Boyfriend criticised my appearance, and made mean comments about my looks.

I (20f) have been dating my boyfriend (20m) for a little over a year. This is my first relationship. We were online friends for around 2 years (due to covid) before he asked me out, and we’ve been together ever since.

Before I start, I just want to preface by saying that I am not the most confident person. I’m shy, but i’ve never really been insecure regarding my appearance, other than photos, which I hate being in. Now, he knew what I looked like because we spoke on snapchat every day, but on a more wide scale level, I rarely post on insta etc.

Now, we were basically best friends before we started dating. We spoke every day for 5/6/7/8 hours, and we always got on so well. He told me he had had a crush on me for basically the entire time we were friends. Personality wise, we were always super compatible. He makes me laugh, he is super caring and thoughtful, a really good guy in that sense.

But, one trait that’s causing a clash is his ”Brutal Honesty”. Since we’ve been dating, he has not shyed away from telling me what he doesn’t like about me and my appearance.

He has criticised my nail colours (neutral/dark red is what I go for), my clothes, my hair, my makeup, my tan (sometimes wear a light amount of self tanner – always natural looking), my shoes, my jewellery, basically everything. Not my physical features, just style choices.

He had followed an ex crush on instagram around the 6month mark, and was liking all her photos. She has shoulder length brown hair, whereas mine is longer, like waist length. For weeks, he kept telling me to cut my hair to her hairstyle, without explicitly mentioning her name. Just that it’s his favourite haircut, and my current hair is ugly and he doesn’t like it. My hair is a point of pride for me, and I get lots of compliments on it so this hurt me a lot. Eventually I told him to stop with the comments and he did, but he still follows her on insta which he knows bothers me.

He called me ugly a lot. As I said earlier, I don’t really like photos but he kept asking me, so I gave in and we took a few selfies. Immediately he told me I look really ugly in them, which hurt me. I made a joke about a strip club we were passing before and going in to dance, which he replied with ‘What is it with so many average girls wanting to become strippers’. He wouldn’t tell his university friends (who I have never met) that he was in a relationship until recently, which i’m not sure I believe, but I am on his instagram, so anyone following him can see that at least. He also told me that if we were on the same campus, he would ignore me and pretend he didn’t know me.

I guess what hurts me the most is when I get criticised, other girls get praised. I used to wear long nail extensions until he told me they were ugly and he didn’t like them, so I switched to shellac. However, recently he’s been pushing me to get long nails, saying they look so good and are so pretty etc. This happens with a lot of things I liked that he originally criticised, before changing his opinion. I feel so insecure, because I feel like there is someone who is making him change his mind.

Recently, i’ve been getting a lot of super super sweet compliments in my new job (retail), which I sometimes tell him about. Some lovely girls were calling me beautiful, I should consider modelling etc. When I told him about these because they had made my day, he told me I would never be a model and they didn’t mean it like that. Like i’m aware they were just being nice, but ouch. Any time someone says something nice to me, he puts me down. I mean, even early on in the relationship, he didn’t know my eye colour, and thought they were green, not blue.

Recently, I posted a selfie on instagram for the first time in over a year, which received a bit of attention. It got around 800 views, a few dms etc. I showed him all the messages obviously, and deleted them later that evening without replying. Later on that week, I noticed he had gone through my phone for the first time, and looked through my instagram, which he then lied about. This is the first time he has ever lied when I knew the truth, and I am really insecure and upset about it. However, he was super loving afterwards, kept telling me how much he love me etc so I let it go.

I’ve just been feeling so low recently. I brought up all of this to him maybe 3/4 months ago, and he cried because he hadn’t realised he was hurting me. To his credit, he has been so sweet recently and has done none of the things I mentioned above since, which I have forgiven him for. He regularly calls me beautiful, stunning, a goddess etc. But, I don’t know, I can’t forget the earlier comments either. I feel so insecure about myself, and I find that I am comparing myself to every girl I see.

I love him a lot, but i’m not sure if I will ever get over the hurt he made me feel, so I don’t know what to do. That’s why i’m posting here, i’d love to get an outsiders perspective on this, and maybe some advice on what to do.

**TLDR – Feeling insecure from criticism made by my boyfriend about my appearance and not sure how to move forward**