Tl;dr Great boyfriend but horrible person. I want to start this off by saying my boyfriend treats me well and checks off a lot of qualities that I want in a partner, but : my boyfriend’s personality is what Many people describe ( including myself ) as toxic or spoilt or simply.. lack of social skills and understanding. (Almost 1 year dating ● 4 months living together) listed below are examples of his shit personality. I want to talk to him and express how I feel without it sounding like I’m threatening him to change by breaking up.
Examples:
(A)My boyfriend’s is the kind of guy who will rant to cashiers about the prices of paper bags. Say he shouldn’t pay for it.
(B)He will try to call out sales associates for up selling and explain how he knows why what they are offering is b*llsh*t.
(C) will put our cats in an unlit oven because they are stubborn and thinks it’s “funny”.
(D) not engage in conversation when meeting my friends and family. (E.g if they ask him what he does for work – He responds with his position and just that. No extention to the conversation.)
(F) He will blame everyone in our team ( online gaming) for our defeat/ loss, instead of saying ‘gg’ ( good game) in chat or the voice channel) sometimes even being vulgar and intentionally degrade their skills.
(E) Be the first one to get out of his vehicle when their is a disagreement ( road rage) between him and another vehicle.
(G) if he is upset at a restaurant , he will make it obvious with our servers and be cold and sometimes rude to them. Claims he shouldn’t filter because he is paying for their service.
Due to all these events, which reoccur often, I have began to find him very unattractive. Do I still love him? Yes. Absolutely. I have flaws too. But I see how he carries himself around people and strangers and he reminds me alot of ‘entitled or privileged’ people that I meet when I worked in retail.
My boyfriend has been very fortunate to not have ever needed to work by choice to make a living or attend school. He has parents who have paid and would pay for anything if he got into trouble ( which he has- fault in car accident) I sometimes use this fact to excuse the lack of empathy he has for strangers and retail workers and even my poor cats. Because he hasn’t directly been mistreated by anyone and had the need to ” suck up to them ” because of a job or position.
My goal is to talk to him soon and explain that I’d like to see improvement in the way he sees and treats people. Tone it down a bit. I can’t help my dislike for his behavior but I can atheist try to tolerate it if he agrees to try and tone it down. Because of his behavior, I can now not see myself raising kids him( we agreed around 30 years of age )
Advice?
That said I want to express how I feel about him without coming across as this is a “threat’. If he can not, I will leave. Our morals are definitely different and unfortunately to me that’s a deal breaker. I can adjust but I can ot change. So I don’t expect change from him either just improvement. I’d be satisfied if he could at least not be that way when I’m around. How can I word this talk to him? What can I add or emphasize on? I don’t want it to sound like a threat but just to express how I feel and try to work towards being happy.
( I have mentioned a few times how I dislike how he treats people, but this will be a sit down kind of talk. A deep and meaningful kind of talk. )
Help.
27 comments
Advice: stop trying to convince yourself that your shit sandwich of a boyfriend is actually Nutella. Just because he’s not a shitass to you doesn’t mean you’re special.
I’m very curious how he reacts when you do something he doesn’t like.
>will put our cats in an unlit oven because they are stubborn and thinks it’s “funny”.
How the hell can you sit there and say that this guy is a good boyfriend when he’s torturing your pets like this? You should have left the first time he abused them.
So he does not treat you that bad way?
You can absolutely bring it up to him, but trying to change him is not it. If you were going to bring it up to him, you should ask it as a favor to you. “Hey, it makes me really uncomfortable when you treat the waiter like that, can you not do it when I’m with you.”
Don’t make it about how he acts when you’re not around or about his character in general, because that’s not really what this is about. You want him to change his behavior around you because it makes you uncomfortable, and it should be framed as such.
And if you simply hate his character as a person, then why are you dating him? I wouldn’t even try to change his whole essence as a person and just break up. “I don’t like the kind of person you are and how you act with others” conversation just never goes well and certainly will not have the desired effect.
Bad personality is talking obnoxiously loudly about his crypto investments. What you are describing is abusive behavior, both towards people and animals. That he is not abusive towards you yet does not mean it’s not coming later on.
Before you have the talk, make sure you really process what his behavior is. It’s not bad manners. It’s not bad upbringing. It’s being abusive. And if you are going to have any hope of actually changing him, you need to get him to see that.
This is hard because he’s not treating you in these ways, so to bring it up would essentially be telling him you want to change his personality. His actions are concerning and I’m wondering if he has some kind of personality disorder, but I’m not a doctor. And it’s also bizarre he doesn’t treat you in these ways. He may change after you two get married.
Anyway, use the I feel sentences.
“I feel scared when you stick the cats in the oven as a joke. They don’t like it, so please don’t do that anymore.”
“I feel unimportant when you reply to my family and friends with one word sentences. I would like to see you asking them questions and engaging with them more.”
The fact that you stay with somebody who acts like this reflects terribly on you as a person, and you can be sure that people will see you much the same way they see him over time (and probably are already starting to). There is no fixing this. Talking is not going to change anything much, because he has no respect for people. The only option is to leave.
He puts your cats in a fuckin oven? Get out now and take them with you. Jesus.
You’ll never convince him that his parents money doesn’t buy him the right to abuse people.
He targets people at work specifically because he knows they can’t do anything back to him. He targets animals because he’s bigger and stronger.
Don’t kid yourself – when he thinks you’re trapped, he’s going to believe he has the right to treat you terribly too.
You can’t fix an abuser who enjoys it.
Your bf is an abusive jackass to animals and customer service workers. Stop making excuses for him, this is him, he is not going to change. You should instead focus on why you want to be with someone who is this much of an AH.
He may have a terrible personality and be a loser who has never held down a job, but you clearly have poor self-esteem and lack of boundaries. What the hell is there to talk about? There is nothing you can say to unspoil the sour milk that is his wretched personality. It’s not even fit to make cheese with.
It’s a shame that you feel this is the best you can get and the most you deserve.
Look, one day you’re going to be the cat or the cashier, and he’s going to treat you like shit. There’s a reason why it’s generic AF dating advice to see how your date treats the server.
This is precursor to abusive behavior. He’s on his best behavior with you, but as soon as he has you locked down in a marriage or pregnancy the poor treatment of you will start.
Wait in what way is he a “great boyfriend”? Everything you are listing sounds irredeemably bad and I am seriously questioning why you could possibly want to be with somebody like that.
Literally begging people not to date people who they don’t like.
Cannot believe I still have to say this so often, in this, the year of our Lord 2023.
If you don’t want to leave, then do your cats a favor and find them a home where they can be safe. The day one of them gets sick and vomits on his shoes, he very well could light the oven. As much as you want to believe he would never do that, are you sure enough that you trust him with their lives?
You really should get out yourself, but if you don’t listen to all the other advice here, do what’s right for the cats that can’t protect themselves. Because even if he doesn’t light the oven, he’s going to hurt them somehow eventually. Not a matter of if, only when.
He abuses animals. Get the cats away from this trash pile. Why are you with him?
OP, your bf fits the profile of “narcissism.” YouTube has lots of channels devoted to helping people identify (and get away from) these monsters. In all likelihood, it’s just a matter of time before he turns his wrath onto you.
Man, if anyone put my cats in an oven, they’d be out, period.
This guy is abusive to service workers and *your* pets. Terrorizing your pets is not funny. These are things people who get abused/have their kids be abused look back on as what should’ve been warning signs.
If this is his personality and it’s a dealbreaker, then just let it be a dealbreaker and find literally anyone else.
Why are you with that horrible animal abuser?? You
He’s abusive to other people, jokes about killing pets, is rude to your family. And you say he’s a great bf? He sounds like a monster, seriously. You’re not a target…yet. But the fact that you’ve stayed with him after witnessing all of this is sad. He’ll turn on you eventually. Probably after he’s trapped you with marriage, kids, financial control, and isolating you from your family.
The thing that stands out to me is that you’ve stayed with him after he threatened your cats. Please rehome them before he kills them. You have the option to save yourself; they don’t.
Are you 100% sure that he never says or does shitty things to you? Are there any times it happened but you think you “deserved” it? What makes you think a sit down talk with him will magically help his deeply engrained sense of entitlement? Even if he’s great to you that can easily change at any point if you do something he doesn’t like. And in the meantime, you’re just degrading yourself and your own integrity. Let me guess, all his money is great for your lifestyle so you look the other way. If you’re okay with being just as bad as him, go ahead and continue.
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Is this a shitpost?
“Hey reddit, my boyfriend behaves like one of the bad guys in Criminal Minds. He is inclined to violence, he mistreats people all the time, he abuse my animals, he is vulgar, rude and a classist. But I love him so much. Why do you you think he has plastic bags, tape and ropes in his basement?”
This honestly sounds similar to my ex. He wasn’t like this when we first started dating but years into it he started being like this and I used to wonder if he’s like this now in his 20s what is he going to be like in 10 or 20 years?! He wasn’t as extreme as the examples you gave but slowly over time I just became more and more unattracted to him and then realized these are not things that could be fixed or changed because they’re character traits. I definitely agree with everyone else that you need to break up with him, but I know it’s not as simple as that. You need to really think whether it’s worse to deal with this for the rest of your life or to go through a break up
You already know what you should do but you want redditors to ralk you out of leaving. We are not going to do that.
RUN or find your cats loving homes.
You are also a horrible person if you allow him to mistreat your cats and continue to stay with him knowing that he will do it again
What in the hell did I just read.
Your bf is displaying narcissistic behavior. You’re too young to put up with it. Time to leave him. Best of love to you and your beautiful future.