Search Results: first thing that turns you on

My (30F) guy (50M) and I have been together for close to 8 years now. He catfished me into thinking he was younger but because we mentally connected first, I overlooked the age gap. In recent years, things have taken a bad turn. I don’t know if it’s because he is dealing with the loss of his dad or learning how to be a caretaker to his 88 year old mom but he snaps very quickly lately.

We are long distance and fight a lot more than normal and because he is my first experience, I am unsure what is normal and not okay. When he gets mad or jealous, he says horrible things — he has called me things like slut, whore, stupid bitch, etc. Recently, he has been mad about how I financially support my family who he considers freeloaders. I have never asked him for any money but he doesn’t want me to spend mine on them either. He has also critiqued my weight in the past and made comments about stretch marks and said I need to look better and at my age he was very good looking.

It’s hard because I do work on myself and I’ve never commented on how he looks even though he is balding (understandable at his age and not an issue for me) and not exactly in great shape. He is just very critical. But our most current fight relating to my family was the worst:

When he threatened to send XXX pics of me to my family, I freaked out and told my sister. He is mad that I went to my sister and “threw him under the bus” because those threats were between me and him. He called me useless and said he wishes he had used and disposed of me.

I told him I’m done with him but today he is acting like nothing happened. Is this all normal? Is this how couples fight or is this emotional abuse? He laughs and says I’m being dramatic when I bring this up.

1. We’re not talking about someone who is uninterested bc a lot of people just don’t have the guts to directly say NO. It sucks, but Fair enough.

2. There are indeed a lot of people who get off on mutually playing mind games with each other so we’re not discussing them either.

We’re discussing scenario # 3. Two people LIKE each other but one is being direct and the other refuses. Won’t or can’t, I don't know.

I think with most people without being a genius or even particularly clever, you can very easily infer that when a person is being open & honest & direct, they don’t want to play games & doing so will most likely turn them off towards the other person…

SO I have difficulty understanding in this instance, what the ‘other person’ finds advantageous about being secretive, and why they may insist on it. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I see it _alot_ in other pol as well I’ve experienced it first hand. I’ve never found any explanations after the fact - when they were offered- to really make sense, and they seemed more of an attempt at damage control than “ coming clean”

so I’m wondering if there’s some kind of unconscious work at play..

Assuming they are not jerks, Perhaps these people are simply not good at acting deliberately so even little things seem burdensome and they are reluctant to respond even if doing so could be beneficial, I don't know?