When it comes to dating and relationships, most women have to deal with "requests" from their partners to change a habit or personality trait to better suit their partner's needs ...because, you know, women need to adapt to other people's demands and be perfect all the time.
Well, Reddit user u/SputtleBug asked the question, "What is the most ridiculous thing a partner has asked you to change about yourself?"
And there were so many eye-rolling responses. Here are some of the answers below.
1. "To not have more tattoos than him at any point. So when I wanted my second and he only had the one, he expected me to wait until he got a second tattoo first."
"I'm guessing it had something to with his weird hang-up on masculinity. I didn't listen and got my second tattoo while we were dating. He didn't say or do anything about it."
2. "The amount of men who ask me to come off anti-depressants because 'Don't I make you happy enough without the pills?' Lord give me patience.
3. "My last partner tried to make me change my willingness to be cheated on. She thought I should be 'open to the idea.'"
4. "In high school, my then-boyfriend told me I wasn’t allowed to wear clothes from Forever 21 or Ross because those stores were 'ghetto' and he wanted me to wear Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister, and American Eagle Outfitters, as if I had the money. It took me a couple of years to realize what a fucking loser he was."
5. "I'm mixed: half-Indian and half-German, and he asked to suppress my Indian side and culture because he 'only dated me because at least I'm half."
6. "My Asperger’s — and he was a doctor, too. When we started dating, he was obsessed with how I was ‘the smartest person he’d ever met.’ Then he tried to get me off my meds because he didn’t believe in them and didn’t understand sensory meltdowns. When we broke up, he said, 'I tried to fix you, but I failed.’ LOL OK ‘doctor.’ Good luck with that cure for autism."
7. "How much time it took me to have an orgasm. Like as if it's in my control."
8. "He told me I had to become OK with him messing around with other women, and to be OK with my partners doing that in general, if we broke up. This was because I was never going to be validating enough to him or any other man so they would always need to seek it elsewhere."
"We are not together anymore. I’m plenty validating to any guy who isn’t a bottomless pit of insecurity." —u/SlippyNippyN00ps
9. "I had a partner ask me to gauge my ears so that I could 'fit his aesthetic more.' Safe to say that relationship was short lived."
10. "My boyfriend asked me to be more 'agreeable' and not to discuss feminist issues in his presence."
"This winner also told me I needed to lose about 40 pounds because 'women shouldn't weigh more than 120.' For context, I'm 5'9" and at the time was wearing a size 6. I hopped out of that relationship pretty quick." —u/lost_throwaway_3326
11. "He wanted me to be shorter. I'm 5'1''. He literally wanted me to hunch my shoulders and only wear fucking flats all the time. He was 5'3'' and insecure."
12. "My former spouse asked me to move my period because it fell on his three-day weekend, and he refused to have sex with me when I was 'broken.' So that was a real bummer for him."
"I suggested that he ask one of the other guys to swap days with him but he wouldn't even ask, and I suspect it's because he knew no one liked him enough." —u/tooterfish80
13. "My college boyfriend said I could 'stand to lose a few.' I wish he could see me now — I am so much fatter LOL. No, but really, I looked great, and he was a dweeb."
14. "My whole personality. This dude (admittedly, he was very shallow-looking back then, but I was so naive) told me straight-up that I was cute but I’d be better off without the personality because 'it’s a bit much.' He didn’t like that I liked to laugh and joke around and such. He basically wanted me to just become an accessory."
"'Shut up and look pretty.' Yeah, nah, I got the fuck out of there." —u/hauntedmilktea
15. "He wanted me to get bigger boobs. I’m happy with my B cup thank you, asshole. I dumped his ass."
17. "I got a tattoo of a keyhole on my chest above my heart and dude flipped out about it and cried. HE CRIED. I don't even remember why he was crying. He really didn't like the fact that I put more ink on myself."
18. "He wanted me to distance myself from my family mainly because he wasn't close to his family and didn't have that kind of support. He picked me up on Thanksgiving to have lunch with his mom. He promised we'd go together to my family's Thanksgiving for dinner. Evening rolled around and he proclaimed he was too tired to go and refused to drive me the whole 25 minutes to my grandpa's house. When I didn't show up, my family freaked out and my siblings came to get me."
"My brother asked my boyfriend what happened, and he couldn't come up with an answer other than that he was tired. Later, he posted online and my brother tried to fight him. I dumped him that night! I would have left him sooner, but I was young and dumb!" —u/wandwish
19. "My ex told me I needed to start pretending I didn't understand things even when I did, because "Men like explaining things to women."
20. "My partner would say, 'You're too nice, you need to stop that' every time I gave money or food to a panhandler or charity, any time I expressed compassion for someone who wasn't him, and especially when we were watching George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq and I was horrified at all the Iraqis dying."
"Fuck you, Mike, the struggle is real. I'm gonna be nice to as many people as I can because none of us decided to be here." —u/insertcaffeine
21. "They wanted me to be the person I was before my best friend unexpectedly died."
22. "He thought my laugh could be more 'ladylike,' because as long as I had a witch cackle, he wouldn't 'be able to take me anywhere high-class.'"
"He was flat-out broke at the time, and I was paying for everything. I also sound different depending on how hard I'm laughing, so it's not like I had to break out the witch laugh at all these imaginary restaurants and balls we were totally going to attend. It didn't matter, he wanted me to train myself out of it anyway." —u/mylatestphase
23. "I dated a girl who wanted me to be 'more masculine' because she thought I looked more attractive that way. I got rid of her. I then dated a trans man who wanted me to be 'more feminine.' I got rid of him, too. I’m non-binary and how I choose to dress is for me and not them."
24. "My ex told me I was 'too anxious and depressed,' and I just needed to be 'happy.' LOL I was on birth control for him, too (he refused to wear a condom, which caused a lot of these mental health issues)."
"After breaking up with him, I got off the Pill and the lack of his presence in my life made me significantly happier. Also, he told me I couldn’t take a joke even though his 'jokes' involved degrading and humiliating me in front of his friends." —u/lunarhoe411
25. "He asked me to pretend I wasn’t in pain when I was. I have endometriosis, and if I’m dating you, you will have an up-close-and-personal seat into the life of someone with a chronic pain condition. So when my ex-fiancé got 'fed up' with me 'being sick all the time,' I told him I can’t act healthy all the time when I’m sometimes in debilitating pain. And he said, 'Can’t you fake it?'”
26. "My ex said I used 'too many big words,' and he just wanted to be able to 'relax' more. He criticized my TV and movie preferences as being too 'cerebral.' Also, he told me I was too 'analytical' in how I liked to solve problems."
"Now I have an MA and JD, and married a tech millionaire with a PhD in theoretical physics, so it looks like my preference for cerebral entertainment and big words paid off." —u/FuzzyJury