TL;DR: My bf is not great with first impressions, and his lack of trying stresses me out. How can I communicate with him about it in a way that he will hear me?
Kind of a tough one to crack. First of all, I want to say that I am perfectly aware that I cannot make my bf hear me. He has to want to, but I love this man of mine and for the most part we are communicative and loving in every way. However, I have a couple of concerns that I’ve never known how to properly address.
Sometimes when we are out he will be really loud in public to embarrass me. We are usually all fun and games. Sometimes I laugh and brush it off, but other times I am not in the mood and the attention makes me incredibly anxious. I have made a couple of comments about it and it’s been met with “oh it’s fine/you’re fine.” I find it to be incredibly disrespectful that he doesn’t hear my point of view. He thinks I’m just razzing on him if you get my point.
Another lil something I noticed is that he isn’t exactly one for first impressions. My parents raised me with the strict belief that first impressions are everything and as children our behavior was reflected onto them. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my parents were right. My bf can make a good first impression when he is in the space to do so, but otherwise he can be very closed off and will make vulgar comments (ex. he will start swearing, say out of pocket things like “fuck this” “fuck that”). Other times he won’t try very hard at all. This stresses me out more than anything else. I know who he is on the inside so when I witness this type of behavior I am always bewildered. I feel as though I’m responsible for him. I’m not, but I did choose him out of everyone else so I am somewhat responsible, right?
He does tend to experience social anxiety which I can empathize with. I’m happy to take my time and make the effort to stay loving when we communicate, but I just do not know how to express my concern, particularly with these two things.
Any advice?
6 comments
You can’t change him. Take him as he is or leave him for someone who respects you.
For the first issue, how do you make your boyfriend not deliberately do things to make you suffer? You dump him. There is no possible good reason he is deliberately making you suffer, and his response when you tell him you are uncomfortable is the response of an abuser.
For the second issue, you just don’t really like him. You need to be able to accept a person as they are to be in a relationship with someone. If you regularly disapprove of someone’s behavior or find them embarrassing, then they are the wrong person for you. Chalk that up to incompatibility, dump him, and move on.
You don’t talk to people about your feelings expecting them to change, you talk to them about your feelings and then *see what they do about it.* You make your judgment of them based on their response.
That said, sometimes people aren’t as good of a communicator as they think they are, and they expect the other person to *just get it* without making it clear what a big deal it is to them.
So, my advice there would be to, if you haven’t already, pick a time when you’re both in a neutral headspace, outside of reacting about any specific incident, and talk about how you feel when he behaves this way. Keep the focus on your own feelings and don’t accuse him of doing anything specific (like trying to make you uncomfortable). The goal is to not say anything that he could potentially argue with and turn the conversation sour.
He certainly does not have to change his behavior for you, but how he reacts in this conversation and moving forward will be telling.
Compromise – discuss ways to accomplish both of your goals.
So dude does stuff sometimes you really don’t like, on purpose to embarass you, and that’s OK with you/ you are wondering how to fix this rather than focusing on the fact that he is disrespecting you. Also, yes ,1st impressions are important and I’d be mortified by a partner who made vulgar comments in front of new people. You aren’t responsible for this, you are only resonsbile for leaving someone who does this, or walking away from the behavior when it happens.
It sounds like your boyfriend is a bit socially graceless. Both of your examples sound like someone who is uncomfortable in public and using a lot of blustery behavior to cover it up.
I might try to get to the root of why this behavior is happening. Suddenly starting to rant and swear when meeting a new person is strange and suggests a level of anxiety and defensiveness rather than someone just being an asshole, especially if he sometimes can just be a normal person. Does he recognize that he’s being awkward and rude and if so, can he articulate what he’s feeling that causes him to behave this way? If so, you might be able to make some headway. If he doesn’t even think there’s anything wrong with his behavior, that would be a lot more difficult.
I would start by sitting down with him and using non-judgmental language, particularly “I feel” statements. You can tell him, “I feel really hurt when I tell you that something is making me anxious or uncomfortable and you dismiss my feelings.” Hopefully if you express that in a calm moment he will listen, and if he won’t even do that, then unfortunately you’re unlikely to get him to do any of the trickier work of rectifying more specific situations.