Do LTRs lower self esteem?

[JuliaPargetter]

I've been speaking to so many friends lately about how rubbish their men make them feel about themselves. It seems that everything is great at the start; new horizons, being spoken to well, being spoken of highly, and then after a year or two monotony sets in & the guy (in these instances) starts taking for granted or belittling the partner.

How do you get around that? I'm intrigued as this has happened to me a few times, too, in the past, and worries me about long term relationships.

One friend said that the solution is to date someone new every 6-8 months, but I don't think that's realistic somehow!

Simple. find better partners. Screen effectively be choosy.

Most of my friends nor me have these issues in LTR's

Watch out for red flags at the beginning of the relationship.

Do they have a crazy ex? Do they have fixed ideas about gender? How do they talk about women? Do they pull their weight or expect you to do all the heavy lifting? Are they considerate and respectful? Do they listen and take on board what you're saying? Are they mean with money or time? Whose needs do they put first the majority of the time?

It sounds like your friends are in emotionally abusive relationships.

Don't get in LTRs with men who behave this way.
Stay single if necessary until you find someone decent. Or be single fullstops. It's fine.
Don't move in with someone until you know they're kind and loving.
Have self respect and like yourself and set the bar higher.

Boundaries are a woman's friend.

Far too often the boiled frog analogy applies to poor behaviour and before you know it you are being treated poorly.

The trick is the first time you are spoken to rudely or treated poorly is to see it for the red flag it is.

Challenge poor behaviour immediately and from then on be alert to it.
If you recognise that it is who they probably are, dump.

Say No to something early in a relationship.
Get sick early in a relationship.
Be unavailable early in a relationship.
See your friends and go clubbing with them regularly.
Watch how the treat service providers.
Watch carefully are they generous an willing to pay their share.
Look at the condition of how and where they live.

All these things challenge a partner and give you insights into who they really are.

Be slert. It really helps weed out the losers early on.
Take poor behaviour seriously.

Date better men. Ditch the ones that aren't great much earlier in the process.

It’s a really interesting question.

If I look to the relationships around me am not going to be able to compare the women and men in them to how they were before, except by a very subjective yardstick of my own.

So my next avenue of thought would be those surveys / research studies around relationships, which I’ve often seen cited in books and the press, that conclude that women are happier single on the whole than in relationships, whereas men are happier in committed relationships. (I am not an expert - if you have other data, share away).

eg.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/may/25/women-happier-without-children-or-a-spouse-happiness-expert

I’d then want to know whether fact this just goes for heterosexual / heteronormative relationships or for all of them.

Assuming we are just talking about hetero relationships, I would also wonder why women are this way and men are not. Are men - through an unequal shared mental load, through status or through other cultural patterns in our own society - the problem here? (This is where non-heterosexual and non-U.K. / non-western / Scando research would be of interest, too). Is it heteronormative parenting? Something else? Breakdown of community meaning women take on more? More male bad apples than female (as some of the posters above seem to suggest? Sex hormone linked patterns after couples settle down and have kids?

I think there might be something to it!

It's not exactly groundbreaking to say that having unkind people in your life, especially in close relationships, can certainly take a toll on your self-esteem. But if you have a good partner and a healthy relationship it has the opposite effect. At least that's been my experience for 20+ years and I think most of my close friends and family members would say the same.

Thank you for very informative responses. I'm interested that many of you think these are highly toxic men. I wouldn't have said that the level of belittling or taking for granted was at particularly high levels.

That leads me to a next question - what level of expectation of "good behaviour" is reasonable?

Some of you mentioned showing the man the door on first presentation of belittling behaviour, but what if it's very subtle, or happens after, say, 2/3 years. Do you abandon ship then?

And what if the belittling/taking for granted is on the perceptions of the partner? Some of you talked about yardsticks and how to measure, and points of reference. I am interested in this, particularly in terms of cross-cultural differences.

What would make you say that they weren't? You sound as if you think there's an 'acceptable' level of belittling or taking for granted?

My DD33 is in a newish relationship. All well for 5 months then he snapped at her and shouted whilst DGD was in the house. DD has made it very clear that she doesn't get spoken to like that ever again, a disagreement can be discussed, if it does happen again that is definitely it. And so boundaries all the way.

No that’s not my experience; dating certainly lowered my self esteem but my husband has increased my self esteem.
I would say that it doesn’t come in after 2 years; I think after 3-6 months it can start and then you know to get out. You also need a man who is confident in himself and doesn’t try to make him feel better by putting you down; that’s what I see most of all

That leads me to a next question - what level of expectation of "good behaviour" is reasonable?

It's reasonable to expect to be treated with consideration and respect. For compromises to be made when there's a conflict and for both your needs to be treated with equal importance.

Well you just don't put up with it.

If it continues you break up.

Always have an exit plan, money in the bank, somewhere to go. If a partner knows you have the ability to walk out the door whenever you like they have to not turn into a prick for you to stay.

They start expecting the dinner made, or their clothes washed, or for you to book everything, buy groceries, send cards to their mum on mother's day, remind them to send a card to their mum on mother's day. Call you fat or that you don't look nice in that outfit or you wear too much or too little make up or they don't want you going out with Susan or to the gym or that they wanted to spend time with you this weekend so expect you to cancel their plans, or they want children but also want you to pay 50% of all housing and bills AND do all the childcare, nursey, school pick ups, they would expect you to cover any children's sick days or holidays.

It can be a drip feed but you can just say no and keep swallowing birth control until you are absolutely sure.

It's really not difficult.

Yes, that sounds pretty uncontroversial.
What's alarming in the OP is her apparent expectation that it's normal for a 'certain level' of belittling and taking for granted to happen in a relationship after a year or two.

Yes, it's a concern. Unfortunately if you've had a spate of bad relationships, it can come across as normal to be treated badly. It creates a cycle because your self esteem is low.

Taking each other for granted is quite common in many LTR. Something you can discuss together and both work on.

Belittling is never ok. My husband (been together 25 years) has never once belittled me.

Leave a man who belittles you once. It shows cruelty and meanness.

I feel really sad for you and your friends if this is something you are coming across often in relationships ☹️

My advice would be to set your bar high. If a boyfriend starts displaying upsetting behaviour then discuss it calmly straight away. If they are unable to hold a calm and caring conversation about something that is upsetting you, then they are not a suitable life partner.

My husband makes me feel amazing - he compliments me often and he looks at me with such love in his eyes. I wish the same for you.

A long term relationship only lowers your self esteem if you're in a bloody bad one.

It's the choice of partner that's the problem here, not how long someone's been stuck with the shit.

Decent relationships don't sap your self-esteem. The difficulty of course is when a relationship does it of course gets harder to leave. Been with DH over 20 years and he has not made me feel worse about myself over time, quite the opposite, which is how it should work. This doesn't make it a perfect relationship and we have our ups and downs, but making one another feel crap about themselves has never been part of it and never should be.

As @Hollietree , being taken for granted is a thing that can happen over time, but also a thing that can be worked on, and also, I think, a thing that happens unintentionally. I think making the other person feel bad has to be a deliberate action, when you want to 'punish' them