My Boyfriend Is Depressed Because I’m Smarter Than He Is

From a young woman in India:  I started dating a boy 4 months back .Everything was going well until recently he started feeling that I was smarter than him.This made him feel bad about himself and he pulled away at times due to this.

I realized after talking to him that being a former national level sportsman he has been this competitive with many people till date, that he cannot handle losing in any competition. But having that person with whom he is competing as a partner is putting him under lot of stress. He feels I am too good for him. He begins to overthink and overanalyze the situation if he loses somewhere and that ruins his day.

Even he realizes that breaking up is not the solution for us and that we need to solve this problem. But these thoughts of being not good enough disturbs him quite often.This somewhere moves his confidence in himself. This has begun to affect our relationship.

Yes. This will effect your relationship. There’s a limited amount you can do about it since the problem resides inside of him, not in you or your behavior.

There is, however, one thing you can do: Remind him that there are many kinds of intelligence. You may be smarter when it comes to, say, academic work. But he’s the national-level sportsman. That’s another kind of intelligence — one you don’t have. Both of you could look at whether you each need to fine tune your emotional intelligence as well. Are you each being sensitive enough to each other’s insecurities? Have you found ways to comfort and support each other when those insecurities happen?

A good relationship is one in which each partner’s contributions are recognized and valued both by themselves and by each other. When people bring different kinds of intelligence to the relationship, they can make a team that is stronger than either person is alone.

If this explanation doesn’t provide enough help, I do think your boyfriend has some personal internal work to do. He has his self-esteem too tied up with being the best at everything. He needs to learn to value himself and to trust others who value him. Therapy is one route to self-acceptance. If that’s not available, encourage him to read books (or watch videos) about how to improve his self-acceptance and self-esteem.

I wish you both well.

Dr. Marie

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