Is this ever a real excuse, outside of cheesy romance novels? Can you really, really love someone yet push them away because you sincerely feel that they deserve better than you?
I’ve only ever been on the receiving end of that line, and my advice after long experience is: Don’t ever argue with them. Just say your goodbyes and move on.
In my experience, and that of other people I know, it really means, “This is what I’m telling you because I don’t want to make the effort not to be a dick.”
I can’t imagine a real scenario wherein people reject something that’s better than they deserve. Seems to me that’s called luck. And you run with it.
It’s a test. The other person wants you to reassure them that they’re worthy. That’s a bottomless pit and the person hearing it should move on. It may not be objectively true that the other person isn’t worthy, but if that’s the person’s belief then they will act accordingly. If they don’t believe it but are just fishing for a reaction, then they need to grow up.
I’ve certainly heard (and said) this line, but it was never in a ‘go find something better’ scenario. I think for both of us, it prompted us to become better people for the sake of each other. I didn’t want to push him away because he deserved better–I wanted to become what he deserved.
I think it can be a real excuse. If you love someone, you want them to be happy. If you hurt everything you touch, what is the right thing to do?
This sounds like a depressing topic for a cheesy romance novel. Don’t they usually involve passionate liaisons between people named Bryce and Chastity; torrid encounters in elevators, stables, the boat house, etc.?
I presume that when someone says “You deserve better than me” in a cheesy romance novel, it’s a given that the other person eventually proves them wrong. I therefore suspect that cheesy romance novels may be a poor guide for how this situation plays out in real life.
I said that to someone once, long ago. What was really going on was that I liked her way too much and felt like I was losing her, so I just ended it.
I don’t know from romance novels, and I’m married, not dating, but it (the statement, not the supposed motivation–I don’t agree that that is the sole motivation for saying this statement) makes sense to me.
I have said those exact words to my husband–it doesn’t stem (for me) from some noble impulse to sacrifice A Great Love; it comes from a realization that several, if not many, essential incompatibilities exist. We both deserve better than what we have. When it comes to non-marital relations… It sounds like a kiss off line.
(I guess I’m cheesy: cheddar or jarlsberg?) 
But you said something, not someone. And you turned around the deserving in the OP: you went from “You deserve better” to “This is better than what I deserve.” What if it isn’t all about me? I can certainly imagine real scenarios wherein people give something up that they want in the interest of furthering someone else’s happiness or well-being.
“You deserve better than me” can mean “I have self-esteem issues and can’t think of myself as worthy.” Or it can mean “This is the nicest way I can think of to tell you to get lost.” Or it can truly and sincerely mean exactly what it says.
This is like telling your boss he pays you too much. You’d have to have the conscience of a Ned Flanders.
Somebody who says “you deserve better than me” might have, I think, an inferiority complex.
I completely agree with this. Men seem to do this more than women. It is such bullshit.
And yes, if I am dating someone way out of my league I stay with her as long as possible. 
I don’t know. I have huge issues about dating. I seem fairly normal at first but there’s got to be a reason I’ve hit 40 unattached, right? I feel like if someone’s looking for a normal relationship, they’re not going to be happy with me. and maybe they should look somewhere else. And if I like them, I want them to be happy. I’ve never actually said the line but it’s kinda one of my sub conscious operating principles.
I interpret it to mean “I am not ready to get my act together and start treating you any better than I’ve treated you so far.” With a 90% chance of “even if you don’t know about it yet, I’ve already been cheating on you.”
I think Harriet the Spry summed it up pretty well. Although I might peg the chance of cheating higher.
Even if I honestly thought she deserved better than the way I’d been acting, if I liked her and she liked me, I would take that as a sign to work hard, get my life in order and become the guy she deserves, not to break up with her over it.
Even if I did decide to end the relationship over something like this, I wouldn’t tell her that. I would just say something general like “I’m sorry, but I don’t think this is working out. We’re just not a match.”
Like the others said, he’s either testing you, trying to weasel, or actually suffering from very low self-esteem. Whatever it is, you’re better off without him.
Bingo. If you really love someone, you want to *be * better for them.
“You deserve better than me” really means “You deserve better than I’m willing to give you” which really means “I don’t love you enough to make the effort”. And in my opinon, *why * that is the case doesn’t really matter.
If someone says it to you, take him at his word and walk away.
I’d like to offer a dissenting view. But first a story.
On Valentine’s Day 1994, my high school girlfriend and baby-mama left me. Left quite embittered by this break-up, I made a deliberate, evil choice that, since being a nice guy had gotten me mostly walked over, I would be a complete and utter asshole to the next woman I got involved with, whoever she might be. And so I was. I went into relationships with the express aim of doing as much psychic damage to the woman as possible, of causing her as much long-term pain as possible, because I felt betrayed and wanted to spread the misery. So I’d lie, and cheat, and manipulate; I’d do anything that wasn’t outright criminal (because I didn’t want to go to jail), and I sought out women who were needy and self-loathing enough to put up with that crap. I was good at finding them.
Anyway, this went on for a while. Then I met Lynn, who came from an extremely conservative background and was trying very hard not to be a lesbian. We got involved and eventually moved into together. As you might guess, it was a festival of emotional and verbal abuse that involved her doing a lot of things she didn’t want to because she was terrified I would leave her.
Something strange happened in the course of this. Because, while Lynn was in many ways unwell, she was GOOD in many ways: compassionate, funny, multi-skilled, beautiful. I became more and more aware of what a great person she was when we lived together, and I stopped seeing her as pinata. I fell in love with her, which involved hating myself (or, more accurately, realizing that I hated myself) because of the cruel things I was doing to her. When she eventually got healthy enough to decide to leave me, I was relieved.
Fast forward a few years to a bad winter in Lynn’s life. Her mother got extremely ill and died in a very brief span of time, and that death was torturous. At the same time she had some financial troubles, and was being criticized by her family for being a lesbian–because of course it was better that she be with a serially unfaithful, blatantly manipulative, emotionally abuse guy than any woman. This pressure drove off her girlfriend. I saw her during this time, because we had, improbably enough, maintained a friendship through all my crap, because she never stopped believing that there was a good guy underneath my crap. One night, in despair, she asked me if maybe we should get back together, even if just for one night.
I was enough of a non-asshole to see that this would lead us both back down dark paths: her into putting up with endless shit in the name of love, me of dispensing endless shit because I got my rocks off when she was crying. So I managed to say, “No. You deserve way better than me.”
So, in conclusion: 99.999% of the time, the line is just an excuse. But once a century it’s the truth.
I think it’s more “You deserve better than I am able to give you”. This is part of the whole selfish/unselfish relationship issues I don’t totally get. If you’re looking for someone to fit you, why should you have to change who you are for the other person?
Although I don’t disagree about the walking away part.
I think that “able” often serves as a euphemism for “willing”. When it comes to a relationship, I’m *able * to do anything I choose, except for love someone I don’t love. And if I don’t love you enough, the fact that I’m *able * to offer a commitment, doesn’t change the fact that I’m not *willing * to.
You *shouldn’t * have to change for someone. But to make any relationship work, you have to be honest with each other and agreed on the terms. If you can’t agree on the terms, that doesn’t make either of you a bad person, so the correct analysis is not “you deserve *better * than me”, it’s “you want, and as such deserve, *different * than me”.
That’s how mature, honest adults handle this stuff. Someone who says “You deserve better than me” and continues to stand there is putting the decision to end it on you. If you let them, they’ll stick around long enough to prove it to you.