[diobolicmuphin]

I’m 20, my boyfriend is 25 and we’ve been together for 8 months now. He tends to practice some annoying habits and I don’t know how to approach him.

He criticises me in public, loudly. Standing in a room full of people, he has said “you need to clean your ears. They’ve got stuff in them.” (it was only shampoo that somehow managed to evade my shower water, dried on and flaked.) Standing again in a crowd of people, he has told me my blouse was “terrible-looking”. After I ate a garlic-based entree, he’s hollered out “WHOO!! What did you eat? Your breath stinks…”

He refuses to stop constantly touching me. I drive a relatively small car, a stick shift and I’m somewhat short (at 5’2″) so I need the steering column at its lowest height. There’s barely any room on my lap area because I also have to pull my seat up rather far, but while I’m trying to drive, he constantly has to lay his hand on my thigh. When I politely put his hand back on his own lap, he looks at me confused or just puts his hand back on my thigh and proceeds to rub upward toward my private areas. He does this in public too. He tries to grab my private areas and after swatting his hands away multiple times and asking him to stop, he either continues or gets offended and walks off.

He flirts with other women. When I first introduced him to my best girlfriend, he thought it was appropriate to jump on her back, grab her hand, say “i’m going to lick you if you don’t talk to me”, beg me for 10 or more minutes to bring her along on several occasions. Finally, I blew up in his face about it and he got mad, but stopped bothering me about her and touching her. She didn’t particularly appreciate his flirting and now actually hates him. He met some girl on Myspace who I told him was only trying to hit on him. He didn’t believe me and went behind my back to meet up with her at a Starbucks. She finally started making rude comments about our relationship which is only when he realized she was interested in him. All of his friends on his page are women and he’s constantly complimenting them.

He talks ALOT. I’m a rather quiet individual and I don’t much mind listening to people talk if they talk about topics that aren’t just irrelevant or weird. He constantly makes up strange words and says really odd or inappropriate things. He also makes perverted gestures at me in public such as wiggling his tongue at me from across the room, ensuring that others have clear view and making slurping sounds.

He’s too conceited. He’s constantly talking about the size of his member in public. He’s got naked photos of himself online, but says “I don’t think I’m all that… I don’t think I look great.”

He never lets me finish a sentence. Anytime I’m trying to say something, he interrupts me and only lets me finish when I start yelling.

It’s all about him. Where I live, there isn’t much to do so I try to find fun things or places to go. He never has a suggestion on what to do until I pick something, then he says “I don’t want to do that. Let’s go here instead.”

He’s too arrogant. He walks around staring other men down and shifting his junk in his jeans, just out in the open where everyone can see. He’s told me in the past “I’m stuck in my ways, I don’t feel like this should be like this so it’s not going to be.” He talks openly about past relationships and sexual activities but gets mad if I mention anything of my own. And he’s never wrong. Anytime I question him about something he’s done, he tries to flip the situation to work for his purposes and make it look like anyone except himself is in the wrong.

I realize he probably sounds like a self-centered jerk and yes, he is to a degree. We both have faults and I do want to make our relationship work. I’m not particularly okay with dishing out direct criticism as he is and I’m certainly more agreeable/easygoing than he is. My family and friends aren’t fond of him by any means, but I don’t want the relationship to be cut short. I’m just looking for suggestions on how to talk to him about this stuff. Or to know if I’m just being petty.

Thanks in advance.

[Ask April Masini]

You’re not being petty at all. In fact, I’m not sure why you’re going out with this guy in the first place. He sounds controlling and bent on lowering your self esteem. Healthy relationships are those where both people feel good about themselves and supported by the other person. It doesn’t sound like you’ve got anything close to that with your boyfriend.

By the time a man is 25 years old, he really should have learned enough manners to know not to insult you in public or behave in ways that make you feel ashamed. I’m afraid you’ve got a losing battle on your hands if you’re going to try to change this guy.

But what you can learn to start saying is, “It makes me feel….when you do…..” so that you’re not criticizing him, but instead, explaining to him what he does that makes you feel lousy. If he doesn’t care about your feelings, then you really shouldn’t waste your time with him. You can, conversely, tell him what he does do that you [i]do[/i] like. For instance, if he opens the door for you so you can walk through first, you can tell him how much you appreciate it when he does that sort of thing. That way you’re not just giving him negative information, but also positive information.

That said, I really think you should move on and find someone who instinctively knows or cares enough about you to treat you with more respect — and more importantly, to treat himself with more respect.

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