When did you realised that your partner was your biggest hater? And how did you dealt with it?

10 comments

1. Not when we were together, but I knew he was my biggest hater after the breakup. He got me fired with false accusations and now I work 2 minutes away from home with a better paying job. After that he tried to take my child away again with false accusations and failed. I don’t know what’s next, maybe there’s nothing left for him but I stay calm, he left the country and I know nothing about him

2. I had a boyfriend who was always kind of negative about things I was doing, but in subtle ways. If I got a job interview he’d be like, “well, you’re kind of unqualified for what they say they are looking for, but it’s good you got an interview.” Or, of if I was excited about a trip to somewhere he’d say “yeah, it’s an ok place, but such and such is so much better”. He was always kind of bringing me down a peg.

   I didn’t realize it fully until we were getting dinner with friends one evening and I talked about how excited I was to be picking up my new car, and my then boyfriend was like, “yeah, it’s nice, but it’s still used.” My one friend looked at him and was like, “you’re supposed to be excited for your girlfriend!”

   It hit me then like a TON of bricks! He was always being slightly negative about me about me and everything I did or was excited about. He was always undermining me and was never a cheerleader for me or like, positive about things in my life.

   So, yeah, we broke up soon after.

3. He played devil’s advocate to most things I said. A third of the time he did it because he thought seeing me mad was funny. Another third of it was just ignorance, the last third was just to “win”/ego boost. Most of the time he didn’t even make sense or there wasn’t a place to play devil’s advocate

4. When he told me I’m not allowed to tell his family about my academic success

5. I felt like this with my last boyfriend. At a certain point, everything about me seemed to annoy him. It felt like he had contempt/disgust about elements of my personality or things I did. It was really hard for me to deal with.

   With my boyfriend now I _never_ feel this way. If he pokes fun at a quirk I have it feels lighthearted and in jest – with my ex it felt like this annoyance with me.

6. Not fully until after I left, but when I reflected I saw that he’d made somewhat subtle negative comments about me the entire time. When there was something positive he couldn’t attack (a promotion or something similar), he would downplay it and make it seem like it was less impressive or exciting. I got a new job after leaving him and he consistently referred to me as an intern (I wasn’t), but by then I knew what he was doing and didn’t give a fuck anymore.

7. If I ever realized that, we wouldn’t be together. Your spouse is your biggest supporter. If that isn’t how it is what are you even doing???

8. Anytime I did something I was proud of or excited about his reaction was always flat like he couldn’t care less. I would tell the same things to my friends and I could feel their genuine excitement for me. In another scenario, I would come back from a trip and he would never ask me how it was. Or while I was away on said trip something dramatic would always happen to him and he needed my full attention or else I was being selfish and uncaring.

   I guess I knew for years he was a hater but I felt responsible for him and didn’t want to let him down. I finally said fuck that and moved on.

9. He pointed out every mistake like it was the biggest issue in the world. It’s been 2.5 years since things finally ended and I still hear his voice when something goes wrong. If I was driving and was passing someone but in another cars blind spot for 1 second, he’d call it out. On the way home from every event he’d go into detail about what I did wrong.

   It was exhausting

10. The empowered wife podcast helped me to understand what I was doing that was pissing him off. It showed me that things I was doing to be helpful, he saw as disrespectful and it taught me how to express my desires in a way that inspires him to be my hero and after a couple weeks, the love and intimacy came back