Son insecure due to his facial disfigurement

[CheekyHiker]

my son who is 25 was born with a facial disfigurment and although he did have surgery to correct it when he was young but it left surgery scars, when he was in primary school he did get picked on unfortinaly although as he got older it stopped but when he reached puberty I remember him saying to me that he will never attract any girls because of the way he looks. He never had any GF's but he told me that he has no choice but to be "scary" because of his facial disfigurment and he heard that if your an ugly guy then just be scary because women are attracted to it. He got into martial arts and the gym during puberty, he also got into fights and got arrested a few times. He swears on the bible that he has never once started a fight or been a bully because he knows what its like to be bullied but then says that people start on him because he has a "reputation", he also won a Mixed martial arts tournament when he was 17 but doesnt fight competitive now but still trains. He is very fit and athletic, runs 5 miles a day and he is always training. He is also very career driven and recently got a mortgage on his own, he reads lots of books on philisophy and law. However, he has told me about his dating struggles and he even said that he is still a virgin who has never kissed or hugged a woman. He has given up on dating apps and is worried that he will never have kids, his younger brother has had GF's and all his work collegues have kids/partners. Although he has a facial disfigurment but he is tall, very athletic, he does have a good sense of fashion, no bad habbits, a mortgage and I told him that its not all about the looks. He also says many women wouldnt want kids with me because they'd think that our kids would come out with the same facial disfigurment (its not hereditary by the way). He also told me that back in school he heard a group of girls say "Ew not him" and another said "he's rotten" when they were talking about boys that they fancied. He said that it hurt him more than any punch or boot to the head he has got, he also got stabbed one time on the back shoulder after a gang jumped him but said that it felt worse what those group of girls said. I've tried getting him help and to talk to people but said that it never worked because his surgery scars are still there

He went to prison? Ewwwwwwww.

Hopefully, no woman will ever be foolish enough to date him, much less have a child with him.

I can confirm I definitely would not be interested in this man 😂

I agree with all of this. He needs therapy. No one is randomly picking fights with him unless he is going to really dodgy places and even then I doubt it. He's starting fights.

He needs to work on his self esteem and stop being a violent twat.

@Whatacoincidence I do feel sorry for him because of the bullying he faced but over the past three years he's not got into any trouble or even been on a night out since. He told me that he would go out with a woman with a facial disfigurement or a disability, he aint looking for a model and says that he finds lots of women attractive when he is out but says that dating apps dont work at all for him. The only matches he gets are usually from sex workers looking for clients or fake accounts

None of this will be fixed by a girlfriend. He's got to do the work himself. It's awful he was bullied but his growth into someone beyond the pain is his own responsibility. It's a road many of us have travelled and it's hard and lonely but finding a self the other side where the pain is integrated is vital. Build a healthy relationship with yourself before looking outside. It's not a woman's role to heal a broken man.

How is he coking across when he does meet women if he thinks women want scary guys? We don't BTW. I wouldn't date your son purely because of what comes across of his attitude.

So he’s also got a prison record? Which you failed to mention till now?

This is silly, OP. There are loads of excellent reasons why he’s single. We can’t know what role his facial difference alone would make, because it’s a facial difference on an angry, insecure man who keeps getting into fights, has a reputation for violence, and a prison record.

For what it’s worth, I was at university with a woman with a very significant facial difference — a very large, brown raised, ridged birthmark (CSM) that covered one entire cheek and obviously couldn’t be camouflaged by makeup. It can’t have been easy to live with, and she will have had unpleasant comments, but she did just live her life, and last I heard she was married with three children and a job in publishing. My point is that, however difficult, people with visible differences need to learn to manage their own responses to them,

@PJ98 I think he was stupid and could of got himself killed but the mother of the lad he saved actually thanked him, I also think that the police wouldnt of got there in time if he didnt step in

He sound like he’s doing well with his fitness and career. How bad is his disfigurement now? I hope he meets someone who she’s past it, he’s still young

It’s an adequate reason for what was stated in the thread to which you were actually replying, not the straw man thread you’re trying to reply to now.

Feel free to explain this in less weirdly elliptical language.

@SlightlyAjar he says that he would happily date a woman with a facial disfigurement or disability, he says that its harder for men with facial disfigurements because women care more about a mans face than body and he heard that women find most men ugly.

He also said that considering he doesnt have any dating or experience with women at his age, this will only make women not want him even more. His father told him years ago that he's not owed any love, sex or a relationship and that he should just give up because he will never have kids. He said some men are just destined to die alone with no family and that he should just accept it

Tell your son to google Jono Lancaster, an amazing man with a genetic disability which affects him facially as well as in other less obvious ways. The BBC did a documentary about him a few years back.

He was married btw, and his wife is stunningly beautiful and also very smart, she married him for his kindness, his personality and for love, not for his looks. Something your son needs to ponder.

Have you actually challenged any of his thinking?

He might have no control over his appearance but he has plenty of choice in the person he is and they way in engages with the world. Have you told him this?

From everything you have said about your own son, I would not want my daughter to date him for many reasons but his facial disfigurement wouldn't even make the list. Have you told him this is the reality?

What does his dad say about it?

It's far more likely that his natural inclination to choose violence and harshness is putting people off. His work is all external and none on his insides. Growth is very attractive but it starts with I'm. I don't know why you think he's some poor misunderstood soul. Many men are violent and have had trauma in their pasts. The good ones work on that rather than think that a girlfriend is some magical healing force. He's told women who he is and they've said no thank you. It's far more likely that the violence that is just below the surface puts them off rather than the scars they can see.

Look, OP, he badly needs specialist therapy. It’s obvious why his self-esteem is so poor, but it’s no one else’s job to fix it, and no sensible woman is going to enter a relationship, or even go on a second date, with a man who is not managing his own MH, and who is a raging mass of insecurity, self-loathing and anger. Because that’s deeply unattractive in whatever package. His father said a foul thing about him giving up and dying alone, obviously, but he’s not in fact wrong about no one ‘owing’ your son sex or a relationship or children. He will have to go out and get those things if he wants them, and the first step should be engaging seriously with therapy and learning to love himself.

(I think it’s probably much harder for women with an obvious facial difference because of ongoing gendered double-standards in relation to physical appearance. But that’s not relevant to your son.)

https://www.changingfaces.org.uk/services-support/counselling-support/

He needs some therapy doesn't he, his way of thinking isn't healthy.

Healthy well balanced adult women don't want a "hard, scary man" they want someone safe and reliable.

He sounds like he's created his own worst nightmare tbh, he's convinced himself he's unloveable/unwanted and now does things that "prove" that to him. Sounds like he's stuck in an awful loop.

@GingerBeverage me and his dad split up years ago but I felt like he also bullied him. He was hard on him and told him things like to accept being alone and that he will never get married unless he has lots of money to attract a woman. He said to him "your an ugly c*t but at least be a hard ugly c*t with money and people will respect you"

I remember having an agurment with his father and he said "well it will give him motivation and will fire him up" and that he was giving him tough love.

I’d say the reason he hasn’t had any interest in women is due to his self esteem and confidence. A woman won’t know about his history with fighting. He needs to find a way to accept his facial disfigurement, because if he can’t then how can he expect anyone else to?

My DD is a similar age and would be rightly put off by dating your son because he has been to prison. That is the reason he is not dating - its not about how he looks. I would do everything in my power to dissuade any of my DC from starting a relationship with someone who is scary, has a violent reputation or gets in fights, let alone has actually been to prison. Ive taught my DC to keep away from trouble, not look for it.

I think the biggest issue is that very few women are going to be attracted to him because of his personality and life choices rather than how he looks.

I dont know what the answer is for him but he needs to figure out how he can change his reputation - is moving away somewhere afresh possible?

She’s going to know if she suggests they have a date at a pub or go to a nightclub and he says he can’t because he has a reputation, which means people try to provoke him into fights!

This could be the root of it OP. He does need therapy, because this sort of thing really scars kids (who turn into scarred adults).

Again - please don't use the term disfigurement. Regardless of what he's done, he is a human. As am I. I really, really don't like the term disfigurement because it gives off connotations that people with differences are somehow less than others.

I'm going to bow out of this thread now but I do hope your son gets the help he needs to feel better soon.

@TheEasterBunny3 he did move out and got a mortgage about a year ago, he still trains but he never goes out to clubs because he doesnt want to get into any more fights. He says that he doesnt want to end up going to prison again and losing his mortgage and job, he thinks that the only way a woman will want him now is money and I think that is what he is focusing on