**I am not The OOP, OOP is u/throwrafoxofmystery** **My (24f) boyfriend (29m) of 1.5 years is stealing my opinions and skills to look...
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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 on 2025-10-09 04:00:07+00:00.

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/throwrafoxofmystery

My (24f) boyfriend (29m) of 1.5 years is stealing my opinions and skills to look “cool”

Originally posted to r/relationship_advice

TRIGGER WARNING: Emotional abuse, gaslighting

MOOD SPOILER: Horrifying but ultimately positive

Original Post Sept 4, 2020

I know this sounds dramatic, but hear me out. (I’m trying to keep it from getting too long, so I put two main instances as examples…TL;DR)

I don’t think I would have really noticed it if we weren’t both working from home and living together, but my boyfriend CONSTANTLY copies things that I say and do, and repeats them to friends and coworkers as if they’re his own original ideas.

And it’s not just that he repeats them - but 99% of the time, he does it with things that when I say them, he argues with me about!

EXAMPLE 1: We watched a tv show on Netflix a couple months ago. I brought up that while I liked it, it had some pretty problematic stuff regarding the way it treated women, and LGBTQ+ women in particular (I’m bisexual). He really argued with me and wrote off the things I brought up, making excuses regarding “how Hollywood is” and saying I was “being too sensitive/overly critical”. The next day, I heard him in our living room talking to his friends on skype about it. He brought up my exact points, using my exact wording, as if it was his own idea. (“I enjoyed it, but I try to be sensitive about this issue and this was something I noticed”, that type of thing.) They praised him for his “progressive” thinking and it rubbed me the wrong way, but I tried to forget about it.

This sort of thing has happened over and over…like multiple times a week. Sometimes it’s movies, sometimes it’s a book I’m reading, sometimes it’s life advice regarding work…I started noticing it, and now I don’t think we’ve had a similar argument without him later repeating what I say to other people like it’s his idea.

Sometimes it has to do with things I know a lot about. For instance, very specific skills that I have but he doesn’t - he will talk to people as if HE has those skills and has done those things, when he’s talking about things he’s seen me do.

EXAMPLE 2: The last straw came when I made him a special dish that I love, and the recipe is one I developed over years. It’s very time consuming, but he loved it. He asked me to make more, and I did because I was pleased he liked it. I spent a whole afternoon doing it, and I made extra so that he could take some with him to a work meeting to share. He told me he would brag about what a talented girlfriend he had, and it made me feel really happy.

The day after, I heard him in a Zoom meeting with his coworkers, and they were all talking about how good this dish was. And they kept talking about how surprised they were he was such a good cook and how he’ll have to cook more for them. He was acting very “humble”, saying thank you and even mentioning ways he had “perfected” the recipe…and the only mention of other help was he offhandedly said that “a friend” had helped him with some of the prep work.

Later, I told him that I overheard him and what he had said. At first he got really defensive. He told me that he was “caught of guard” and that afterwards, he “came clean” to them, although I didn’t hear that part. I told him it made me feel bad, like I was unappreciated, and it took away things that I love and am proud of about myself. Then, he got upset and said that he just hates feeling like a failure or like he can’t do something, and he felt like a “terrible person” for hurting me. He apologized, but I felt like the conversation had kind of turned into one about HIM and his vulnerabilities, and no longer about how it has hurt me.

Now, I’ve heard him do similar things MULTIPLE times AGAIN. I feel like it’s ridiculous to bring it up again because it will start a fight that won’t mean anything, but it’s making me crazy!

Am I being too sensitive? Should I just let it go, or is it worth bringing it up again? And if so - how?

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Rosehip07

What I am wondering is why you want to be with someone who doesn’t have a single independent thought, who steals your identity, who disregards your feelings and accuses you of being too sensitive when he’s the one lying and presenting a false mask to the world?

The problem here isn’t your boyfriend. It’s why you’re willing to put with someone who clearly has some character issues. This is who he is. He has little regard for how you feel about any of this. He’s unlikely to change.

OOP

I didn’t really realize all of this was happening until recently. It’s making me reevaluate other little things as well. Most of our time together, we’ve both been very independent and busy with our careers so we didn’t have many situations where I would have noticed that.

Then we moved in together and I lost my job (thanks Covid) a couple months ago, so I have more time to think and notice these things, and leaving is more complicated than it previously would have been. (I have very few connections near me and limited savings.)

But trust me, I’m not blind now.

~

Coollogin

I dated someone who did this sometimes. Not as much as your boyfriend, but that’s ok because he did other really shitty stuff. What it boiled down to for this guy was a couple of things. The biggest was that he was extremely passive-aggressive. Giving me credit for saying something smart was just out of the question for him. It would feel like he was letting me “win” because for him, every interaction was a win-lose scenario, and he hated to lose. The other, related reason he did it was that he didn’t want to reinforce in people’s minds the idea that I was his girlfriend.

caerdydd

Yeah, good point - why did he tell his coworkers “a friend” helped him with the recipe? Do they even know who he lives with?

OOP

I have been wondering that myself after reading these comments. He claims he talks about me and I know that his best friends and his family knows because I’ve hung out with them.

But I realize now I have no idea if his coworkers or other friends even know if I exist…or they do know I as a person exist, but they don’t know we’re anything other than roommates.

Update - rareddit Oct 11, 2020 (5 weeks later)

Long story long:

After reading all of your comments, I didn’t want to jump to conclusions based on things strangers on the internet said, but certain things really gave me pause. I realized that the problem was much bigger than the issue I had originally posted about… I had been writing off some things in my relationship that had already given me some concerns but I blamed on my anxiety or insecurity. I won’t go into them for sake of length. Things really began to click when I took peoples advice to look up “gaslighting” and narcissistic personality.

So, I began to take note of those small things, and also do a little digging. Mostly, I began to realize I was being gaslit (a term I didn’t understand before posting here) and lied to.

Biggest concern of all: I found out that he manipulated me and created a fake crisis that made me think my old living situation was in jeopardy - which was the reason I moved in with him. I can’t go into more details or someone will definitely identify me. But I had been unsure about moving in with him, and that crisis had pushed me over the edge, and I now realize it was how he controlled me and isolated me from my friends.

Suffice it to say, at that moment I was ready to leave. But now that I knew how far he would go, I was scared to break up with him until I had an escape plan. So I decided to write down everything that happened so I couldn’t be gaslit anymore. And as soon as I made that decision, it’s like things just fell into my lap.

-I found out that he was constantly looking up exes and girls he had met on dating apps in the past (many of whom were friends with me) on social media. He let me use his laptop, and I saw his Facebook search history. Some light digging revealed that he was receiving flirtatious messages from girls and while nothing overt happened, he definitely avoided mentioning he was in a relationship to them.

-I caught him texting the girl who he talked to before me (it ended badly) and trying to reconnect even though she didn’t want to…she told him to fuck off and ended up blocking him and even deleting most of her social media. I never found out why they didn’t work out, but I’m guessing he was an asshole.

  • And then, completely on accident, I was messaged by one of his female friends whom I had met a couple times. Turns out they had met on a dating app - and had gone on 3 dates while he and I were together early in our relationship. We compared texts and found evidence of him lying to both of us, and gaslighting me. There’s even a chain where I mention he is being cold t…

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/1o1w82p/my_24f_boyfriend_29m_of_15_years_is_stealing_my/

  • Spacehooks@reddthat.comMEnglish
    1·
    1 day ago

    And then, completely on accident, I was messaged by one of his female friends whom I had met a couple times. Turns out they had met on a dating app - and had gone on 3 dates while he and I were together early in our relationship. We compared texts and found evidence of him lying to both of us, and gaslighting me. There’s even a chain where I mention he is being cold to me & asking if something is wrong, and he convinces me that it was my “anxiety” making me “read too much into things again”…all while texting me from his date with her. -Even more small stuff I won’t go into. Yesterday, I found a temporary place to live. Today, I broke up with him after laying all of the shitty things he did out in front of him. He lied multiple times even during the conversation - he didn’t know I had receipts and proof, and boy did his tune change when I pulled that out.

    He tried to convince me that all of it meant nothing, and make me feel sorry for him by talking about his childhood and how he has insecurity issues, I told him that we all have issues and while that explains his behavior, it doesn’t excuse it. And he can’t use trauma as an excuse to traumatize others.

    I told him he can stay in our apartment but he can’t talk to me. I don’t want to interact with him and after we move I want him out of my life completely. I found a place to live although it’s smaller and farther from work, but I’ll do whatever it takes to get out. I can move in the first of November.

    —

    This has lowkey messed me up a bit…I never had trust issues before and I feel like I am completely doubting my own judgement. I was so sure of myself before. But I know once I’m out that things will be better, and I feel like there’s a weight off my shoulders. Although I admit I feel like a total idiot for not figuring things out sooner. I want to say thank you to everyone who commented and gave advice. You all helped open my eyes. This has been really crappy, but I know I’ve learned a lot and won’t make those same mistakes again.

    TL;DR: I finally broke up with my bf today after a month of making an escape plan…and finding out some pretty bad stuff about him, including lying, creating a fake crisis that forced me into his arms, and (sort of) cheating on me. I’m moving out at the end of this month.

    FINAL COMMENTS

    Jojolyon

    How can you have trust issues when you succeeded in identifying a narcissist/liar, learning about a way to manipulate you didn’t know about, gathering evidence, confronting the abuser and moving out safely???

    I understand why you feel bad about yourself, but you should reeeeeally think about the way you handled it so it didn’t end badly.

    OOP

    This honestly made me tear up. I didn’t think about it like this and it really did make me feel better. Thank you.

    ~

    moodyvee

    Wow this is insane. It’s so scary to think you don’t really know the person you are sharing a bed with.

    I’m so happy you were able to take a step back to see what was really happening. I hope you can heal from this awful relationship and forget about him.

    I would like to say I am so proud that you and the girl you interacted with in no way were rude to each other and knew that this was all his fault. Not everyone is mature enough to understand that so good on the both of you.

    And I would just like to draw attention to something you said. “He can’t use trauma as an excuse to traumatize others.” THIS, girl! Just because people have had it rough doesn’t give them license to be a shitty person and I’m so happy you didn’t let him guilt trip you, again.

    Wishing you all the best!

    OOP

    Thank you so much for your kind words! It truly means a lot.

    I’d like to give credit to the other girl as well! She messaged me to ask about something totally unrelated, and when she mentioned their history and I asked the timeline, I was honestly terrified of her reaction. But she was very kind and supportive and we exchanged numbers and worked the details out together. She had been cheated on before and gave me some really good advice and has been consistently kind. We currently text back and forth about unrelated things (usually our plant babies haha) and I couldn’t have asked for a better reaction from her.

    THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

    DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP’s OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7