As the title says pretty much. My partner complains about a lot of his coworkers, but I noticed he complains more about one girl in particular. Shes the typical "Instagram baddie" type, very much heavy makeup, fillers and "provocative" clothes. My partner has always claimed to hate that type of aesthetic, I generally believed him because I had no reason not to, we had been friends for years before dating so I knew some of his exes, none of them were the baddie type. Despite this, I always felt some suspicion when he complained about her, I guess a girl can always tell when theres some attraction.
Well my suspicions were confirmed yesterday by him. I showed him a tiktok of a girl making fun of "slutty" halloween costumes, which caused him to mention this coworker and how shes the type to wear a costume like that, suddenly totally unprompted he just says "the worst part is I was totally attracted to her when I first started working here". It felt like an immediate gut punch. For some context Im a pretty jealous person, its something Ive worked hard on but of course it can never fully go away. I was cheated on badly in my last relationship which left me with a lot of insecurities, as I said its something Im constantly working on. He knows this, he knows it hurts me to hear stuff like that so for him to just tell me that unprovoked pissed me off a lot. Ive always been open about the fact that Im not a "chill gf", I know its human and natural to find other people attractive, I just dont need to hear about it.
Not only that but it reopened some old wounds and confirmed some patterns I had started noticing. About 2 years ago we got into a pretty bad fight, we went to a party where there was a really drunk girl being pretty disruptive, apparently she was a friend of a friend of his. He spent a good amount of time complaining about her, saying how he cant stand her, that he doesnt understand why his friend is friends with her, etc. Well after a couple of drinks he ended up confessing that they had hooked up before. It was one of the only fights weve had and we managed to work it out, but his confession yesterday just brought up that old fight.
What really pisses me off is his hypocrisy. Were both pretty alternative people who are into natural things and not really materialistic at all. He claims he despises filler, always says he doesnt like tight clothes, encourages me to wear more loose, flowy long skirts and dresses, always encourages me to wear less makeup, claims to like "natural" women, only to end up lusting after what he claims to hate. I mean this coworker is quite literally as far from natural as you can be, from colored contacts to wigs to extremely filled lips (no shade to her, shes gorgeous). After he said that comment I ended up leaving almost immediately. It hurt to hear him say that I just started packing my things while telling him he seriously needs to reflect on the way he projects his lust as anger towards some women. He obviously realized he fucked up and immediately started apologizing, saying "i dont know why I just said that", he started explaining how he was initially attracted to her but it immediately died when he saw how "materialistic" and "superficial" she was which just pissed me off more so I left.
Later that day he sent me a pretty long text apologizing, saying he was stupid for saying that, he wasn't thinking and that its never his intention to use my insecurities to make me feel bad. He says he found some truth in what I said about his perception of women, and that hes gonna do some serious reflecting. Thats about it, I dont think this is something worth breaking up over, but Im still annoyed and Im growing increasingly more insecure, I mean I look nothing like those types of girls. I guess overall Im disappointed in him, I thought he was a different type of man, i hate to say it but I think this has made me lose a little bit of respect for him. Madonna/whore complex is such a simple minded way of looking at women, Ive never known him to be a sexist man so to see that these behaviors are still ingrained in him is just so disappointing. How do we move forward from this? Have any of you had experience dating a man with this complex? can it even be fixed? Also any tips for controlling the insecurity would be appreciated, Im currently trying not to spiral with thoughts that he might just be settling for me while secretly wanting women that he could never get.
TLDR: My boyfriend has a madonna/whore complex.