I have been dating my boyfriend for 8 months now. Most aspects of our relationship have no problems. However I’ve been noticing little incidents that make me wonder if this would be considered abusive behavior. I will list a couple of things that I have taken more personally (but in which he said he referred to as “just playing with me and joking”)

1. Tonight we went to pick up food for dinner, we had just gotten in line to order (nobody else was there but the employee) and my boyfriend looks over at me and touches my cheek/Jawline, and said “this whole side of your face is breaking out. You need to do something about it like now!”

Another instance from last month or so was in the shower, I had makeup on from the day and my hair was in braids, and he says to “you look pretty today.” Then pauses for no more than a minute and says “why do you wear your hair in braids, you look like you’re 13.” — I just ignored him (even though I was slightly offended by it.) The incident was brought up a few days later because I told him I wanted to talk about things. I started off by asking if he has a problem with my appearance or if he doesn’t like things about me; his response was something like “babe, I love you and I was just messing with you. I don’t have a problem with the way you look and I wouldn’t be with you if I didn’t find you attractive. You gotta learn quit taking things so seriously and overthinking.”

Lastly, another time was when I was doing my makeup in the car... I finished putting my liquid foundation on and he says “you’re makeup looks good today” so I responded “what do you mean? This is how I always do it.” And he says “No, your face just gets patchy and flakey cuz you cake it on.” I said “no I don’t, my face just gets really dry sometimes.” And he then says to me “babe, you are the only girl I have seen who’s makeup gets all patchy and crusty around their zits.”

These were the main ones that stood out but sometimes it’s the same kind of stuff but worded into question form and sound something like - “why are you breaking out so badly?”

Anyway, as I said most of the time we get along perfectly fine.... the times we don’t are usually just when something like this happens and I get in a bad mood cuz I feel unappreciated or not good enough appearance wise. However it’s difficult to pinpoint what this behavior is because sometimes he does just compliment me by saying “you look sexy” or “you look pretty”..... any feedback would be appreciated.

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