’t pan out like that sadly until or unless you’ve been broken to nothing over it all. I agree the freedom programme, if anything to be forewarned is to be forearmed. I also agree on honing in on the self worth aspect.
He could be completely grim and that’s the end of it. I’m autistic and I do find it tiresome to read every obnoxious or distasteful behaviour as a ‘could he be autistic’ because whilst I can’t say I enjoy cleaning my teeth (sensory) I still do it because I’m an adult and I know it is essential to do,