Perhaps we should consider that both things can be true: she intended the compliment of “I am sexually AND emotionally to you to such a great degree that I want nothing less than marriage”; and his reaction was valid because he perceived the meaning as “I’m settling for you”.
We don’t know how this miscommunication happened. She could have phrased it poorly or said it in a weird tone. He could have misheard. He could have a ton of pre-existing conditioning and pressures that led him to place her comment in a social context that she doesn’t share.
Neither of them have to be in the wrong here. Both of them should do the work and try to understand each other better.
i'm not male or insecure but i can definitely see how this compliment might come across as her telling him he's not hot/she isn't crazy about his looks or his personality, but that he's "a good guy" and "marriage material"- which yes, those are also compliments, but in this context could be taken as backhanded. i feel like maybe she should have just said something else. i also feel like acting like men aren't allowed to have feelings or insecurities or be upset is absurd.
Can't really judge neither of them based on this text alone, not enough information, we don't know the tone of how she said it, their relationship in the 2.5 years and their lives before, we don't know these people's faces or names or even if they broke up yet or got over it, if it's an insult or a compliment depends on their life. He could've been insecure about his looks and was bullied because of it throughout his life, or he could be a manipulative person with crocodile tears, and maybe this is all an AI reddit bot posting something controversial for Karma, we can't really judge much.
You'd have to be incredibly obtuse to see such a thing as a compliment. It sounds backhanded and almost like she's negging him. Like you'd have to consider men as emotionless robots with no deeper feelings or thought to see this as compliment. Oh wait, that's how society sees men! And you'd have to know nothing about male gender roles and expectations to not see how this could be insulting. Imagine wanting to spend the rest of life with someone (in this case a man), and knowing this little about their gender identity. And I say this as someone that's dated men. I don't know, maybe this is all incredibly obvious to me as a man or something, because I cannot see how that would be a compliment.
There's a little undercurrent here of "Toughen up, men" you obviously misinterpreted this and you're a little baby for being upset. Sorry, but that's the same toxic masculinity bullshit that everyone decries in the abstract.
If they've been together almost 3 years and this is his response to something as innocuous as "I take this relationship seriously" she dodged a bullet.
Beyond not being able to truly judge a situation based on so little information, this is the single post of a throwaway account which then made no edits to the post or replies to any of the comments. Maybe it's just me, but I always assume these cases are someone trying their writing skills or something of the sort.
Yeah, it's an overreaction to be sure, but I'm not sure I'd like hearing, "I wouldn't give you a second glance if I saw you in the wild" either. Could be they were already going through some stuff and that was the final straw.
Men are silly and stupid for never opening up or having feelings or being hurt or sad.
Look at this dude being sad because his partner said something hurtful. Dude should just toughen up! She obviously didn't mean it that way, he's just a big baby.
this is what happens when your dominant gender-class predicates their self worth on "owning" others through sex instead of viewing it as a fun thing you can do
This is only an insult if you assume that married people don’t wanna fuck each other, which is statistically untrue. Patriarchal relationship expectations are a fuck.
Edit: I guess it only works as an intended compliment if fwb and hookups are lesser relationships than marriage or stepping stones to marriage. Patriarchy just sucks.
Edit 2: Some people in this comment section really need to learn about the dual attraction model.
This is what the manosphere chuds call "alpha fux, beta bux". They believe that when women are in early adulthood, they take advantage of their high sexual market value to go around riding the "cock carousel" - that is fucking many alpha chads. However, as women approach their 30s and beyond, their sexual market value diminishes significantly. As this happens, the alphas lose interest in her as a piece of meat, choosing younger and more nubile women as their source of poontang. This leads the woman into a crisis, as she can't get by from chad (because, you know, women don't actually work in the eyes of incels). Her biological clock is also ticking, as she knows that her window of fertility is reaching its end. Because of this, she goes for the only choice left to her - settle down with a beta so she can have stability and fulfill her biological imperative. Betas, low SMV soyboys that they are, leap at the opportunity to accept the woman since they can't get any puss otherwise. This leads to a marriage where the only sex the beta gets is infrequent and unentusiastic as the woman mooches off of his stable income to survive.
Maybe it's cause I'm an enby with the tizzy but I don't see how someone wanting to be with you long term is an insult? When did she ever say he wasn't attractive lol?