Hello,
Im 24 years old and new to the forum.
Ive had IBS since I was 14 years old (10 years) and honestly it cripples my life.
I have been with my current boyfriend for nearly a year and he does treat me really well. However, I am starting to have doubts.
Because of my IBS, I display unpleasant symptoms and he makes comments and mocks me. Hes even said he finds it unattractive and has shown me no affection, compared to at the start.
Ive cried a few times about it because if he loves me he shouldnt make me feel so low about myself. Its my biggest in security. Im starting my masters in Occupational Therapy in Jan 2020 and I just feel like starting fresh, as a single person.. I really dont know what to do
Please feel free to message me or leave a comment (Male or Female). Does anyone have similar issues?
I am very sorry for your pain. My feeling is that you should seriously respect your intuition, with at the very least looking into it further. I wrote because this hits close to home, as this is what happened to my mother. My mother was quite elderly and a widow at 75 years, and she met a man who was also a widower, same age. Although he displayed many wonderful qualities he had some disturbing qualities. First, he wanted to keep their relationship secret to their church body to keep tongues from wagging (they never had sexual relations as far as my mother told me) and second, he also didn't want any of his neighbours to know she was living there. So she always had to stay inside the house. This made problems for me when church members would call her/me and I could never tell them where she was. It made me look bad, and often my mom would tell them that I had forgotten to tell her that they called. She could never call them back because she couldn't call from his house, or else they would know.
More applicable to you, is that as my mother aged in the 15 year relationship it was clear that her friend deemed her appearance and her clothes to be very important to his self esteem. In fact my mother starved herself at one point in the very beginning of the relationship,raising concern for us children, because he wanted to have her look like a doll, because his 1st wife was overweight. As my mother continued to age and her posture deteriorated due to several factors, one of which was contracting a stroke, he stopped wanting to go dancing with her because he was ashamed of her. As a woman..you cannot BELIEVE how hurt she was. (AND PLEASE note: he was nothing to look at. Didn't look like your most handsomest movie star). It really really pained me especially because I understood her pain being a woman.
He also didn't want to take her to church because 1st he wanted to keep the relationship private (although I recently learned EVERYBODY knew) and again because she was no longer beautiful and he was ashamed to be seen with her. I think he used her for his own purposes from many different views and information that I know about but recently after her death he said she was the love of his life.
He also maintained tight control of her in other areas in that he never allowed her to buy the healthy food she wanted, even though she had her own money, and he was very hard on her when she wasn't standing straight. He would command her to stand straight like she was a soldier but she could not even if she tried. I talked to him about this many times but he never gave in. He also would say that he liked certain clothes she wore because they made her look attractive and hid her posture when they were out.
All of this went on because my mother accepted this and it was her choice to continue to stay with him and since she was an adult we let her do as she wished. There came a time sometime this year however where she started to be more aware of his behaviour for some reason, and things started turning sour and she no longer wanted to stay with him. In the end she was SO glad she never married him, but at that time she was more concerned about his many children and didn't want any conflict or trouble from them if he should die before her.
Naturally all humans are very flawed and none of us display the real Love that God is and has, but had she do it over again, she would not have at the very least stayed with him so long. She really didn't need him, so but life is messy. I think that who we choose as partners is very serious. We become attached to them just because it's comfortable, and we try to focus on the good things which is very natural, and this may be the reason that could stop you from looking at this deeper. Since you are still single and not married to him, I think whatever you do, please don't disregard your intuition, and seriously find out more about it, and don't turn a blind eye.
I hope that something I said here out of experience and hindsight helps you. Whatever the case, in my opinion, I agree with others that he is cruel. It is a valid concern, and there may be even more of this showing up in other areas. God Bless you and take good care!
p.s. I also suffered from IBS many many years ago, and mine was due to anxiety and a chronic situation I never dealt with.