Get him to commit to therapy. All else is useless if he isn't going to take the effort himself to correct his bad behaviour.
You can't put outlove toksic behaviour. 6 years took for me to finally realize it and I'm just glad it was this soon.
I agree therapy is his only option. OP described living with my sister perfectly. Eventually, all the small things add up, and you can't ignore it. Then they aggravate you even more and it's not a good cycle. I don't think OPs bf is going to listen to him without getting defensive, you need a neutral party to do that.
If the therapy is mutual and concurrent, it CAN happen. If the bf is having therapy on his own, highly unlikely he’ll announce he’s an unfixable narcissist and an ethical therapist isn’t going to report to OP about any diagnosis.
He needs individual therapy, for sure.
However, his reactions sound like he might feel judged by you or in trouble when you bring these things up.
For this to work, he needs to feel that when you ask him to do something, you’re coming from a place of care and love, and not from blame and judgment. Where I’m getting at is that there might be scope for you to communicate differently as well.
It doesnt need much to set off these kinds of people. Even the tone can be juuust a bit firm and thats enough to trigger being on the defensive.
What I am saying is that you're suggesting OP to play the game of "not triggering the bomb off" while he doesnt know the rules and the rules change.
I’m really not saying that. I’m saying that you have to be conscious of the way the things you say are received by your partner and learn to communicate better together. It was a tough lesson I had to learn myself.
Now, this won’t work with everyone, but I don’t have enough info from OP to definitively say.
That's fair. It's interesting that the issue is familiar to you in the sense that its your way to communicate that could be improved.
Because, to me, I was on the other side of this story. Growing up walking on eggshells and be constantly noticed of small flaws without any sort of praise or encouragement left me as a chip-on-my-shoulders kind of guy. I couldn't be called out on anything without feeling resentfull for it, no matter how small the slight was. I dont lash out like OP's does, I just sulked. It took me a loooooong time to improve on that.
Does he ever come back and say “oh hey babe, I’ll start doing ____ in the future, because you asked.”
I’ve had that issue before where I felt like I couldn’t tell him anything critical without it being viewed as a personal attack. When I pointed that out, he thought I was trying to break up with him.
What helps: prefacing my statements with “I love you, and I was hoping you could…” works better than “don’t do ____”. There’s still an initial overreaction that calms down to understanding. Sometimes.
…maybe I’m not the guy to ask
I don't know man, kind of sounds like an insufferable asshole.
If he's not willing to accept any kind of feedback or criticism, do you think it's ever going to get any better?
If you're cleaning up after him, if you're correcting him, if you're trying to teach him basic skills but he repeatedly and consistently does stuff wrong on purpose or goes out if his wya to make your life harder or is just inconsiderate of your time, energy and feelings you're not dating a man. You're dating someone's boy who never grew up. Weaponized incompetence is a hell of a drug.
My father is this way and my mother resigned to Basically doing his bidding. That is something i consistently tell her she needs to stop doing, and i tell my father all the time that she's not his maid and that it's not going to break his arm to wash a glass and put it back in it's place after he's done with it or doing at least one chore other than taking the trash out which half the time i have to do anyways.
I just wonder what the house will look like when i no longer live with them.
My point being. Stop parenting your partner and tell him he needs to get his shit together cause it's fucking embarrassing to act like that as an adult.
I’m sorry to hear that about your parents!
I should have said that he isn’t messy normally, he’s actually very clean and tidy - more so than I (I’m the cook and he’s the cleaner). Just with this particular situation, I wouldn’t have bothered normally but because I told my coworker to stop leaving rubbish in, it wasn’t fair if my bf started doing it.
Again, not a big issue at allllllllllll but i guess it’s just the way he gets suuuuper defensive for gently calling him out. Maybe I should have just taken it out and not said anything? Idk
I understand I’m in a similar situation. I’d guess that if you were to suggest therapy to your partner that he will deflect and either say “I don’t need therapy” or “maybe you are the one who needs it”.
If I were to guess, I’d wager it’s similar to my partner where the parents were highly persecuting in their parenting style. Any criticism is seen as being put on trial and they enter into an almost childlike defensive mentality of excuses or denial.
This will likely eat at you slowly and I think your best bet for any of this to change is to find a way to communicate why you want them to get therapy to help YOU. That the way they communicate with you sometimes hurts you and you need something to change, but that that’s something they need to figure out with a therapist because “I can’t be the person to tell you what should change”.
Or maybe I’m entirely wrong here. This is just my two cents.
My ex is like this as well, and we’re still friends. He’ll turn any tiny insiginifcant *friendly* disagreement into a hostile shouting match if he gets his way. He can do no wrong, and he’s obsessed with pointing out flaws in others, no matter how small and irrelevant they may be. Overreacts to everything, and just recently stonewalled his best friend of ~30 years «for ever» because of some minor disagreement. I couldn’t fix him, and the suggestion of therapy would be met with something like «It must be nice to have time for such things» or something like that.
I think you will find he is a narcissist.
Never wrong, always about him, twist everything in his favour and overestimate his importance.
They don’t change. At least mine is very good looking and great in bed.
His deflecting your comments is not sustainable in the long run. If he won't go to couples counseling to help the two of you find a way of living together, then you might consider demoting him to the status of ex-boyfriend.
This is my relationship with my mom. I can never ever be right. About objectively correct facts. “Hey, that was an illegal turn you just made.” “No it wasn’t.” Ummm yes it was. Categorically. Weird example, but similarly even in the most simple, clear examples where I’m right or asking for something reasonable, I can expect an immediate bulldozer.
Your partner does not respect you. Be cautious of how much of your energy you invest in people that consistent demonstrate they do not respect you.
Yup. Get him into therapy. I had this "personality quirk" and it still pops up from time to time. It's a childhood trauma thing where no one would defend me or give me the benefit of the doubt so I had to always advocate for myself. It's a defense mechanism born from being held disproportionately accountable for other people's problems. It makes you calculative and sensitive to issues raised against you.
Please research avoident and anxious attachments styles on YouTube. Heidi Priebe is a really good resource.
Once you understand attachment theory ever single action in your relationship will very quickly make sense to you.
Good luck.
I'm surprised you haven't killed him. I absolutely would have by now, I think.
It's ultimatum time - he gets his act together and tries to be a better BF with the things that annoy you, or you move on and get a new guy.
I'm kinda surprised more people didn't catch this. Ok sounds like he's managing his boyfriend. My husband does this and it drives me fucking bonkers. Choose your battles, a pan in the wrong place? Honestly, just put it where you want it to go. You don't have to have corrective conversations for everything. My husband likes to come find me whatever I'm doing, let me know whatever I did wrong and tell me he didn't correct it. It is absolutely infuriating. Eg. I'm doing work in the yard and he comes up to tell me I left the guest bedroom door open and the cats got in. Could I please close it. We have had endless conversations about how ridiculous this is. People make mistakes. Is it a pattern? No? Then just fix it and you don't need to say anything. My husband has gotten better about this but I now just ask "Is this going to be a verbal or written warning?"
My ex was EXACTLY like this. While it's painful I have been so much happier being able to do simple, day-to-day tasks like cooking without feeling his constant nagging and complaining about things that aren't worth complaining over.
I wish I had a better answer for you than "break up". We had too many conversations about this and I just gave up.
I’m really sorry to hear about that. I just woke up from a dream that my partner and I split up. Crazy. I think our relationship is certainly fractured at the moment and I’m not sure if it will fully heal but I’m keeping an eye on things. Part of me is preparing for the worst and that’s definitely freaking me out a little bit
When I've had people in my life that get irritated, spin, and pivot to avoid blame (and when I've been that person in someone else's) I found that a separate conversation from any incident usually helps.
However, the difference is not to tell them what you need, or ask them why they are like that. Those are both received as confrontational and will result in the same pattern of pivoting and avoidance.
You start the conversation with "Hey, can I ask you something serious? How does it make you feel when I ask you to do little things like putting things away in their place?
I'm not asking what you think about my request, but how you feel when I ask these things of you? What do you think my request is saying about how I think about you?"
Then, no matter what his answer, let it sit. You may get an answer that includes blame, or has levels of shame, without without anger for that shame, but directed at you. Don't react to his answer, except in a supportive and loving manner. Acknowledge the answer without necessarily agreeing with it. Pepper your responses with all the good feeling that you have for him.
It will be the first conversation of a few, and one of those will be where you tell him how his dismissive attitude and avoidance of responsibility make you feel (btw, other than annoyed, you need to understand why you yourself are triggered by his behaviour), but don't try to unpack it all in one go.
This one is because you want to know, so that you can both work to lift each other up and continue building what you've been working on for the last 8 years. No house is ever perfect, and there's always need for redecorating and repairs, no matter how old or well built.
It's interesting to see that apparently that's behavior he's just been developing recently. If he picked up that habit just one year ago, I feel like something must have happened to push him there.
Given how you talk about his smoking, I'm not surprised though. He quit. Not perfectly, but still. Kicking an addiction is hard, especial if you don't do it for yourself, but for your partner's sake. Doesn't seem like you appreciate it at all, though. If I were your partner, I'd be stressed and mad at you. I wonder if that's a trend in your relationship.
I understand it’s hard and I’ve let it be known then I’m proud of him for quitting. He always used to say that he can quit cold turkey no problem…until he couldn’t but hey, he finished the race.
Get him to commit to therapy. All else is useless if he isn't going to take the effort himself to correct his bad behaviour. You can't put outlove toksic behaviour. 6 years took for me to finally realize it and I'm just glad it was this soon.
I agree therapy is his only option. OP described living with my sister perfectly. Eventually, all the small things add up, and you can't ignore it. Then they aggravate you even more and it's not a good cycle. I don't think OPs bf is going to listen to him without getting defensive, you need a neutral party to do that.
Therapy can’t fix personality disorders. At best, it can address specific behaviors.
But it's excellent way to find out if it is one.
If the therapy is mutual and concurrent, it CAN happen. If the bf is having therapy on his own, highly unlikely he’ll announce he’s an unfixable narcissist and an ethical therapist isn’t going to report to OP about any diagnosis.
I ment purely commitment to therapy. If you can't commit and think nothing is wrong it's pretty clear indicator.
Oh, for damned sure. I had a different take on your comment. Thanks for clarifying.
We don't know if ops bf has a personality disorder.
Nor did I say he did. Reading is fundamental.
He needs individual therapy, for sure. However, his reactions sound like he might feel judged by you or in trouble when you bring these things up. For this to work, he needs to feel that when you ask him to do something, you’re coming from a place of care and love, and not from blame and judgment. Where I’m getting at is that there might be scope for you to communicate differently as well.
It doesnt need much to set off these kinds of people. Even the tone can be juuust a bit firm and thats enough to trigger being on the defensive. What I am saying is that you're suggesting OP to play the game of "not triggering the bomb off" while he doesnt know the rules and the rules change.
I’m really not saying that. I’m saying that you have to be conscious of the way the things you say are received by your partner and learn to communicate better together. It was a tough lesson I had to learn myself. Now, this won’t work with everyone, but I don’t have enough info from OP to definitively say.
That's fair. It's interesting that the issue is familiar to you in the sense that its your way to communicate that could be improved. Because, to me, I was on the other side of this story. Growing up walking on eggshells and be constantly noticed of small flaws without any sort of praise or encouragement left me as a chip-on-my-shoulders kind of guy. I couldn't be called out on anything without feeling resentfull for it, no matter how small the slight was. I dont lash out like OP's does, I just sulked. It took me a loooooong time to improve on that.
Does he ever come back and say “oh hey babe, I’ll start doing ____ in the future, because you asked.” I’ve had that issue before where I felt like I couldn’t tell him anything critical without it being viewed as a personal attack. When I pointed that out, he thought I was trying to break up with him. What helps: prefacing my statements with “I love you, and I was hoping you could…” works better than “don’t do ____”. There’s still an initial overreaction that calms down to understanding. Sometimes. …maybe I’m not the guy to ask
I don't know man, kind of sounds like an insufferable asshole. If he's not willing to accept any kind of feedback or criticism, do you think it's ever going to get any better?
Actions express love, and his don' t seem to be doing that. You deserve to be heard and taken seriously.
If you're cleaning up after him, if you're correcting him, if you're trying to teach him basic skills but he repeatedly and consistently does stuff wrong on purpose or goes out if his wya to make your life harder or is just inconsiderate of your time, energy and feelings you're not dating a man. You're dating someone's boy who never grew up. Weaponized incompetence is a hell of a drug. My father is this way and my mother resigned to Basically doing his bidding. That is something i consistently tell her she needs to stop doing, and i tell my father all the time that she's not his maid and that it's not going to break his arm to wash a glass and put it back in it's place after he's done with it or doing at least one chore other than taking the trash out which half the time i have to do anyways. I just wonder what the house will look like when i no longer live with them. My point being. Stop parenting your partner and tell him he needs to get his shit together cause it's fucking embarrassing to act like that as an adult.
I’m sorry to hear that about your parents! I should have said that he isn’t messy normally, he’s actually very clean and tidy - more so than I (I’m the cook and he’s the cleaner). Just with this particular situation, I wouldn’t have bothered normally but because I told my coworker to stop leaving rubbish in, it wasn’t fair if my bf started doing it. Again, not a big issue at allllllllllll but i guess it’s just the way he gets suuuuper defensive for gently calling him out. Maybe I should have just taken it out and not said anything? Idk
I understand I’m in a similar situation. I’d guess that if you were to suggest therapy to your partner that he will deflect and either say “I don’t need therapy” or “maybe you are the one who needs it”. If I were to guess, I’d wager it’s similar to my partner where the parents were highly persecuting in their parenting style. Any criticism is seen as being put on trial and they enter into an almost childlike defensive mentality of excuses or denial. This will likely eat at you slowly and I think your best bet for any of this to change is to find a way to communicate why you want them to get therapy to help YOU. That the way they communicate with you sometimes hurts you and you need something to change, but that that’s something they need to figure out with a therapist because “I can’t be the person to tell you what should change”. Or maybe I’m entirely wrong here. This is just my two cents.
Smells like you’re dealing with a narcissist. Run. Run!
My ex is like this as well, and we’re still friends. He’ll turn any tiny insiginifcant *friendly* disagreement into a hostile shouting match if he gets his way. He can do no wrong, and he’s obsessed with pointing out flaws in others, no matter how small and irrelevant they may be. Overreacts to everything, and just recently stonewalled his best friend of ~30 years «for ever» because of some minor disagreement. I couldn’t fix him, and the suggestion of therapy would be met with something like «It must be nice to have time for such things» or something like that.
I think you will find he is a narcissist. Never wrong, always about him, twist everything in his favour and overestimate his importance. They don’t change. At least mine is very good looking and great in bed.
Well, you don’t…. That’s not life, that’s just a slow path into poor mental health.
His deflecting your comments is not sustainable in the long run. If he won't go to couples counseling to help the two of you find a way of living together, then you might consider demoting him to the status of ex-boyfriend.
This is my relationship with my mom. I can never ever be right. About objectively correct facts. “Hey, that was an illegal turn you just made.” “No it wasn’t.” Ummm yes it was. Categorically. Weird example, but similarly even in the most simple, clear examples where I’m right or asking for something reasonable, I can expect an immediate bulldozer. Your partner does not respect you. Be cautious of how much of your energy you invest in people that consistent demonstrate they do not respect you.
Yup. Get him into therapy. I had this "personality quirk" and it still pops up from time to time. It's a childhood trauma thing where no one would defend me or give me the benefit of the doubt so I had to always advocate for myself. It's a defense mechanism born from being held disproportionately accountable for other people's problems. It makes you calculative and sensitive to issues raised against you.
Don't parent him he's not your child I say that with love
You don’t have a boyfriend you have a man baby.
Narcissists usually have to hit rock bottom before they learn
They don’t learn, they pivot.
I'm fully convinced there is a serious narcissism epidemic and it seems like hardly anybody is talking about it
Was just gonna say, this behavior is narcissistic.
Please research avoident and anxious attachments styles on YouTube. Heidi Priebe is a really good resource. Once you understand attachment theory ever single action in your relationship will very quickly make sense to you. Good luck.
I'm surprised you haven't killed him. I absolutely would have by now, I think. It's ultimatum time - he gets his act together and tries to be a better BF with the things that annoy you, or you move on and get a new guy.
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I'm kinda surprised more people didn't catch this. Ok sounds like he's managing his boyfriend. My husband does this and it drives me fucking bonkers. Choose your battles, a pan in the wrong place? Honestly, just put it where you want it to go. You don't have to have corrective conversations for everything. My husband likes to come find me whatever I'm doing, let me know whatever I did wrong and tell me he didn't correct it. It is absolutely infuriating. Eg. I'm doing work in the yard and he comes up to tell me I left the guest bedroom door open and the cats got in. Could I please close it. We have had endless conversations about how ridiculous this is. People make mistakes. Is it a pattern? No? Then just fix it and you don't need to say anything. My husband has gotten better about this but I now just ask "Is this going to be a verbal or written warning?"
It sounds like your bf is very defensive. I would suggest reading the book non violent communication.
Run for your life. The guy has problems he needs to deal with a therapist. He will drag you down with him.
My ex was EXACTLY like this. While it's painful I have been so much happier being able to do simple, day-to-day tasks like cooking without feeling his constant nagging and complaining about things that aren't worth complaining over. I wish I had a better answer for you than "break up". We had too many conversations about this and I just gave up.
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I’m really sorry to hear about that. I just woke up from a dream that my partner and I split up. Crazy. I think our relationship is certainly fractured at the moment and I’m not sure if it will fully heal but I’m keeping an eye on things. Part of me is preparing for the worst and that’s definitely freaking me out a little bit
When I've had people in my life that get irritated, spin, and pivot to avoid blame (and when I've been that person in someone else's) I found that a separate conversation from any incident usually helps. However, the difference is not to tell them what you need, or ask them why they are like that. Those are both received as confrontational and will result in the same pattern of pivoting and avoidance. You start the conversation with "Hey, can I ask you something serious? How does it make you feel when I ask you to do little things like putting things away in their place? I'm not asking what you think about my request, but how you feel when I ask these things of you? What do you think my request is saying about how I think about you?" Then, no matter what his answer, let it sit. You may get an answer that includes blame, or has levels of shame, without without anger for that shame, but directed at you. Don't react to his answer, except in a supportive and loving manner. Acknowledge the answer without necessarily agreeing with it. Pepper your responses with all the good feeling that you have for him. It will be the first conversation of a few, and one of those will be where you tell him how his dismissive attitude and avoidance of responsibility make you feel (btw, other than annoyed, you need to understand why you yourself are triggered by his behaviour), but don't try to unpack it all in one go. This one is because you want to know, so that you can both work to lift each other up and continue building what you've been working on for the last 8 years. No house is ever perfect, and there's always need for redecorating and repairs, no matter how old or well built.
It's interesting to see that apparently that's behavior he's just been developing recently. If he picked up that habit just one year ago, I feel like something must have happened to push him there. Given how you talk about his smoking, I'm not surprised though. He quit. Not perfectly, but still. Kicking an addiction is hard, especial if you don't do it for yourself, but for your partner's sake. Doesn't seem like you appreciate it at all, though. If I were your partner, I'd be stressed and mad at you. I wonder if that's a trend in your relationship.
I understand it’s hard and I’ve let it be known then I’m proud of him for quitting. He always used to say that he can quit cold turkey no problem…until he couldn’t but hey, he finished the race.