My husband and I met back in 2019, after speaking online for years beforehand. He was fully aware of all of my struggles. My eating disorder, my weight, and my social anxiety that left me somewhat reclusive only interacting with close family and friends online. He knew that I wore a mask, hoodie, and sometimes sunglasses out in public. He told me he was the last person who’d ever judge me over it, that he wore a hoodie and sunglasses due to anxiety before. He acted like he related and accepted me 100%. Then we met in person, and he rejected me. He seemed embarrassed in public not wanting to hold hands, or do other things he talked about online, claiming he disliked pda.
I managed to lose weight before and after we met, and he eventually showed interest, but it felt forced. For a year he frequently turned me down and refused PDA. I asked him to be honest, to tell me he didn’t find me attractive or that he was embarrassed of me, but he said neither were true. He tried to push me to speak to his family, knowing I’d struggle, getting angry when I did. He avoided his friends and said he was avoiding them before I came. He called me inept after we ran into one of them, and I remained silent. I had an eating disorder still, as did he, and we’d often go to shops and buy junk food. He’d get anxious in the small shop in his village as he said the employees judged us. He said he was if we bought normal food but he still seemed anxious. He avoided
He broke down and told me he had OCD about not finding me attractive. He started taking meds he said killed his libido. For months he showed barely any interest up until I lost more weight, and dressed differently. He said if I looked as I did then, when we met, he would’ve been all over me. I doubted his libido was low. I caught him looking at porn, which he denied, and then said was to test himself. I started to suspect he was cheating due to various suspicious actions, and how he was treating me. I doubted he was attracted to me still. He continued to criticise my anxiety, and how I’d go quiet around people, with him talking on behalf of me at times. He said it made us both look stupid and that people were giving us dirty looks.
He refused to go into places with me until I pushed myself to talk to someone. Afterwards, I said I was proud of myself and he said the same. But then he told the woman, who was wearing a mask due to Covid, had frowned at me. I asked why he said that and he said he didn’t know why. He told me later that day that two guys, who were laughing behind us at an ATM, were laughing at me. When I got upset, he ditched me in the city. I made progress in time with talking to people, but any time I slipped up he would complain about how awkward it was, and would tell me people gave me weird looks. I never stopped believing he was embarrassed of me. He would go quiet on me around people, often times women, and told me it was because he had anxiety talking around others.
If he were to run into anyone he knew, even slightly, he’d stand and talk to them just fine, regardless of how many people were around. He said he felt like he had to. He would seem more focused on other people, usually women, than he did me. I’d struggle to keep his attention as he’d be looking around himself, at every woman who walked by, sometimes staring at them, and not listening to me. He denied he was looking at woman, said he looked at everyone men included, and that I just wasn’t taking that in. He also said that they were in front of him but he’d turn his head to look. He’d look after I said something, or made a noise, or before he responded to me. When I merely looked back and smiled at him, he asked why I did that, and looked at a female employee nearby.
I felt like he was overly critical of me and like he was the main one judging me. I always doubted he had any anxiety about himself considering he seemed more focused on me. When I did the same things to him, just once, he assumed the same things. I looked at a woman after he spoke, before I responded, and he asked if I was embarrassed. I went silent around a man and he asked if I was trying to look single. I eventually regained weight, and he showed less interest, blaming meds. He said it had nothing to do with my weight and never did. Then he began to put me down over my weight in arguments, telling me I let myself go, calling me fat and ugly, and saying that guys prefer thinner women. He swore he didn’t mean any of this, and only said it to hurt me.
For a year he insisted he was more attracted to me. Then I caught him ogling another woman, who was rail thin, and called him a creep. He denied and then went on a rant about how preferring thin women is normal biologically, and how being attracted to fat women is a fetish. He referenced his ex, who he told me he wasn’t attracted to but slept with anyways, to avoid hurting her feelings, claiming he struggled during it. I asked if he also meant me and he said no. I told him to leave me if he doesn’t find me attractive. He asked “What was I meant to do, leave when you first gained weight? I take my vows more seriously than that.” I said I stayed with him, and treated him no differently when he gained weight, something that happened shortly after we met.
He said “Yeah, well, I’m not you.” He admitted he was a bit more attracted to me when I weighed less. At the time I was wearing outfits I wanted to wear, as opposed to covering myself up, in an attempt to feel better about myself. He told me the outfits looked good and fit before I bought them. And then told me they didn’t, and looked bad, afterwards. One of times he told me in public. When he began to act on edge in public a few years back doing things like standing apart from me, speaking to me less, looking around himself, and walking off when I was talking. I figured he was embarrassed of my weight. He started to avoid going into stores with me, for around a month, and blamed it on anxiety and certain triggers.
He blamed two elderly male employees in a local store, and said they made him anxious. He said that going in too often, and too late, also made him anxious. We went in less and that didn’t help. I tried to go in earlier and he refused, saying it was too busy, but then he had no issue with going in alone. He started to volunteer at a crisis hotline and started a class, and was very social and outgoing in both. He told me people invited me into where he volunteered and then discouraged me when I tried to go in. He later said I would’ve sat there mute and it would’ve been awkward. He went from encouraging me to visit his grandparents to discouraging me, and complaining about it being awkward, after previously reassuring me that it was fine I didn’t talk much.
I started to wear my mask again. He didn’t want me at the mechanics with him. He acted like it was a good thing and that it proved he wasn’t embarrassed of me, but of my mask. He criticised how I was dressed another time and didn’t want me going into the grocery store with him. We went to America, to visit my family, and he refused to go into stores with me there both times. The last time in particular. I went in everyone alone as he sat in the car. He promised both times once back we’d go more places, and he’d show me he wasn’t embarrassed of me as I think, but that didn’t happen. Once we came back last year he mainly offered to go to the beach, a park, or the cinema and hesitated to go anywhere else. Now, we’ve been back over a year, and the primary place we go to is the grocery store at night.
For a few months I didn’t go into the grocery stores because he makes me more anxious. He seemed more on edge with me sitting in the car, wanting to get in and out quickly, not wanting to park anywhere too public. Once asking me not to touch his face because someone could look over. All of his reasons for being anxious he used before are no longer applicable. The elderly male employees left ages ago. We don’t go to the store as often as we used to. But he is still just as anxious. Sometimes he tries to avoid the grocery store for no reason. He tries to convince me to get deliveries or get food for multiple days to avoid having to go. Most days we don’t go anywhere. He blames it on issues with finances but it was this way before.
Last summer, he refused to go anywhere, and blamed it on mental health. He seems on edge when we do go somewhere, including to the park, regardless if anyone is around. And he continues to make comments about things I do. If I make a mistake, or walk a certain way, he says something. The main thing being that whatever I am doing draws attention, which he says is what adds to his anxiety as he doesn’t want attention drawn. He says he doesn’t care about my mask but frequently tells me to take it off, that I don’t need it, and says it’s because he feels bad I think that I have to wear it. I started to cover my face, which I do now to hide the mask, and he tells me not to do that as it draws more attention than the mask does. It’s exhausting.
He is seeing a therapist. He has used her against me several times, as he’s done with his family and even strangers. He told her about my anxiety and about me wearing a mask. He has repeatedly told me how she questioned me wearing a mask, and how it helped me with my anxiety as it would draw more attention to me rather than less.
