Confidence

Girls this has been going on for months but it’s until recently I start realising the negative impacts on my own self-esteem.

Basically my bf isn’t confident about himself and due to an incident half year ago he started getting possessive over what I wear.

For many years I love dressing up and looking good on the street makes me feel comfortable, good mood and confident. My bf on the other hand is so worried about me getting looked at by other guys. whatever bottom I wear, he keeps checking, touching and making sure my butt won’t show. He had forbidden me from wearing a pair of hollister shorts regardless how much I loved it bc it ‘showed’ my butt (which really doesn’t, trust me) I listened and started buying more and more long pants and skirts, I don’t even get shorts these days apart from bicycle yoga shorts.

For the top, I have loved wearing tank tops and crop tops for all my fucking life, however my bf stated a hell lot of times he hates revealing clothes and said he doesn’t find anything attractive by those clothes and ask me to get a jacket every time I have tank top on.

It’s fine if he said it once, I get his concerns, but the thing is regardless me telling him to stop reminding me and that I’ve been avoiding doing what he hates, he keeps asking me not to wear revealing every single day, and check my bottoms on the street every single day. These on one hand makes me really uncomfortable( I told him but he didnt listen) and on the other hand really annoying.

The above have been ongoing for months, but recently I found myself getting really sad and jealous when I see couples on the street whose gf are happily wearing shorts and seeing girls in campus dressing up how they wanted. When I point to my bf that his female frd’s skirt is even shorter than mine, he said ‘she’s not my gf why tf would I care’, it honestly hurts so much bc I realised how unfair it is to not be able to wear clothes that makes me feels good, but he’s surrounded by other girls who literally may be more revealing and prettier than me. When I look at myself I honestly think that I look so shitty, I figured I’ve lost this basic freedom of looking good in front of others. One more point to note, my bf said a lot of times he hates the word ‘sexy’, calling others hot and shit, which in turn affected me in a way that now I’m afraid to think myself as sexy, and afraid to buy clothes that may relate to being ‘hot’ even though I might really want them. Sometimes I ask my bf if I look pretty tdy cuz I genuinely like that outfit, but the response I get every time is of course, but I don’t like that it’s short, it’s not a tshirt blah blah blah.

What i said might sound ridiculously childish in your eyes, but I saw a quote online saying ‘you just gotta show off your body’, and that hits me so hard, I had been holding on to that for years which was the reason why I am confident walking on the street, it’s not like you have to show urself sexually to males, but it’s a way to express your personality and you as a whole. I think that i’ve lost myself and lost my confidence for the sake of my boyfriend’s own self esteem and comfort. Fashion is a big part of me, and to all you girls out there I’m sure, do you girls think I’m just overreacting? What should I do?:(