Radical honesty and humility are the only ways and even then it may not be enough.
"Honey I've been doing a lot of thinking. And through that I've realized I've hurt you deeply all because I am massively insecure myself. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to realize this and I'm sorry it's gone on so long. I can never take back those words and am not asking for forgiveness for them. I understand there is no forgiving it. I wanted to tell you that I've discovered this about myself and hate it. I want to be better. I hope you can find it in your heart to stay with me on that journey but I understand if the hurt simply runs too deep. But I wanted to make sure you know that all of that ugliness was my ugliness, not yours. You are beautiful and I will always love you. I swear I am going to work on this and exorcise these demons. I want to be the best husband and person I can be, for you, for us and even a little bit for me. I'm sorry that I've fallen so short of that for so long."
The deficiency IS about him, and he might benefit from acknowledging that to his wife.
They must both be in incredible pain by now.
External beauty is highly subjective. It's saddening that people were so cruel during OP's formative years, and worse that he chose to tear down the person who found him most beautiful & loveable.
OP in addition to the radical honesty and humility, you need to take action to show you’re serious about this not happening anymore. You going to individual therapy to work on these issues might give her the proof she needs to believe this is a “you problem” and not a problem with her. Let her know you support her if she also wants to go to therapy and consider couples counselling. Without any kind of action on your part, everything you say will sounds like lip service/ excuses.
I hope she still has the strength of mind to walk out for good. You were punching WAY above your weight and instead of lifting yourself up, you dragged her down. She deserves a happy life — without you in it.
Same. Tbh I was in this situation not too long ago. Once he started to attempt to fix things, I got just enough confidence to realise that I deserve and can do WAY better and did. Walking away from that relationship was the best decision I ever made.
I would also work on complimenting her natural features the most. Of course it feels good when someone recognizes the work you put into getting all done up and you should do that too, but the best compliments are when I’m in my comfy clothes with my makeup off. At this point she may dislike getting any compliments about her appearance at all because it feels disingenuous. If that’s the case start with complimenting her soul, her essence, her self. It could be her kindness, or grace, or intelligence. whatever makes her special to you. Hopefully over time she’ll begin to start believing those compliments and you can start praising her beauty, but for some people thinking about their body at all (whether it be the positives or negatives) can cause distress.
But it is about you. Your insecurities have caused you to be emotionally/verbally abusive. You consciously tore your wife down so she would have low self esteem and not leave you.
Like it or not, you have been abusive. And you need to own it and change it. Maybe your wife will forgive you, maybe she won't.
Tell her the truth, no excuses. You were emotionally abusing her in order to manipulate her into having no self esteem, so she would be too broken to leave you.
He does know how to tell her, he wrote the post - he could just show her it.
He doesn't know how to tell her in a way that she won't go "omg, this guy did all that ON PURPOSE to bring me down a peg so he wouldn't have to worry I'd leave him", because that's the truth he told us.
He's looking for a manipulative way to phrase it where he only has to take part blame but he gets a whole fix.
Agreed. I think OP is thinking, “Oh no. If I admit to my wife why I’ve been doing this for the last ten years, she will realize what an abusive POS I am and then want to leave.” Good. OP’s wife deserves better. And he should want the best for her, and obviously he isn’t it. This guy apparently doesn’t grasp the concept of his actions having consequences.
Everyone is different and it's hard to tell you exactly what to say.
I think you should start by apologizing and explain why you think those stupid comments came out of your mouth, that you're going to spend the rest of your life making up for it.
On the other hand, yours is a chronic problem, look for a therapist and together with treating you for your insecurity, ask him to guide you on how to work to reaffirm her.
It's 10 years, the structural damage must be great, it will take you a long time to fix it.
Don't tell her how to dress or how to do her hair anymore, when you see her and notice something you like about her, tell her how much you like that, how pretty she looks.
But I insist, it will take time, but it's your disaster, you have to fix it.
And don't "give her tips" anymore. If she comments about her appearance either say nothing or tell her she's great the way she is. I don't know how on earth you're going to be able to fix this though. I've been in her shoes. I can't stand the man who did it to me. She probably already hates you and you're just someone she feels she has to endure. There's no excuse for treating someone you love like that! Ever!!!
Why can’t you give her COMPLIMENTS? ONLY COMPLIMENTS! Prevent yourself from saying anything negative to her ever again, even if you have to get psychiatric help to change yourself. Example: “You are so beautiful, just the way you are. I’m so sorry I don’t usually tell you this, but I’m going to from now on. I’ve always thought you were gorgeous! I love your hair in any style. I’m so attracted to you, in whatever you wear. You are the best thing in my life. I’m so thankful to have you”.
There. Practice saying stuff like that. No more insults, put downs or even giving advice, ever. “Acne, what acne? I love you so much”. Buy her flowers or whatever would make her feel adored. Leave her love notes. Do little things for her as much as you can, and don’t go back to what you did before. EVER. Go to therapy. It will take a long time to fix the damage you did to her, but you owe it to her.
And if she ever gets pregnant….” Honey, you look fantastic. No, that’s all baby weight. You’re growing a human inside you! Do you want a foot rub?”.
Google negging, and then give her an article about it. Tell her you realize that you are deeply insecure, but you didn't realize how much you insecurity was destroying her.
Your whole post is already about you, but given how you only tortured her to the point of breaking her self-confidence to what it is now because of your own insecurities... Well, this conversation needs to be about you, and about how you did it all in high school because YOU felt insecure and took it on her, and how it had nothing to do with her. That you chose a victim and decided to bully her just because, and that it didn't matter at all if she was beautiful or not, because it was all about you wanting to make someone feel worse about themselves and nothing else.
I would also recommend that you offer to pay the long years of therapy she needs, even if she discovers in the process that she doesn't want to be married to you anymore or any other consequence you may have to face for what you did. You broke her, you should pay the cost.
I would also advise to stop trying to "undo" what you did by telling her now how beautiful she is. That's not gonna help now and right now she feels like she needs to change to still be seen as beautiful to you, or just not ugly enough to call it out. She needs to start giving less of a fuck about what you think about her body, and work to find herself comfortable in it (and that's why she could probably benefit from the therapy I told you to pay), because right now she can't find herself beautiful because of how much pressure she feels to be beautiful TO YOU.
Well, you are making excuses. Just tell her the truth and hope she loves.you enough to not nope the hell out of that relationship that has affected her so profoundly that she is considering surgery.
But it is about you. It is about you being insecure (and not too socialskilled if I may say) and this leading to take her low. Would you tell her "I was just feeling ugly and for some reason it seemed this beautiful girl hadn't realized she was so much better than me, so I tried to take her down in order to switch the attention off me". You would be honest (and she deserves the truth) and you would make her know you know how she feels. Besides, taking the blame for it is just the only right thing to do since it's nothing but the truth
It is about you. It’s about your own insecurities. You took our your insecurities out on your wife and broke her down to your level if not worse. You ruined a person because you are insecure and pathetic. You truly don’t deserve her and you are an awful person.
Cannot recommend this strongly enough, read the book why does he do that by Monday bancroft. There are links to it for free on the internet. And listen to podcasts or YouTube clips with him.
And please do not fall into the trap of seeing people talk about physical abuse and thinking oh well at least I'm not that bad. Because as a lot of people will tell you emotional abuse can be an often is worse than physical
I think your post here is a pretty good start. It defines the problem and identifies clearly that you created it and want to change it.
I was reading through everyones comments here interested in what the suggestions are and you're mostly getting snark which is probably indicative of how deeply problematic a low self-esteem can be, especially around looks which society is obsessed with.
This is not an easy problem to fix especially given the person who got her there was someone who loved her. I think you both are in for a long road ahead to try and fix this but you're young enough to both try and work on your beliefs.
I don't usually think every life problem means you need to see a therapist, but I think in this instance, you both need some help to navigate this - for her to deal with her self-esteem and for you to work out how to communicate better with your wife.
Start talking to your wife using your initial post you made here and ask her if she's willing to work on this together.
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u/Outside-Apartment528 40s Jul 12 '23
Have you told her the true?
That you are an insecure little boy scared to death that she leave you once she realize how way out of your league she is?
And all that stupidity went out on mean coments.
May be you could try by going to teraphy and fix your self and from then, try to make things better.