What is going on here

[Bunkbed80]

I have been with my BF for about 9m now. Both in our 40’s. I usually stay over at his for a few days a week and recently he gave me a spare key and I brought clothes round and he cleared me a space on his wardrobe.

Generally things have been going well, supposedly in love and everyone I meet around him tells me he seems a lot happier than he used to be, and he’s said he’s happy.

It’s become a regular thing that he wants to go out drinking locally, and when we do, we often get into some kind of disagreement. This is always about something I have said or done that’s apparently embarrassed him when he says I’m drunk.

A few times I’ve apologised for whatever it is I’ve allegedly done, and a few times he’s apologised for me for being unreasonable and we have let it go.

I’ve had a few acne spots lately and when I do, he will keep asking me why I have a spot and asking me if I’ve picked the spot and will keep pointing out the spot until it goes away. I’ve explained they are hormonal and they make me feel a bit self conscious. Last weekend I picked him up from the pub (I was sober) and I had a spot on my face. He kept pressing the spot and laughing. I asked him to stop and got visibly irritated and the next day he said I was beautiful even with spots and hadn’t mentioned it again.

We had a good day together yesterday after a bit of a shit week where we have both felt unwell. He wanted to go out to the pub so we popped out for a few drinks yesterday.

He likes to go to a bit of an old man type pub, the football was on and other old men at the bar so it’s not exactly fun all the time. A guy in the pub sitting behind us had a big dog with him - I love dogs - so I got chatting to him and ended up stroking the dog. The dog wanted to play fight, it was gentle and fun, so I crouched with the dog for 5 mins or so, play fighting, dog rolled over and I tickled their belly etc, and BF turned round from the bar and said ‘ok get up now’. I got up and went back to the bar and he snatched my vape out of my hand and said ‘you vape too much’.

At this point if felt irritated but didn’t want to cause a scene so I went a bit quiet and he said look let’s not fall out and gave me a hug and a kiss.

We walk home and get food and get a bit amorous iykwim, and then later he asks me why I got irritated earlier. I said look sometimes you can pick on me a bit and sometimes it hurts my feelings.

This suddenly escalated wildly. He told me that he was going to get the CCTV from the pub as basically everyone in the pub was tutting and staring at me when I was ‘basically shagging the dog on the floor’ and it was embarrassing which is why he asked me to get up. He then did an impression of me which I can only liken to someone with cerebral palsy, and when got upset about this he called me a ‘spastic’ and Harvey Price and told me to get out of his house and our relationship was over. I wasn’t able to drive at that point so I went to the spare room.

He came to bed and slammed his door so I went in to try to talk to him and make peace, this made it all worse he asked if I was ‘bipolar’ as I had ruined his lovely day and was always ruining things, said he wasn’t coming on our planned weekend away (to meet my family for the first time) and told me to get all my stuff out. He said he had asked for space and I hadn’t given it to him and we should talk about it tomorrow.

I packed my bags with all my stuff from his room while we kind of shouted at each other, me saying I didn’t understand why he was being so mean, and him saying he didn’t tolerate ‘this kind of thing’. I said I should be able to raise an issue without getting shouted down and he said he didn’t want an embarrassing girlfriend, I said he seems to care more about everyone else but me.

I went to the spare room and I am here alone now until morning when I will get ready for work and take my stuff and leave as I don’t think I have much other choice? I’ve had a few glasses of wine so can’t drive, but I don’t believe was particularly drunk. I’ve seen him absolutely paralytic before and it wasn’t a nice sight. I’m not sure even with drink this behaviour is forgivable, and I would make myself look desperate to try to talk this through with him tomorrow.

I feel so sad it’s come to this ☹️

I'm glad to see you smiling and not taking the piss but if he was from NI id be asking if his name began with R 🤣

No he screamed it at me loads of times last night to get out, we are done etc, I tried to repair things and he literally was incensed at my presence and said he couldn’t bear to be anywhere near me

This morning I just said I respected his decision and left as what else can I do.

Then he doubled down, hey yeah good we figured out now we aren’t compatible, thanks for giving me my confidence back, have a nice life

OP he sounds like a totally annoying pisshead. Having your every move critiqued would be an absolute nightmare. Have a little celebrate this evening because you have had a lucky escape. The rubbish has taken itself out

Oh and block his number!

He is pondering his next move. He expected you to put up a fight about things ending.

@WigglywagglyWanda no I’m not from NI, and it begins with a D!

I do not miss the anxiety he was giving me about if I was good enough or he was tired of me

I don’t miss the bad sex

I don’t miss the shit kissing

I don’t miss him getting para and farting all night long

I don’t miss him stinking of booze and snoring all night

I don’t miss him pointing out my spots

I don’t miss feeling on edge when we are out

I don’t miss the anxiety of lying next to him when he’s just scrolling on social media

I don’t miss the weird feeling I got that his hugs were no longer as genuine as they used to be

Girl, you’re worrying me. It’s like you’re taking blame. You’re not “needy”. None of his shit show is your fault. You’re a lovely, clever funny girl and he isn’t good enough for you and he knows it. I’ll bet you anything he’ll try and creep his way back in a couple of weeks. When it dawns on him that you’re the best thing that ever happened to him and he blew it. He’ll say “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking…” and try and give you a diamond ring or red roses or something else stupid. DO NOT TAKE HIM BACK. Get on here and restart this thread immediately. Now you go and have best life and treat yourself like the queen you are.

@SevenYellowHammers I think I did get weird and needy but he made me that way. I was on edge a lot. I worked so hard to not ask him for reassurance but I would try other ways to get his attention or try to interpret if he still loved me

A few people have already mentioned this, but are you aware how often and how much you are putting yourself down? I know you're saying it in a lighthearted way here but it's not annoying or needy to want the person you're seeing to show you some respect and treat you well.

Every time you put yourself down like this, you're kind of buying in to the idea that you are the problem. And you're not. He is. He's making you feel needy and annoying for wanting him to behave reasonably. You need to keep reminding yourself of that.

I often joke that the one thing my abusive ex and I had in common during the relationship was that we both believed everything was my fault.

You can only properly get away from men like this when you stop buying into that.

(Just to clarify, I'm in no way criticising you, I'm just pointing it out in case you can't see it.)

I'm glad you ended it OP, but I really hope you will consider therapy or counselling. You scrutinise your own behaviour so harshly while finding a thousand explanations for his. I think you need to work on building confidence and standing up for yourself. You deserve a million times better than this. Xx

Too much too soon OP. He is a horrible boyfriend and a good father would not have let this happen but you were a willing extra pair of hands to help with the kids so it suited him. It's not in children's interests to be going on holiday with daddy's new girlfriend of a few months, or have daddy's new girlfriend look after them when they are ill. Too soon!

Sounds like my ex who had borderline personality disorder. He once started a fight with me because I was brushing my teeth, quite normally, and told me I was "fucking disgusting" and he "didn't want to see that shit in his face" (me brushing my teeth, which he'd seen a million times before).
Weird gaslighty abusive nastiness mixed with extravagant declarations of love = run a fucking mile and don't look back

Feeling sad and disappointed now is better than being stuck in a relationship which is abusive. Go don't look back. He is gaslighting and eroding your confidence... Absolute text book abusive behaviour. Please do not go back.

Constantly slagging his ex off 🚩
Allowing you to be around his children, holiday with them, and look after them when they are sick within a matter of months 🚩
Criticising your looks 🚩
Not having you on social media 🚩
Not meeting his family or friends 🚩
Reluctant to make future plans of any depth 🚩
Heavy drinker 🚩
Sexually aggressive 🚩

Have I missed anything?

And sod all the "why would he want me back?" nonsense. Because you were so keen to please him and help with his children, cook for him and instigate sex even when he wasn't being very nice to you, do what he wanted all weekend even though you don't really want to be drinking or in an old man football pub, and bonus you went round his so he didn't even need to go to the effort of going round yours.

I think you may look back at this period and wonder where and how you lost yourself but you can pull it back.

You aren't compatible because he is horrible and you are not.

You aren't compatible because together he made you less rather than more.

I’ve told my first real life person that I’ve left him due to his alcohol issues. This is all I will say on it, needs no more details does it.

@Bunkbed80, you don’t need to choose your words here or to curate a story. Obviously you don’t have to give anyone any details if you don’t want to, but I would hope you’d feel able to tell your closest friend/s or family the truth, for your own sake.i mean, it’s not as though you should be worrying about hurting his feelings! He will have concocted his own face-saving narrative, but yours doesn’t need to match it.

You also won't miss:

being dragged along to boring nights in pubs

getting daggers for talking to anyone in said pub - even a dog!

being taken the piss out of in the gym

being made to feel self conscious about your body hair

nice things you do being brought into an argument somehow (the pie)

OMG your post just reminded me of a batshit row my ex started because he rang me whilst I was cleaning my teeth. He went crazy saying how disgusting I was to be cleaning my teeth and answer my phone at the same time. He was completely repulsed by me and would not speak to me for 2 days because I was so vile.

@trythisforsize he really struggled to find any fault with me, this is the issue! I don’t talk back, I’m not rude, I don’t sulk, I don’t create rows, I’m placid, I do lots of nice things, I am fun, I am liked by everyone so he was picking up on all he had, that he thinks I want attention from everyone else (his insecurities) and things about my looks which he thinks I’ve not heard before - but I’m female, so I obviously have been negged by other men plenty of times

Literally 2 weeks ago he said oh I heard of this phrase negging, I’ve never heard of this before, I wonder why some men do it, seems pointless, do I do this? I thought very hard about the right answer and said no.

HE HAS BEEN HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

Men like this absolutely hate women like us that they can't easily find fault with. That's why they invent all the ridiculous shit and make rows about crisp eating, teeth brushing and dog stroking.

Morons

I love that you thumbs upped his break up message too OP 😆 Laugh at that idiot, it’s what he deserves

Glad you saw the light but also want to know what job you do that allows you spend your whole day on MN?

Everything you have said about him and what he's said and done makes me know that there's no nice him that's ever going to return without the nasty negging alcohol-fuelled controlling man that's underneath.

Even worse, he's made you feel like there's something wrong with you!

It's very clear you are just fine, in fact, you sound great OP, attractive, sense of humour, popular, he's awful even if he was fit and attractive in the gym.

If he comes back, please remember the list of things you wrote, and the fact he put others down too, and then you, don't be with a man like that, you are so much nicer and better than this!

If you do decide to date again, can I recommend joining the Burned Haystacks Dating Method on FB or buying the book, this guy will have been waving red flags from the start, I guarantee it. The idea is to spot these types before you even start dating them, saving your time and energy for men who get better and better on knowing them, not worse and worse.

You're doing marvellously, OP. It's all a complete headfuck, but you clearly have your head screwed on and will make sense of it all over time (while also recognising that there is no real sense to be made of a man like this!).

AS @trythisforsize has pointed out, none of this is any reflection on you. If anything it shows how emotionally intelligent, caring, and kind you are. Those qualities can get you into trouble with an idiot, but will serve you well with the right person.