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Helping a partner with self confidence issues
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
When you're in a relationship, how do you make the other person feel beautiful?
Simply question but (and no offense to women on the boards here) women can be very critical about themselves, and if you tell them you're beautiful they won't believe you.
I like to make a special effort every once in a while spontaneously, flowers or things like that and I think she does feel valued and cherished, but at the same time she feels very negative about her appearance and that she's not desirable.
I've never bought naughty lingerie, I mean if I'm honest (and I prefer not to bear all on here, but I think it's important to the point) our sex life has died a death over the past couple of months, owing in no small part to confidence issues.
If you note in the other thread, having to emotionally support her all the time is weighing heavily on me, but then I want to be there - it just would be nice to have a break sometimes and her be happy. She has some symptoms of depression but I'm not going to try to diagnose her.
Would just really love her to be happier in herself, and less dependent on me, and also more relaxed. If I make a joke about something (say she has a sip of my drink and I accuse her of stealing it in a jokey way) she takes it really seriously and gets upset, I think it again comes back to the angle that she's leaning on my 'approval' a lot of the time, although she's made tonnes of friends at uni and is a really likeable and loveable person.
It's quite peculiar how the popular / attractive / friendly ones can sometimes have really big confidence issues. There's a group at Uni that helps girls with self confidence issues and eating disorders, I don't know whether to get in touch and see if they want to chat to her? She doesn't have an eating disorder, eats as much as anyone (though doesn't show it all), but she's got their card on her noticeboard - maybe a cry for help?
I just wish when I told her she's beautiful, she'd believe me...
Simply question but (and no offense to women on the boards here) women can be very critical about themselves, and if you tell them you're beautiful they won't believe you.
I like to make a special effort every once in a while spontaneously, flowers or things like that and I think she does feel valued and cherished, but at the same time she feels very negative about her appearance and that she's not desirable.
I've never bought naughty lingerie, I mean if I'm honest (and I prefer not to bear all on here, but I think it's important to the point) our sex life has died a death over the past couple of months, owing in no small part to confidence issues.
If you note in the other thread, having to emotionally support her all the time is weighing heavily on me, but then I want to be there - it just would be nice to have a break sometimes and her be happy. She has some symptoms of depression but I'm not going to try to diagnose her.
Would just really love her to be happier in herself, and less dependent on me, and also more relaxed. If I make a joke about something (say she has a sip of my drink and I accuse her of stealing it in a jokey way) she takes it really seriously and gets upset, I think it again comes back to the angle that she's leaning on my 'approval' a lot of the time, although she's made tonnes of friends at uni and is a really likeable and loveable person.
It's quite peculiar how the popular / attractive / friendly ones can sometimes have really big confidence issues. There's a group at Uni that helps girls with self confidence issues and eating disorders, I don't know whether to get in touch and see if they want to chat to her? She doesn't have an eating disorder, eats as much as anyone (though doesn't show it all), but she's got their card on her noticeboard - maybe a cry for help?
I just wish when I told her she's beautiful, she'd believe me...
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I've actually asked my boyfriend to tell me i'm beautiful cause he never does. His answer is 'I shouldn't have to cause you should know.'
Yes but it's nice to hear from your boyfriend. Kinda defeats the object but if you dont ask you dont get. Gah. Men.
It's all part of the same problem though.
She has no confidence at all though she's popular, likeable, gets male attention, is smart at her subjects and can do all those odd jobs that makes people endeared to her (like, knows how to knit and sew! at uni makes her practically a god).
But the lack of confidence means she relies on me heavily for 'feeling good' about herself, and sometimes I'll be honest it'll get me down and I don't know if I can cope. Like, I'll be in a good mood and I'll say 'Hi, you look gorgeous today!', and she'll go red and look down, because she doesn't believe it and it makes her feel a bit awkward, and then she'll see other girls in the street and think they're really pretty etc. and it all gets her down. So I spend all my 'happy energy' trying to bring her up, and when I go home I'm knacked and I'm depressed, and when she's still miserable too I think what's the point.
If I could crack the nut and make her independent of me, and feel happy herself somehow... a lot of other things would simply fall into place. By itself it's not something you'd end a relationship on - low confidence - but it can cause a lot of other issues and when you can't be intimate, and time spent together is miserable sometimes, and going out is difficult because 'everyone else is prettier', I just feel claustrophobic in the relationship. I think it's a guy thing in a way - we struggle to deal with emotions I guess and when a girl is overloaded with complex emotions it makes the 'panic gene' go and we need to get space.
Or at least I do. Sorry for the generalization guys who may be offended by my implication they can't handle complex emotions without running a mile
It sounds like you really want to be there for her and you don't want to fall out, but it does look like it's going that way if she doesn't become more independent. Maybe you need to talk to her about how you're feeling, because she might not realise it's affecting you too. No one can be wholly responsible for a loved one's happiness, it just doesn't work that way.
Does she have girlfriends and other friends who she can confide in? I think in this kind of situation it's really important that you're not the only one dealing with it, so maybe it's worth encouraging her to go out with a girlfriend for nice pampering girly time, makeovers, dvds etc, because those kind of feel-good nights work miracles that even the most devoted boyfriend can't quite perform...
Hope you two manage to sort things out.
She was at mine, we were watching star trek, and I said 'I'm hungryyyyyyyyyy' in a whiney / jokey way, and she got panicky, jumed u put he shoes on, then I said 'calm down it's ok we don't have to run off' and she went hysterical crying. I recognised it a bit like a panic attack. - (Since I used to suffer from them.)
Really odd though, because I said I was hungry she felt immediately compelled to make sure to fulfill my desire for food. Got signed up for counselling session today. :thumb: But, it was just so acute - that's what struck me. It wasn't that she was in a delicate mood, the one comment set her off and made her start panicking inside that she was responsible for me being hungry....
She definitely needs to speak to somebody. I'm glad she's got it booked, duder.
But nearly every night I have dreams like she's left me or something. Not reliving what happened, but like, randomly. It was quite a while ago though, and I don't remember my dreams most of the time so it's not a big deal.
Last night it was quite vivid tho.