Home › Forums › Dating and Sex Advice › My wonderful boyfriend does not tell me I'm beautiful
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M.
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Jackie
I’ve been with my boyfriend for 5 years. I’m 28, he’s 32. I want to spend the rest of my life with him. We’ve lived together for 3 years now and he moved out of state to be with me which was a lot for him at the time.
I do not doubt that he loves me. He does little things to show me that he loves me. He cooks my favorite foods, he knows when something is wrong, he can’t wait to see me when I’ve been gone for a couple of days. Overall, we have a great understanding of each other and great communication. I love him so much and I can’t imagine a life without him at this point.
But he will not tell me I’m beautiful or pretty. I know I’m pretty. Not to toot my own horn or to come off as full of myself, but I’m also a model. I get compliments from random people almost every time I go out or during photo shoots but at the end of the day, I DO NOT care. I want to hear those things from him. I’ve told him countless times how it makes me feel and how it bothers me that he doesn’t. He just tells me that he thinks I’m pretty and hot. He’ll say it for a couple of days after I bring it up but then he stops all together. And when he says it, it feels forced. Sometimes I wear necklaces and whenever I don’t wear the necklace he bought for me, he questions why I didn’t wear that day. Today, I wore the necklace he gave me for a whole day and he didn’t even notice it.
And yes, I tell him he’s handsome and he’s cute. I compliment his butt and his muscles and the way his hair curls but he just doesn’t do that with me. Yes, he grabs my butt, he loves to touch me sexually and non sexually. We have great communication. When we’re meeting new people, he can’t wait to tell them about the commercials or photo shoots I’ve done. He even framed a photo of me from a photo shoot and set it up in our living room.
I know that these are his ways of showing that he loves me and he’s proud to have me as his girlfriend. I know that people are going to say that I’m ungrateful and probably say I’m selfish or stupid for wanting to hear compliments but it’s what I want. Ya know?
It’s the one thing that frustrates me because I’ve heard him talk about places we go to and it’s so easy for him to say “wow this place is so beautiful” or “whoa, this painting is so amazing or pretty.” sometimes it just makes me sad that it doesn’t come naturally for him to say that about me. Sure , maybe it’s my ego but is it egotistical of me to want to hear compliments from the guy I love? I’m not asking for every day compliments but once in a while would be nice to hear.
Sorry for rantinf but it’s just how I feel and it’s how I’ve felt for the last couple of years.
What should I do?
Ewa
I might be wrong but it sound like you are looking for imperfections in your perfect relationship… or maybe it is not that perfect and it starts to bother you or maybe he called someone else pretty but not you?
If you know you are beautiful then why do you need him to tell you this, he obviously shows you he is attracted to you?Maddie
Have you discussed love languages? Sounds like you most value receiving words of affirmation, and he expresses himself differently.
Liz Lemon
First of all, there’s a world of difference between saying that a painting or place is beautiful, and a person is beautiful. I don’t understand why you’d feel slighted that he says a painting or a location is beautiful. Are you in competition with a painting or a place?
If you’re a model, obviously your appearance is important and you get a lot of attention paid to it. More than most people do. So you’re used to a certain level of attention, compliments, etc. Perhaps he doesn’t want you to feel objectified or that he’s only with you for your looks?
I don’t mean to offend with the following comment, but it’s just an observation of mine: My son is a college student and dated a girl who was a model, and she was quite insecure about her looks and needed constant validation. Objectively she was a beautiful girl but she was constantly fretting about her appearance and starved for compliments. I think the culture of modeling instills that insecurity in people because you’re constantly being judged and validated by your appearance. Just my two cents, I don’t know you personally so I have no idea if this applies to you.
Maddie’s point about love languages is spot on. You should look that up if you’re not familiar with it. It sounds like this guy is attentive and sweet and a good boyfriend, and I understand Ewa’s point that it sounds like you’re looking for problems, honestly. It’s not wrong to want to hear compliments from your boyfriend so I hope you don’t feel attacked by any of this. Maybe you can read about and talk about love languages with him, and help him understand your love language; and in return, you can accept him as he is, and appreciate all the nice things he’s done for you without obsessing over this one thing.
Padmini
Hi, Jackie,
I have earlier Coined the Saying: *It is a Husband’s Obligation to Tell His Wife all-the-Time that She is Beautiful!*
So I completely understand how you Feel! It is great that you yourself are secure about your AMAZING Physical-Appearance and have received fantastic Validation from Society through your Modeling-Career! I do Feel you that we really most need those closest to us to Validate us! :)
Some Guys are not organically the Type to Compliment their Significant-Other. I have Dated a Guy, who does not Compliment very often and a Guy, who is very Demonstrative. It did not work-out Romantically between the First Guy and me, but we are like Best-Friends now. So I have Advised him to Compliment the Girls he has been in Relationships with and Tell them that they are Beautiful. He has confided in me that he did not want to Spout-Out Compliments all-the-Time since he worries about coming-across as needy and scaring the Girl off.
As the Other Posters Reflect: There is the Possibility that your Modeling-Career has caused a bit more Need for Validation about your Physical-Appearance than the Generic-Girl has.
It may be a good idea for you and your Boyfriend to get Counseling to Tackle your Issues with your Selves and One-Another!
Good Luck!
Cheers,
Padmini.Eric CharlesKeymaster+1 on what others have said. Read the 5 Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman. Easy, quick read and it will shift your perspective in an essential way here.
I’ve had women try to force me to compliment them the way they want to be complimented and, speaking as a guy here, it just feels all sorts of wrong.
To me, I don’t want to feel like saying empty or unnatural words in a relationship. I want to be in the flow with them, naturally.
I often like to point out how “natural” and “effortless” we are with our best friends.
Love relationships are not the same as best friendships, so that’s not what I’m saying here. I’m pointing out how natural and effortless they are.
With your best friends, you know how they are and they know how you are.
You know how they compliment someone, you know how they express themselves (positively or negatively), you know what they like and don’t like.
And that’s part of your friendship… you know them, they know you and you appreciate each other. You appreciate how they show their love, how they express themselves, how they are.
An essential part of that appreciation is accepting them and understanding them as they are.
That said, again, you definitely want to read Gary Chapman’s 5 Love Languages because he makes this point (about how to communicate love in a relationship) better than anyone on the planet.
M
Hey Jackie,
I feel your pain! Totally sucks that the thing you want to and need to hear, you’re not getting (despite all the other great stuff – and of course we still want all of that to continue!!!).As with the great advice above, the first thing that jumped out at me as I read your post is that it sounds like your love languages are mismatched.
As above, I highly recommend you read Gary Chapman’s book. It’s simply brilliant.
When you know someone’s Love Language it’s like suddenly you can solve all kinds of problems easily that just were so darn frustrating and impossible seeming before. I swear, it’s like suddenly you realise they’ve been communicating with you in this secret language all along and you just didn’t realise it before!
And when you communicate back with them in their secret language (that even they don’t know exists!) it’s like you flick a magic switch and the love gates just open and they become like jelly in your hands.
So why am I telling you this, when he’s the one not speaking your love language? Because my dear now you’ve been alerted to the existence of love languages, you hold all the power in your hands!
Here’s a challenge for you Jackie, read the book, discover what his love language is, then use it consistently over the next week to communicate your love for him.
And then let’s see how he responds.
Although you’re only one half of the equation in the relationship, you hold more power than you realise. Learn his language, use it and lets see how that inspires him….
By the way, I know how it feels to not have the persons whose opinion matters to you more than anyone else, not say what you want and need to hear.
And yet, it occurs to me that there’s also something else here that you may want to look at. Things really started changing for me once I started working on my own self-esteem. You may find that this is true for you too, once you start working on being the kind of person that you deeply deeply admire and respect yourself, everyone else’s opinion or non-opinion will fall away. True beauty is not how you look – it’s who you are Jackie…
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