Dating someone who admitted to suffering from self-hatred

I’ve been dating a guy for 6 months and things have been great, except when they’re not. Once in awhile he will hyper focus on something I say and interpret it as criticism, and overreact (IMO) and say I need to mind my own business.

For example, he was talking about what he’s been eating and I said, you should eat more veggies. He got an attitude about it, saying he never tries to fix me so I shouldn’t try to fix him, and that he knows he needs to eat more veggies and that my comment isn’t educating him on anything he doesn’t already know.

I didn’t respond well to this because my intention wasn’t to criticize him. It led to a bigger conversation about how I feel he doesn’t give me the benefit of the doubt, and maybe I could’ve kept that comment to myself but I can’t promise I won’t say something like that in the future. I do have issues around projection because I have anxiety around health and stability resulting from a childhood in a chaotic alcoholic household where I was alone a lot and had to form my own routines and ideas to keep things together. It’s something I’m working on, to not be a fixer, and I’m in therapy and generally good at keeping that part of me in check. But occasionally, I do project my view of reality and say things that are really just important to me, not so much that I think others should do what I say.

ANYWAY, this led to him saying he is being defensive and that he struggles with a deep self-hatred. This was really shocking to me but it also made sense. It made me think that he is sensitive to criticism and focuses on it because it’s something he does to himself a lot. Maybe my comments are a weird validation of his self-loathing.

And I can’t help but wonder:

-Will he be capable of loving me if he doesn’t care about himself?

-What can I do to be sensitive and mindful to someone suffering from this?

-Has anyone here been in a relationship where you or the partner was dealing with this, and what do you or what did your partner need?

-is it a healthy sign that he admitted this to me at all? It seems like a hard thing to put out there, especially since so much of his life doesn’t clue to this at all.

He’s pretty amazing in so many other ways and I really feel like I can be myself around him most of the time, more so than with anyone else I’ve ever dated. I’m not ready to give up. Also, it’s kind of a weird thing that I admire someone so much that doesn’t feel that way at all about themselves.

Submitted April 24, 2019 at 09:26PM

I’ve been dating a guy for 6 months and things have been great, except when they’re not. Once in awhile he will hyper focus on something I say and interpret it as criticism, and overreact (IMO) and say I need to mind my own business.For example, he was talking about what he’s been eating and I said, you should eat more veggies. He got an attitude about it, saying he never tries to fix me so I shouldn’t try to fix him, and that he knows he needs to eat more veggies and that my comment isn’t educating him on anything he doesn’t already know.I didn’t respond well to this because my intention wasn’t to criticize him. It led to a bigger conversation about how I feel he doesn’t give me the benefit of the doubt, and maybe I could’ve kept that comment to myself but I can’t promise I won’t say something like that in the future. I do have issues around projection because I have anxiety around health and stability resulting from a childhood in a chaotic alcoholic household where I was alone a lot and had to form my own routines and ideas to keep things together. It’s something I’m working on, to not be a fixer, and I’m in therapy and generally good at keeping that part of me in check. But occasionally, I do project my view of reality and say things that are really just important to me, not so much that I think others should do what I say.ANYWAY, this led to him saying he is being defensive and that he struggles with a deep self-hatred. This was really shocking to me but it also made sense. It made me think that he is sensitive to criticism and focuses on it because it’s something he does to himself a lot. Maybe my comments are a weird validation of his self-loathing.And I can’t help but wonder:-Will he be capable of loving me if he doesn’t care about himself?-What can I do to be sensitive and mindful to someone suffering from this?-Has anyone here been in a relationship where you or the partner was dealing with this, and what do you or what did your partner need?-is it a healthy sign that he admitted this to me at all? It seems like a hard thing to put out there, especially since so much of his life doesn’t clue to this at all.He’s pretty amazing in so many other ways and I really feel like I can be myself around him most of the time, more so than with anyone else I’ve ever dated. I’m not ready to give up. Also, it’s kind of a weird thing that I admire someone so much that doesn’t feel that way at all about themselves.