As any woman who's spent time travelling up and down the romantic highway will tell you, there can be another side to love. Forget the popular image of the Mr Rochester type whose remote appeal is brought to heel by the love of a good woman, these men are of a different kind. You might not be familiar with the name, but we all know the type: the self-esteem snatcher (or SES) is the kind of man who will tell you you're the only girl in the world for him, only to discover some time later – and be more than happy to share that knowledge – that you don't meet his high standards after all.
The case study
Take my friend Mary. She thought she'd met her Perfect Man in Ben: he was handsome, successful (something unfathomable in the City with a very big bonus) and, best of all, seemed utterly devoted to her. He wooed her with poetry (or rather Snow Patrol lyrics) in long, lovingly crafted emails and was as happy to open up about his past as he was to talk about their future. They moved in together within weeks of their first date and for the first few months things were great. Until one night when she accompanied Ben to a work function and, when someone asked her about her work, Ben had butted in and laughed that, 'She does something worthy but useless with goats and children.'
Mary was too shocked to respond. She was a charity fundraiser for an international health organisation, and very proud of her work. After they got home, she asked Ben what he'd meant and he laughed it off as a joke. She was mostly reassured, but not for long. He made a similar joke again in front of friends and told her to 'Stop over-reacting' when she pulled him up on it.
Around that time he also started criticising the clothes she wore (too tight) and the fact that she had short hair (too butch). Before long Mary was in thrall to the series of contradictory compliments (he still claimed to want to spend the rest of his life with her) and insults he was now regularly throwing at her, and she was confused and unsure of how to react.
The problem for Mary was that it was hard for her to pin down exactly what it was that he was doing wrong. The digs themselves were relatively minor. To pull him up on each and every one did indeed, as Ben was only too happy to point out, feel like an over-reaction. But this is the genius of the SES – making his victim doubt her reactions was one of the first steps in making her doubt herself.
The analysis
SES's are ultimately bullies – they may use a more subtle form of coercion to manipulate their targets but the end result is the same: they use torment to remain in control. And like all bullies your average SES is likely to be deeply insecure. The sad fact is that many of them will actually mean the good things they say. But as someone who ultimately distrusts their own judgements, who rarely lives up to the achingly high standards they set themselves, who perhaps can't believe their luck in landing such a great partner, they use insults to bring them back down to size and ultimately, they hope, make them stay. If your partner has a habit of making jokes at your expense in company, offers backhanded compliments that really aren't compliments at all ('Well, I suppose it's better than the dinner you cooked last week…') or is a master at administering the silent treatment to get you to do, say or behave in the manner he sees fit, then you have fallen under the dubious charms of the SES.
Women with an inbuilt tendency towards co-dependency in their relationships might well be tempted to believe they can help him to change, but really you'd be kidding yourself. The only person (aside from the SES himself) who might be able to kick-start a change would be the partner who'd refuse to give into his games from the get-go. But with so many women out there who are already predisposed to wearing their insecurities like blue touchpaper, why would your average SES bother with one of those?
The solution
The only solution, then, is to pull yourself up by your emotional bootstraps and get ready to kiss him goodbye once and for all. Never easy, especially when one of the raisons d'etre of the SES has been to undermine your confidence precisely to ensure you never have the courage to do such a thing.
Speak to your friends or family – anyone who genuinely has your best interests at heart. Chances are they'll have noticed the change in you and be rightly appalled by what's brought it about and will help give you the impetus to leave. If you're in deep (married, have children, just love him too much to let him go) you could try counselling with a good couples therapist, but if it's early days you would be better to just chalk this one up to experience and get out before your esteem is well and truly snatched.
It's hard to walk away from a relationship you're convinced could be perfect if it wasn't, you tell yourself, for just this one little thing. But, as the saying goes, from little acorns mighty oak trees grow. Let an SES find a way to chip away at your self-esteem and before you know it you won't have any left.
