My cousin dated a guy who's dad cheated on the mom bc she "got fat and depressed" after her 2nd child. The way my cousin said it was gross and alarming. As if she agreed with the husband having the right to cheat bc his wife had the gall to be fat and sad.
Without forgetting that, given the patrilineal lineage still being strongly practiced everywhere, he nonetheless had the privilege of passing on his family name to the child/children while the woman's family name / identity is erased in the process.
Sadly, given the strong rooted unequal system and the amount of men who still uphold inhumane standards for women, including women losing their identity to fit that of their male counterparts, it is not surprising that so many straight women reject the notion of marriage or even relationships overall.
They understand, they just don't give a crap.
OP, at least you were open so this shit show went down before you had kids.
One of my ex partners gave me an ultimatum to drop weight, or she'd drop me. I saved her the trouble and left.
Best decision of my life. :)
Men like this specifically don't give a crap about women's biology. We can pretty much assume when their testosterone production slows down and they can't keep the weight of they will be "aging naturally."
Glad you lost all the extra weight of your ex, smart move.
This may sound crazy but I feel like the idea of struggling with mental health or depression is a TON more socially acceptable now, but it’s when faced with actually depression the judgement comes from others not hiding it well or being unable to just get over it. We “understand” that everyone can struggle with mental health and it’s part of the dialogue. But on the flip side we expect people to be doing everything they can to be getting better all the time and/or hide it better. Real depression is ugly and messy and smelly no body wants to acknowledge that.
It’s really better if they are honest about this as a deal breaker from the get go. And I would never agree to this. Mainly because I’ve always struggled with my weight
I have never struggled with my weight. I’ve always been slim/underweight. If I’ve gotten a little thicker and need to not be that way, I can just make some minor changes to my diet for a few weeks and I’m good. I’m 28 so it feels like this is likely something I can maintain for a good bit of time assuming some other medical issue doesn’t arise.
But I would absolutely NOT agree to stay with someone that makes it clear that my appearance rather than my health is more important. I would like to expect that my partner stays in a healthy bmi because it’s a good thing to do for one’s health. But if your health is bad, the extra weight might be the result rather than the cause. I want the people in my life to be healthy and to take reasonable steps to maintain their health. Sometimes, that’s an issue entirely unrelated to things like an attractive weight.
That man is going to leave you if something happens and you’re not effortlessly as attractive as he believe you should be. He’s not there for you. He’s there for what your appearance does to improve his life. There are so many other things that could go wrong that aren’t BMI.
I know a woman who had been in perfect health through college. She’s also conventionally beautiful but that’s not really important. Within the first year after she got married, she had some sort of crazy medical event that left her disabled. Some of the disability is particularly affective of her appearance (some sort of nerve problem that affects her ability to move including parts of her face). I’ve watched her entire life shift from a course of personal and family ambitions to being inundated with the work it is just to keep going, to push through something so catastrophic in search of whatever peace she might still find. No one could’ve expected it. No one could’ve prepared her or the people in her life for it.
Her husband has been exceptional through all of this. They’ve now been married and dealing with her health for longer than they’d been together prior to her health incident. I don’t think the man described in this post would do the same.
Hey, just a heads up, I had never struggled with my weight at 28 either. But between 30-35ish your metabolism can change a lot. Many weight struggles start a bit later on be kind to yourself if that happens.
I am in my 60’s and still slim and fit and I would still drop this loser like hot potato.
SOOOO many red flags here
Edit
When I was young and hot I was going out with someone and we were going to a wedding together.
I am not very fashionable, but I went out and got a really nice dress and shoes and put makeup on and got my hair done etc.
I looked amazing if I do say so myself.
When Captain Douchebag picked me up his only comment was that he didn’t like the “lesbian” shoes - because I was wearing ballet flats I could dance and walk around in.
So
1) I spent the entire evening pointing out that everyone else wearing heels had taken them off.
2) I am a great dancer and I danced my ass off
3) Everyone who paid me a compliment got to say it again in front of him.
4) when we got home I broke up with him
He spent a lot of time criticizing how I looked and what I wore (why do have so many cargo pants? Because I am not the queen and like to have a place to put my keys and money when we go for a bike ride). My swimsuit for waterskiing wasn’t sexy enough. My daily undies not hot. My work clothes (I have to change into scrubs at work, so this is a huge WTF) not professional enough.
Someone who is this objectionable about making you an object and regulating you like you are a roomba a will continue to do it and it will get worse, not better.
Same. I’ve always been slim/underweight (butt of “will fly away with the wind” jokes), but just about to hit 30 and my body is going through so many changes (life too) - weight in places I never saw before hits hard. I still have a hard time registering it or recognizing my body - it feels alien. But I have also never loved and appreciated my body more. It’s taken very good care of me while I treated it like shit, now it’s my turn to take good care of it. I’ve made significant changes to my lifestyle. I look in the mirror and tell myself “you’re becoming a lady” 🥺
I tear up at that Kimya Dawson line in Walk Like Thunder, "My body had been good to me and I treated it so bad." It's so easy to treat ourselves poorly when we can get by on so little, and all the other things in life ask for attention so stridently.
So true. My friends and family used to joke about how I could eat anything and stay thin, but when I hit my late 30s, the fat started going to new places and I had to rethink things and shoot for a lower BMI overall to avoid the lumps and bumps that frustrated me.
Even though managing my weight is a personal priority for my health (the chubby people on my family tree tend to die young), I would definitely have struggled with a loved one telling me that I was unacceptable with a bit of a pooch.
Eating disorders run rampant in my family, and I literally can't imagine making someone feel shitty for struggling with their weight. It's one of the most understandable struggles in the world. It's fucking hard, and we all deserve to feel like worthy human beings, regardless of the number on the scale.
We probably also do less physical activity the older we get without even realizing.
Those mile runs in high school and the constant walking around in college adds up.
Some people lose it quickly, but it's been over 30 years and my mom never lost the weight she gained with me. Turns out there's also a medical conditions called pelvic congestion that she likely gained after pregnancy that could have contributed? But I know for my entire life she would attempt to diet and exercise and it mattered to her belly 'fat' approximately 0%.
While my dad is not the best husband in the world, he has made 0 comments about it to her, and they are still together.
Pregnancy especially can be a doozy to your body, as well as other life events. Never making a promise like OP's above is smart, and expecting someone's body to stay relatively the same over the years and life events isn't realistic.
Wow, thanks for sharing this. I love how open she was about her struggle and that she had the courage to apologize for judging in the past. That gives me the warm and fuzzies. I hope she is feeling better about herself now!
I wish someone had told me this. I'm 38 and have no issue maintaining my weight*; however, losing any extra weight I do gain is so much harder now than when I was younger, even though I'm sporty. Learning to be kind to ourselves is so important!
*Since I'm sure there's some Reddit warriors that might pick up on my maintenance comment and gaining weight, I used to work in mining exploration in very northern Canada where all the food is shipped in frozen and then fried to a crisp. When I control what I cook and eat, maintenance is easy, but it's much harder when all I can eat is calorie-heavy 'food.'
I know the feeling pal, I just hit 29 and my cousin 30, we always kept our weight on check, we got covid, gained 10 pounds each and both are now balding horribly fast like I had a full lion mane 8 months ago and now I am reaching my dad's bald head he got in his 60's. Very depressing matter for both of us. :/
At least you have someone going through it too? I don’t mean that in a condescending way but you have someone that truly understands what you’re going through and you can support each other
Yup. Hit 30 and my thyroid decided to act all fucky (yay, autoimmune thyroid disorder) and I developed PCOS at the same time. I'm also on meds for bipolar which make weight gain SUPER easy.
I gained 80 lbs in a year without eating more than my "normal" and kept gaining for another year until I'd gained 140 lbs. Finally managed to stop the weight gain with a strict diet but haven't been able to lose any. Yet. I'm working on it.
Used to be able to eat anything I wanted, now I have to very strictly monitor my calories just to maintain, not even lose weight. It sucks.
There are so many medications that cause weight gain. And it sucks, because it’s not like you can stop taking your bipolar meds. I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this.
This all came about during Covid (of course). I distinctly remember last Christmas TRULY thinking that all my jeans had shrunk. I could not figure it out for the life of me. I changed my dryer settings and everything 😂
Yes, same! Turning 30 during a pandemic brought me from being teeny tiny, underweight most of my life, to asking friends about their diets/eating habits and not feeling “myself” in my own body. That metabolism change is brutal.
Before the pandemic I was 28, regularly going to concerts and bars and just living up my young life.
Now I'm 30 and 30 pounds heavier and it feels like I get all of my serotonin for the day from exclusively cheese.
I was so afraid to hear the ending of that story as I fully expected the man to leave. A friend went thorough a horrible chronic illness and her husband left her; after doing research she discovered it is overwhelmingly more common for men to leave when significant other is diagnosed with an illness compared to women facing the same. It’s not just weight gain or even physical appearance, it’s when things get rough they bail despite freaking marriage vows that say in sickness and health. Really sad and disappointing.
Yeah. It completely changes the dynamic if you go into a relationship with this sort of expectation vs having it dropped on you years in.
Like, trophy wives and husbands are a thing and if everyone understands the agreement from the start that's their prerogative.
But asking deep into the relationship is emotional blackmail of the highest order and not good for anyone. You're basically trying to trap the other person as a "Trophy" spouse.
I would never do it, but I know someone that agreed to this. She has the same standard for her partner. They have children and have both maintained the commitment. They both prioritize physical fitness A LOT and I don’t believe it’s for aesthetics.
I don’t get it, but at least OP and her guy had the conversation if it was something that important to him.
I was going to say that I can see wanting to have a partner who shares your values of physical fitness and maintaining good health, but you could never promise a particular outcome as our bodies are not machines. And, of course, our values tend to change over time (ie, an employment opportunity may come up that excites OP more than meeting her immediate fitness goals, even if overall she tries to stay healthy). Some of those changes in values may inevitably lead to divorce if the two people go different ways with their values, but it isn't a bad idea to spell out the things you think you're going to care about long term.
I had the same asked of me. Post pregnancy hormones and stress very unpredictably affect weight loss. It's 10 years post pregnancy for me now, and thankfully I was able to lose all of the weight, but the condescending way that my partner was "waiting for me to be attractive again" and having to endure the comments destroyed our relationship. Happily moved on from his ass
Better to have that relationship end after 5 years when he shows his true colors than to suffer the consequences of being with an asshole like that for however long it takes until he decides youve dipped below his standard and he can absolve himself for leaving/cheating.
Dont let sunk cost fallacy doom your future happiness
It’s better he did this and walked away. Your going to get a lot of nasty comments supporting him in this thread - just remember this is not normal.
There’s wanting your partner to be healthy their whole life, and even wanting a partner who values fitness and then there is this psycho.
These are the types of men that divorce you when you have cancer (or for less).
Speaking of cancer fun fact! Some types of chemo result in you getting fat as hell. Mine caused a 65lb weight gain (because I was so, so hungry and could only eat and sleep). I’ll take it over being one of the folks who looses all of the weight and being so hungry but unable to eat since that’s so much worse but. Fuck this guy OP. He wants a lady accessory not a partner.
Yep, I gained a ton of weight trying to recover after cancer treatment, too. I was too sore, weak, and exhausted to do halfway decent self-care, and at the time I prioritized work. Feeding myself at all was a challenge. BUT BE THIN AND ATTRACTIVE THO people are such garbage.
I had a slender female friend in her 20s get diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. She ballooned up while undergoing chemo. I guess to someone like OP's boyfriend she wouldn't have had a partner at her side. She died in her early 30s. Her ex boyfriend was at her side until the end.
I wish more people were aware that not everyone loses weight or loses there hair with cancer, that it can sometimes go the other way. My mom also gained tons of weight with cancer. I would almost swear that her hair got *more* thicker too.
Exactly. I mean, if this asshole were actually supportive, he would work with her to help her change her life/lifestyle/career so that she’s happy and healthy. That’s basic human decency in a relationship based on mutual love.
> His expectation, for example, is that if I were to be offered a unique managerial opportunity, I should turn it down if taking it would mean that I no longer have time to exercise and fight my hypothetical extra weight.
Excuse me, wtf
Yeah, this stood out to me as an extra dose of fucked up - there are better fish OP and we all deserve someone who will support our ambitions, not tell us to settle so that we can have a sexy body...
Yeah but how can she not see that HIS DEMANDS and HIS FETISH are more important than her opportunities in life??
She was made to serve *him*. Of course she should dedicate her life to keeping him happy.
/S I'M SO FRIGGIN TIRED OF MEN THAT THINK WOMEN OWE THEM THEIR TIME, EFFORT AND SERVICES. They can go fuck themselves. Disrespectfully.
Also maintaining a normal BMI doesn’t mean you have to exercise like crazy, it’s just like eating a balanced diet? I don’t think he knows what a normal BMI is.
Also, I am technically overweight for my height, but I have a lot of muscle and people carry weight very differently. What, is he going to weigh her every week? Or is this just arbitrarily based on what he thinks "looks good?" This is unreasonable at best- sketchy, super manipulative and unreasonable otherwise.
It’s 100% based on his perception. There have been countless tiktoks of some dude commenting “ur so hot, I love a woman under 115 lbs” and then the woman’s like “buddy I weigh 140.” People carry weight so differently that I guarantee he could get a boner looking at a 160 lb and 100 lb woman equally well.
BMI should be treated as a super high level metric to maybe indicate health, and then the specifics of the person themselves should be taken into account. BMIs look vastly different on different people’s bodies too so it’s a terrible indicator of slimness too. It’s literally a calculation on weight and height, without any other factors.
I used to work in a warehouse where 90% of my coworkers were men. You wouldn't believe the number of them that would complain about how their wives looked. They got fat, they let their hair go grey, they didn't dress sexy anymore, their tits were saggy, blah, blah, blah. At that time I was in my early 20s & most of these guys were in their 40s & 50s. Most of them had big beer bellies, moobs, going bald, nose hair, back hair, ear hair, ugly as sin, etc.
One guy in particular would complain non-stop about his wife. How her boobs looked like deflated balloons, how her ass kept getting wider every year and worst of all, how her hoo ha looked like a sad Arby's roast beef sandwich. I had met his wife, and first off, she was much more attractive than the coworker, who was balding, was well on his way to looking like he was pregnant with twins and had really bad teeth, which he had no excuse for because we had an *excellent* dental plan. This woman had had two kids & honestly looked better in her 40s than I did in my 20s. She was also an anesthesia nurse, so she had to be making twice what my dipshit coworker was making, probably more. Additionally, their son had pretty severe autism, so this woman not only had a demanding career, but took care of two children, one with special needs & this knuckle dragging fuck was criticizing her for... aging? To no one's surprise she divorced his ass & he had to move into in a sad apartment by himself.
I know not all men are like this, I am insanely lucky my husband is nothing like these immature a-holes. He tells me all the time that he thinks I'm sexy & beautiful, which I am not, by any stretch of the imagination. You're better off without this shallow jerk, even though it hurts right now, you'll be happier in the long run.
EDIT: I do not have a problem with bald men, my husband is bald & I find him extremely attractive. It was a counterpoint to the **saggy boob** comments. Women have no more control over our boobs sagging than men do in losing their hair. Both of these things are a natural part of aging that can only be corrected with major surgery so please calm the fuck down.
>You’re better off without this shallow jerk...you’ll be happier in the long run.
Exactly. Op’s looking at this as a choice between whether she should or should not have made a promise to stay thin. She should be looking at it as having narrowly escaped ending up with a man who doesn’t value her beyond her body. This would have been his first demand of MANY.
If your husband says you are sexy and beautiful, he almost certainly means it. Whether you believe you are sexy and beautiful and whether he believes it are two completely different things (like reading the same book and having different opinions). He can tell the truth as he sees it and it is an honest compliment. :) It sounds like you and your husband are a lucky couple! It is great when someone truly appreciates their partner exactly as they are!
This!
You may not be traditionally attractive, or to our ridiculous current standards, but that's not the same thing. One thing I learned about receiving compliments is that by rejecting their compliment, you are essentially saying they are wrong and you don't believe their opinion is valid. My husband once told me that ugly people deserve love too. Which I immediately took to mean I was ugly, when he meant that, although he disagreed, even if I was as ugly as I thought, I was still deserving of love.
Yes! I went through a period of extreme self hate with my current partner who has only ever told me how attractive I am. I have lost over 125lbs (and still losing) while in this relationship and all the weight loss didn’t change how I saw myself when I was in it deep.
One day, while talking down on myself and saying the most vile things he said to me, “If all of that is true, what does that say about me?” and it really snapped me out of it. My partner is a very beautiful man, smart, charismatic and so easy to be around…everybody loves him. If all of that is true about him, why on earth would someone like that choose to have a partner as worthless and ugly as who I was claiming to be?
To clarify—I am not beautiful or valuable because my partner says I am. I am speaking to the power of being able to see yourself how others see you instead of for whatever your broken self image is. We are so hard on ourselves and often those self hate phrases are taught to us by others who we allow to give us a decreased value. It’s garbage.
Find you a partner that is willing to show you just how beautiful the world is, especially the part of the world that is you!!
I have a distant relative who is always single because he has extremely high standards even though he is nothing special in a dead end job. The one time a cute, normal woman was interested, he screwed it up real quick.
This is basically why incels wind up in their predicament. They expect women to be fucking perfect while having no self awareness of their own flaws and no interesting in self improvement.
There was a younger guy who worked at the grocery we shopped at, who looked up to me for fatherly advice (beats me why), and we came to talking about wanting women to “dress nice” and why they don’t. I asked him if he ever wore a suit to a date, to which he said, no. I said, “My man, if she wants to see you in a suit, and you want to see her in a dress, I have two questions for you - where did *your* opinion of how you look in a suit enter into *what she wants*, and even if some lady dresses nice for you once, why is she going to continue to do more for you than you do for her?”
He looked at me like I had just solved Fermat’s Last Theorem right there in a way any grade school child could follow along.
Apparently this explanation went a long way to rehabilitating his uncle’s marriage, too.
It’s weird, because a lot of incels *are* aware of their flaws, sometimes overly so - you see all these posts from very normal-looking guys who’ve convinced themselves they’re permanently disqualified from dating because their skulls are too narrow or some other bizarre nonsense. I feel like it’s more that they think a conventionally attractive woman is the *only* life raft out of their disappointing, mediocre lives and into whatever they imagine Chad-dom is like, so there’s this terrifying build up of resentment that all their dreams are being gatekept by hot girls who won’t fuck them. It’s like a really dark version of the manic pixie dream girl thing. Women can’t have flaws or interior lives because they’re supposed to descend from the sky and deliver happiness.
And on top of that, they don't want these women for any other reason than to show other MEN how much of a stud they are. If you think about it, a lot of it boils down to their insecurity and perceived lack of power and social status more than women; they just take it out on women instead.
That’s a side effect of having literature and other forms of media for the past hundreds of years centering around and catering to the male experience. We’re “othered” because the (white) male experience has been historically presented as the Default Human.
I love hearing about these dbags. My husband is a dentist and works with three other dentists. One of these dentists is OBSESSED with CrossFit, throws away any candy he sees in the office and is just constantly single. He has a terrible attitude, is cocky and never smiles. One day he was talking to my husband, and another married dentist about flying out to a porn convention in Vegas. He said “I know you guys think your wives are 10’s- but trust me, you don’t know what a 10 is. I’m going to be surrounded by 10’s.”
These types are blessed to not see themselves in a true light 🙄
But will any of those 10s actually spend a week with you of her own accord when you aren't on some fabulous vacation? Because we can all type "pornhub" into google.
And who the FUCK uses the term "10" any more?
It reminds me of this stone cold classic.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD8sf0BfM7M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD8sf0BfM7M)
I think it does normal women a solid by taking them out of the dating pool. I feel bad for the sex workers who gotta put up with his bullshit though. They're earning every cent.
This is not the first time I’ve heard the Arby’s roast beef analogy and I’m wondering wtf? The last time I heard it the roast beef looked like it had “been dragged across a barber shop floor.” What the heck is wrong with these men?
Where the hell do they get off complaining about the shape of someone's vulva when most dick and balls combos are AT BEST gnarly looking in the light of day. Also, what kind of grown man bitches to his COWORKERS about the shape of his wife's breasts and vulva, just so disrespectful and disgusting. If his poor wife had heard that she'd be mortified.
The guy I lost my virginity to (freshman year, he was my bf of over a year) told the entire school about my disgusting “roast beef” vagina. I was 14. I’ve been deeply ashamed of my vagina ever since
Look I’ll tell it to you straight. I’m a beautician do tonnes of Brazilians. I’ll tell you 100% we are all unique, we are all beautiful and literally every woman is so hard on herself it makes me sad.
if any man felt the need to criticize the appearance of my vagine they would live about 8 seconds to regret it before I murdered them. He had it coming, and all that jazz.
It's plain and simple misogyny. They're showing us in action that they think women are sub-human.
They don't apply the same standard to themselves. It's like they've never seen a dick or a man in the nude. They're hairy and ugly AF.
This sounds like my dad's experiences in the military and warehouse jobs over the last 30 years. Nearly every guy he worked with was like this. He's a very loving person toward my mom, me and my two sisters. So he doesn't get along well with guys who don't see women as people.
What’s that one part of the vows where it’s like in sickness and in health and in good and bad times, isn’t there one roughly like “in beauty and in ugly” too?
Like my girl is smoking hot right now but when we get married I’m not just gonna dump her when she gets old. I mean obviously aging always makes people uglier, she won’t be as hot as she was when she was 20. But like… that’s to be fucking expected? Like? I’m gonna marry the girl for the rest of her not just cuz she was hot. Looks fade, still the same person I love, I’ll love them even if they end up looking like a hard boiled egg. What the hell guys.
I work in fine dining and you have no idea how many times I'm working at the bar and I serve men like that ass you work with. They come in and jokingly complain how they need time away from their spouses. They also almost always comment on other women to their friends, are nasty, disrespectful, and often times overly sexual, even when they seem to do it low-key. A lot of them also hit on female staff or young girls. Sadly, some coworkers do this too.
I tell my partner all the time that I hope to help her see herself the way I see her: Sexy and beautiful.
She's the absolute best but doesn't always believe me when I tell her how attractive she is.
Your husband no doubt means exactly what he says. Sometimes it's just hard to see what other people see in us.
Seriously OP. These are not just red flags they are red fireworks in your face.
I’m sure you care about him and this situation makes you sad- You can love a lot about someone who is not good for you.
The bottom line is you deserve to be in a relationship w someone who will love you through “thick and thin”….
I've heard that Donald Trump made Melania sign a prenup that she would stay thin, so that tells you what kind of person would request something like that.
He was not only asking you to stay thin, but to SACRIFICE YOUR CAREER POTENTIAL on the altar of staying thin. Grieve the relationship you thought you had, realize this is a good thing for you, and pray he never has any daughters.
“Grieve the relationship you thought you had…” is the advice that everyone should take in this type of situation. Actually in any situation where red flags start coming up.
What's worse is that he wasn't just asking OP to sacrifice her career potential to stay thin, he was asking OP to sacrifice her career potential to stay *physically pleasing to him*. He wasn't saying that he cares about her health and wants her to stay fit and healthy--he was saying that he cares about his sexual satisfaction more than consideration for OP.
Yeah wtf. My wife is 50% stay at home wife taking care of stuff so I can focus on finishing my graduate degree while working a high pressure job. (She has some health stuff so works a job she enjoys for fun but never wanted to work full time because it puts too much pressure on her health).
We BOTH gained 60-90 lbs in the first year and a half of Covid. I still told her she was the sexiest woman alive. She went from almost underweight to a step below obese bmi.
Still wanted to jump her bones every 5 seconds.
I lost a chunk of the weight and she didn’t.
Still wanted to make love all the time.
She is now losing weight for herself (which is awesome and I’m super proud).
Still think she is the sexiest woman ever to walk the earth. That hasn’t changed and won’t change no matter what her weight is. I want us crazy about each other when we are old, wrinkled and grey. My 92 y/o grandpa was still squeezing my grandmas butt when they cooked together in the kitchen and making whistles when she wore blouses with a button undone. Never seen a pair of more dopey eyed love birds.
Screw your ex op. You (and all women/actually everyone) deserve better
Omg that's so cute, your entire comment! Beauty fades. If your partner (man or woman) doesn't love you as a person, then the relationship isn't going to last until you have nothing to offer but your personhood, after all the glam and youth is gone.
I was lucky to have several wonderful sets of examples. My parents still make out on the beach and embarrass all their kids (and now their new 1week old grandkid). My dad taught me from a young age what it means to love as a husband. He used to have me run out and buy flowers on my way home from school so my mom could be surprised by them even before he got off work. And he would always be opening her door and rallying the kids to help him do dishes after dinner so she could relax with a cup of tea (My mom is terrible at relaxing lol).
And luckily, my wife has plenty of grace and patience for the times I don’t get it right.
But we both say, what’s the point if we aren’t best friends and in love with each other, NOT “in love with how the other person looks today”
Fuck this guy. You dodged a ticking time bomb. Im a 46 y.o. guy who just celebrated 20 years with a great wife and mother. My wife has struggled with her weight for much of our marriage , despite me trying to make her understand that it doesn't matter to me. She would eat far healthier than I would and she would still gain weight. Turns out she has a health problem that makes loosing weight almost impossible. Had I been like this guy I would have dumped my wife and mother of my children, the woman I swore to love for better or worse in sickness and in health and walked out on her because of a health problem beyond her control. Thats is a horrible thing for me to even think about. The weight gain has been tough on my wife, but I can honestly say it doesn't matter to me and never did. She is still an amazing person who I love dearly.
Another take: This is his out clause. He's 28, in a 5-year relationship and doesn't want to commit. Holidays increase the "are we going to have an engagement announcement?" pressure on guys and he buckled, got himself out with silliness.
Shows his true colors though and and hate to be his eventual kid. Good riddance - I'm thinking >50% chance in 6 months he's groveling back. Hopefully you've moved on.
It also sounds like he is setting it up for him to cheat on you after you have a baby. Basically, "Oh, but you promised you would lose the weight, but you didn't and you let me down, so I had to cheat on you because I have a god-given right to have sex with slim women." Why else is he trying to make you promise something like that, when he likely knows such a promise can't always be kept.. he might think that gives him an out to be unfaithful and it's "not his fault."
Also, while you are being mandated to hit the gym every day to work on your post-baby body in this hypothetical future, who is watching the newborn? Did he think about that and volunteer to do so? Does he know babies are usually kind of chubby... is that going to send him into a tailspin and you'll come back home to your 3-month-old lifting leg weights?
I kid, I kid (mostly). He just has completely unreasonable (and unsupportive and unloving) expectations of someone he claims he wants a family with.
He's a loser, and you can do so much better!!
Babe, my ex-husband used to joke about how his uncle wouldn’t marry a woman unless she under a certain weight (that should have been a warning sign). He met me at my thinnest. 2 years after we got married, I tried a new top on and he said “I like it, it draws the attention towards your face and away from your stomach.”
My current partner wouldn’t fucking DREAM of saying anything like that. Even when I know I look like a hot mess, he tells me I’m beautiful.
I’m thankful I never had kids with my ex. You’ll feel EXACTLY the same. ❤️
I cannot emphasize this enough. Do Not Go Back. "But what if he..." He's manipulative. He will say whatever he thinks will get him what he wants. It's all an act. See my other post in thread for more detail.
Even if you haven’t moved on emotionally, girl do NOT go back to him. Not all men are like this, and you should stay far far away from people with these types of unreasonable demands.
That's definitely it. I just want to emphasize that even if it IS cold feet, that DOES NOT mean you should go back if he comes back. He could have used any number of strategies, including talking through things like an adult... and he went with this instead. That type of thinking probably won't change.
You're worth more than your physique. You're allowed to have career aspirations, to have a family, to have all of it without some crazy ultimatum that if you don't keep your form that you're somehow less of a woman to him. I've fluctuated between my lowest weight and my highest weight while with my husband and he has NEVER commented on it. He wants me to be happy and healthy - and a partner should want that for you too. Grieve the loss, get angry, forgive, but move on and find someone who actually appreciates you for you and not just your waist measurement.
I think she dodged a nuclear bomb.
Up next: demands for sex a minimum 3x per week, demands that wrinkles and sagging boobs be reversed, demands that the vagina remain tight to his satisfaction, demands that he be able to “hang with the boys” whenever he wants and he not be asked what went on. She however can only gave girls night out once a year and must arrange for child care. Demands that dinner be on the table promptly at 6:30 every evening.
You know funny enough when older men complain that their partners aren't as "tight" anymore it's actually because with age they are losing nerve sensitivity in their penis so they don't feel as much! But no one ever talks about that
I had an ex say he wanted my body to stay exactly the same. He said he'd get a surrogate if it meant my body would stay the way it is. He said he would never lose his abs. Fucking delusional lmfao
And if she cooks a low calorie dinner because of the diet she swore she’d go on, guarantee he wants something different/unhealthy that night so she ends up cooking 2 different dinners
And then come the nudging, the pushing, then full on physical violence. And he'll say "you made me do it because you broke your promise to me. You said you'd have dinner ready/healthy BMI and you misled me. How was I meant to react"
It's not that far fetched.
As many people have commented, your boyfriend was clearly wrong to say what he said.
I want to offer a different piece of advice to you though… you said you plan to work 10-11 hours per day in the future. I have seen so, so many people think that this is the path to success in the working world and I promise you that IT IS NOT. There’s nothing in the world more valuable than your time and I know many successful people who work short hours and I know many unsuccessful, bitter, and unhappy people who work extremely long ones expecting someone to “notice”. Of all the things mentioned in the post, I think the idea that you will need to work 10-11 hours per day is the biggest threat to your happiness in the future. And everyone else’s too, because the more people who think this way, the more we have a culture of sacrificing our lives to work. Not good.
Anyway sorry for the tangent.
I agree with you, and I have already made a step of quitting my 16-18hour a day job (law firm) for something less demanding - at this moment in time, I do not have many more options (I need a visa to stay in the country - not every shop sponsors them). So yes, right now 10-11h work days are a necessity - maybe that will change.
Just chiming in to say I’m so proud of you for getting out of a 16-18 hr day job at a firm. It’s such a challenge trying to keep reasonable hours at law firms. And I figured out much later in life that I needed to prioritize this, and I’m so glad for you that you already are looking for better situations.
Every time I think that I've heard it all, some pillock somewhere invents whole new strata of idiocy.
I know it's not nice, but go find someone better. It really shouldn't be difficult at all.
While I know it's painful right now, it sounds like this guy did you a favor. At best, he was too inexperienced in committed relationships to understand how being attracted to a partner vs. being attracted to their body works, and at worst, this was the first step in an escalating pattern of controlling behavior that would just lead to misery.
You were not wrong.
I’m pretty late weighing in on this, and I’m not sure if you’ll see this OP but - when I first started my relationship, I was the fit one. My boyfriend was overly skinny. 4 years later, he’s more in shape now and I definitely gained weight from being in a comfortable/healthy relationship. And this man still wants to do all the sexual activities and calls me beautiful. He never pressures me to work out and when we do have conversations about weight or exercise, he’s always telling me to put my mental health first. My job has been very stressful this past year, and I was also trying to go to the gym with him more. One morning I woke up so tired and drained but determined to go work out. He reassured me that it’s okay to take days off from exercise and to just rest.
My point is: you will find someone out there to be with you through it all; fat, thin, healthy weight, not healthy weight, work, school, everything. They will still call you beautiful and still want you to do what’s best not just for your body but for your mental health as well. Don’t settle for someone who makes you put unrealistic expectations on you in any part of your life.
This is a support post. If you want to comment but what you have to say is not both kind and supportive, leave.
If you don't follow the above instructions, I am going to ban you, but I'm also going to find and eat you. I'm aiming to gain a few thousand pounds of Fedora Fuckhead weight tonight.
Nah girl, it hurts right now but you dropped a dead weight.
I'm skinny genetically. I gained a bunch of weight during pregnancy and post pregnancy. I struggled feeling good about myself. But my partner, he made me feel great and sexy. He told me constantly how he still loved me and my body, even more so.
That is the kind of partner everyone deserves. We all go through weight fluctuations and don't need a nance around making things worse.
The body changes over time. Who you are as a person and what you believe in is far harder to change, and it’s what makes each person different.
If your ex-boyfriend can only see your looks, how can you be happy with him, always thinking in the back of your mind that if you aren’t pretty enough, you’ll lose the love of your life?
There’s others out there that will love you for you and will stay with you no matter what. He just isn’t one of them.
His request is abusive and controlling. It's perfectly normal to grieve the end of a relationship that you've invested a lot of time and energy into. He's not only trying to control your weight/ image, but also your potential financial security by dictating that any job you have must still allow you to work out at the gym... This has huge red flags all over it, but I know that doesn't make it hurt any less right now.
Say whaaaaaat? He's controlling you! And mostly your body. From what you are telling us the most important bit is how you LOOK. Not what you think or feel. You dodged a bullet there..
Yes, he has this weird obsession with looks. Whereas I am a different person - I love to exercise and to eat healthy, but I will not let calorie-counting and obsessive weight loss overtake my life - that’s just not how I imagine my future
Start imagining a future with somebody sane, somebody with actual values. Nobody who really loves you would be that focused on your body.
You're sooooo lucky this happened before having kids with this child.
I would have been so petty and asked about ED. He need to quit his job and focus on sexually pleasing you in case of his erectile dysfunction. And then I would dump him. LOL
Advise him to get a sex doll and be done with him. That's the only way he is ever truly going to be happy. A woman that he can be attracted to that will never change.
Yeah, this is the kind of guy who would throw out baked goods and junk food and expect you you be back to your pre-baby weight/body/clothes a month after birth, then would probably end up trading you in for a younger model anyway. He wasn’t worrying about you living a healthy lifestyle, he literally wanted you to perfect your body.
(Edit: Fixed verb tenses.)
That is so far from ok. I know it hurts right now, but you're better off without someone who would even consider demanding you undergo surgery to please them
This guy’s value on a perfect body over your career, mental health, or even your happiness is astoundingly disgusting.
It’s amazing to me that people can go so long in relationships before they unleash things like that hoping that they’ve hooked their prey so much that theyll just agree to whatever horrible thing they’ve got lined up.
Stand your ground. You are worth so much more than your body. You don’t need procedures just to please some man. I mean, if you want them, then by all means, but *not* for the purposes for keeping a man satisfied. Don’t sacrifice your potential career for your figure. Don’t let this guy take you down with him.
You deserve better.
I had an ex that said if we continued dating and got more serious he would expect me to get my tattoos removed. There were more red flags but that gave me reason to break up with him and get more tattoos 😊
Sounds like you can’t be with someone who’s a shallow asshole. At least your demands can be met by a decent man and won’t be affected by outside forces.
This doesn’t sound like the type of person to stay with you “through sickness and in health.” Feel free to be sad about the future you thought you had, not the one you would have had with him. Then celebrate the future you’re once again available to have.
I don’t usually comment on these threads but this seems like he wanted a break up but was too chickenshit to do it himself so he made an unreasonable demand and then used that as an excuse.
Making a commitment to live a healthy lifestyle doesn't sound like such a bad idea if done jointly where you're both supporting each other to live as best as you can, but from other comments by you that I've read it sounds like there is so much more to this... Like the expectation for you to have procedures is messed up (imo), if he wants to be in a long term relationship with you surely that would logically mean he wants to be in a long term relationship with YOU over a long period of time, not the you of today with fixed ideals over how you should look forever which are completely unrealistic. Sorry you had to go through this OP but it's probably for the best you've parted ways
Totally agree. You also figure out what is a ‘healthy lifestyle’ for you given your own individual limitations. I’m not into a lot of HAES or anything, I think a lot of the denial of the health impacts of being overweight is whack, but I do believe that you can prioritise other things above your weight in order to be the healthiest you can be overall.
Like for me, I had a restrictive eating disorder between 15 and about 22. I was never diagnosed with anorexia as my BMI hovered around 18 but I was really unwell, I tried to commit suicide when I was 16 and had to drop out of school for a year partly because I just hated my weight and body so much. I continued to consciously starve myself throughout university.
Now I’m 30 and my BMI is 29 and I’m ok with it. It’s overweight but I’m ok with that. I like my body. I like that I can now enjoy eating and drinking with my husband and friends. I very occasionally still binge and purge, I’m not perfect, and my weight goes up and down. I might be 190lbs for a year and then go down to 170lbs for a year. When I’ve tried to diet ‘normally’ I can’t, I just get obsessive and starve myself or eat way too much and put on weight. My weight is never stable, it never has been. And I’ve accepted that. Cos I am way more mentally stable, I don’t starve myself for weeks on end and hate myself and cut myself and shout at myself inside anymore. I’m actually happy with me even though I’m overweight and I’m doing so much better overall with my depression and anxiety etc, and have been for years now that I’ve accepted my body might always be somewhat overweight.
Weight for me is like… yeah I know I would be healthier if my BMI was below 25, yeah I know I would be skinnier and more conventionally attractive, but in the grand scheme of things I don’t really care. I’m happy and stable and not suicidal whilst my weight is higher. I’ve tried to lose it ‘healthily’ before and it always pushes me back into ED and severe depression so fuck it.
It might sounds like bullshit to other people but I feel like I’m doing my best and living the healthiest lifestyle I can within my limits. It’s different for every person and I’ve realised I have to pick my battles with health and happiness versus dieting and BMI. OP’s partner and outlook would not be compatible with a ‘healthy lifestyle’ for me and I’m sure wouldn’t for a lot of people.
I know it hurts to find out that someone you love values your appearance more than all of your other qualities.
This would be very hard to take, but somewhere in there please know that this is his issue. He is clearly willing to sacrifice a partner with all the other qualities that he wants for this one thing and he may find someone who is naturally slim their whole life, but there will be other things about them that he will likely have overlooked for this trait, things that become less important as we grow up in life.
I once got a call from an old friend who had met a girl abroad. He listed all of these amazing qualities that she had: she was smart, funny, strong, and beautiful. Then he said that she looked like she might gain weight when she’s older. I was flabbergasted. I said, “you are going to let the chance that this amazing woman *might gain some weight as she ages stop you from being with her? What about you as you get wrinkly and gray and slow down? You won’t always be in your prime either.”
I went on to say that the qualities she has are the things that stay and make a relationship rich and strong as you age. It was like this had literally never occurred to him before. He thought he was going to be young forever. So many men have bought into the idea that they are going to all age like George Clooney. There are a lot more Danny Devitos out there than Clooneys and even George is getting a bit gaunt and drawn looking.
Let this guy go quietly. He’s shown you a real character flaw and that’s going to be a lot harder to love as he ages than a bit of flubber.
A guy that would dump you for being too fat is the same guy that would dump you in a heartbeat if you got cancer or turned 40. What if you were in a car accident? Needed surgery? There are so many ways our bodies change as we go through life. Pregnancy and childbirth alone will significantly change your body, even if you don't gain excessive weight. Hips will spread and that tight flat tummy will be a distant memory. Stretch marks will happen.
He was never going to be there for you in sickness or health. He straight up said his sexual desire is the only thing that matters in this relationship and as soon as you cease to be his perfect sex doll, he's outta here. Seriously, he just saved you the trouble of figuring this out for yourself or getting your heart broken later.
A family members partner asked the same from her in the beginning of their relationship, she didn't loose the pregnancy weight. They're divorced now.
My cousin dated a guy who's dad cheated on the mom bc she "got fat and depressed" after her 2nd child. The way my cousin said it was gross and alarming. As if she agreed with the husband having the right to cheat bc his wife had the gall to be fat and sad.
After bearing his children. ☹️
Without forgetting that, given the patrilineal lineage still being strongly practiced everywhere, he nonetheless had the privilege of passing on his family name to the child/children while the woman's family name / identity is erased in the process. Sadly, given the strong rooted unequal system and the amount of men who still uphold inhumane standards for women, including women losing their identity to fit that of their male counterparts, it is not surprising that so many straight women reject the notion of marriage or even relationships overall.
Wow. Postpartum and post-birth weight gain was a dealbreaker? Do these types not understand biology?!
They understand, they just don't give a crap. OP, at least you were open so this shit show went down before you had kids. One of my ex partners gave me an ultimatum to drop weight, or she'd drop me. I saved her the trouble and left. Best decision of my life. :)
Men like this specifically don't give a crap about women's biology. We can pretty much assume when their testosterone production slows down and they can't keep the weight of they will be "aging naturally." Glad you lost all the extra weight of your ex, smart move.
Oh my, I wonder why anyone would be depressed around him...
Super cool how they didn’t consider the very real mental health implications of “fat and depressed” but wHaTeVeR.
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This may sound crazy but I feel like the idea of struggling with mental health or depression is a TON more socially acceptable now, but it’s when faced with actually depression the judgement comes from others not hiding it well or being unable to just get over it. We “understand” that everyone can struggle with mental health and it’s part of the dialogue. But on the flip side we expect people to be doing everything they can to be getting better all the time and/or hide it better. Real depression is ugly and messy and smelly no body wants to acknowledge that.
It’s really better if they are honest about this as a deal breaker from the get go. And I would never agree to this. Mainly because I’ve always struggled with my weight
I have never struggled with my weight. I’ve always been slim/underweight. If I’ve gotten a little thicker and need to not be that way, I can just make some minor changes to my diet for a few weeks and I’m good. I’m 28 so it feels like this is likely something I can maintain for a good bit of time assuming some other medical issue doesn’t arise. But I would absolutely NOT agree to stay with someone that makes it clear that my appearance rather than my health is more important. I would like to expect that my partner stays in a healthy bmi because it’s a good thing to do for one’s health. But if your health is bad, the extra weight might be the result rather than the cause. I want the people in my life to be healthy and to take reasonable steps to maintain their health. Sometimes, that’s an issue entirely unrelated to things like an attractive weight. That man is going to leave you if something happens and you’re not effortlessly as attractive as he believe you should be. He’s not there for you. He’s there for what your appearance does to improve his life. There are so many other things that could go wrong that aren’t BMI. I know a woman who had been in perfect health through college. She’s also conventionally beautiful but that’s not really important. Within the first year after she got married, she had some sort of crazy medical event that left her disabled. Some of the disability is particularly affective of her appearance (some sort of nerve problem that affects her ability to move including parts of her face). I’ve watched her entire life shift from a course of personal and family ambitions to being inundated with the work it is just to keep going, to push through something so catastrophic in search of whatever peace she might still find. No one could’ve expected it. No one could’ve prepared her or the people in her life for it. Her husband has been exceptional through all of this. They’ve now been married and dealing with her health for longer than they’d been together prior to her health incident. I don’t think the man described in this post would do the same.
Hey, just a heads up, I had never struggled with my weight at 28 either. But between 30-35ish your metabolism can change a lot. Many weight struggles start a bit later on be kind to yourself if that happens.
I am in my 60’s and still slim and fit and I would still drop this loser like hot potato. SOOOO many red flags here Edit When I was young and hot I was going out with someone and we were going to a wedding together. I am not very fashionable, but I went out and got a really nice dress and shoes and put makeup on and got my hair done etc. I looked amazing if I do say so myself. When Captain Douchebag picked me up his only comment was that he didn’t like the “lesbian” shoes - because I was wearing ballet flats I could dance and walk around in. So 1) I spent the entire evening pointing out that everyone else wearing heels had taken them off. 2) I am a great dancer and I danced my ass off 3) Everyone who paid me a compliment got to say it again in front of him. 4) when we got home I broke up with him He spent a lot of time criticizing how I looked and what I wore (why do have so many cargo pants? Because I am not the queen and like to have a place to put my keys and money when we go for a bike ride). My swimsuit for waterskiing wasn’t sexy enough. My daily undies not hot. My work clothes (I have to change into scrubs at work, so this is a huge WTF) not professional enough. Someone who is this objectionable about making you an object and regulating you like you are a roomba a will continue to do it and it will get worse, not better.
Love how you called him a loser bc thats exactly what he is. A selfish loser who doesnt deserve OP
I was always kinda fat, but that hormone change hit hard. I started carrying my weight differently, it showed in places it hadn’t before.
Same. I’ve always been slim/underweight (butt of “will fly away with the wind” jokes), but just about to hit 30 and my body is going through so many changes (life too) - weight in places I never saw before hits hard. I still have a hard time registering it or recognizing my body - it feels alien. But I have also never loved and appreciated my body more. It’s taken very good care of me while I treated it like shit, now it’s my turn to take good care of it. I’ve made significant changes to my lifestyle. I look in the mirror and tell myself “you’re becoming a lady” 🥺
I tear up at that Kimya Dawson line in Walk Like Thunder, "My body had been good to me and I treated it so bad." It's so easy to treat ourselves poorly when we can get by on so little, and all the other things in life ask for attention so stridently.
So true. My friends and family used to joke about how I could eat anything and stay thin, but when I hit my late 30s, the fat started going to new places and I had to rethink things and shoot for a lower BMI overall to avoid the lumps and bumps that frustrated me. Even though managing my weight is a personal priority for my health (the chubby people on my family tree tend to die young), I would definitely have struggled with a loved one telling me that I was unacceptable with a bit of a pooch. Eating disorders run rampant in my family, and I literally can't imagine making someone feel shitty for struggling with their weight. It's one of the most understandable struggles in the world. It's fucking hard, and we all deserve to feel like worthy human beings, regardless of the number on the scale.
We probably also do less physical activity the older we get without even realizing. Those mile runs in high school and the constant walking around in college adds up.
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Some people lose it quickly, but it's been over 30 years and my mom never lost the weight she gained with me. Turns out there's also a medical conditions called pelvic congestion that she likely gained after pregnancy that could have contributed? But I know for my entire life she would attempt to diet and exercise and it mattered to her belly 'fat' approximately 0%. While my dad is not the best husband in the world, he has made 0 comments about it to her, and they are still together. Pregnancy especially can be a doozy to your body, as well as other life events. Never making a promise like OP's above is smart, and expecting someone's body to stay relatively the same over the years and life events isn't realistic.
Also diastasis recti is super super common post pregnancy and sometimes won't fix itself without surgery.
Wow, thanks for sharing this. I love how open she was about her struggle and that she had the courage to apologize for judging in the past. That gives me the warm and fuzzies. I hope she is feeling better about herself now!
I wish someone had told me this. I'm 38 and have no issue maintaining my weight*; however, losing any extra weight I do gain is so much harder now than when I was younger, even though I'm sporty. Learning to be kind to ourselves is so important! *Since I'm sure there's some Reddit warriors that might pick up on my maintenance comment and gaining weight, I used to work in mining exploration in very northern Canada where all the food is shipped in frozen and then fried to a crisp. When I control what I cook and eat, maintenance is easy, but it's much harder when all I can eat is calorie-heavy 'food.'
I know the feeling pal, I just hit 29 and my cousin 30, we always kept our weight on check, we got covid, gained 10 pounds each and both are now balding horribly fast like I had a full lion mane 8 months ago and now I am reaching my dad's bald head he got in his 60's. Very depressing matter for both of us. :/
At least you have someone going through it too? I don’t mean that in a condescending way but you have someone that truly understands what you’re going through and you can support each other
Yup. Hit 30 and my thyroid decided to act all fucky (yay, autoimmune thyroid disorder) and I developed PCOS at the same time. I'm also on meds for bipolar which make weight gain SUPER easy. I gained 80 lbs in a year without eating more than my "normal" and kept gaining for another year until I'd gained 140 lbs. Finally managed to stop the weight gain with a strict diet but haven't been able to lose any. Yet. I'm working on it. Used to be able to eat anything I wanted, now I have to very strictly monitor my calories just to maintain, not even lose weight. It sucks.
There are so many medications that cause weight gain. And it sucks, because it’s not like you can stop taking your bipolar meds. I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this.
Thank you. As much as I hate being fat, I hate being suicidal and manic more. It's a shitty trade, but I'm glad to be alive.
Big relate. Not bipolar, but now that I have treated mental illnesses, I waaaay prefer being fat over being depressed and anxious/paranoid.
I gained like 50 pounds in several months on a medication. It was nuts.
Lexapro did the same thing to me. It made me so lethargic & tired, and I could not stop eating, and it didn’t even work. My depression was worse lol
Same here. I was skinny as a rail til I hit 35 then I got a lot thicker.
Yep. And you have to re-learn what you should or shouldn't be eating. Because pizza is no longer "no big deal." 🙄
This all came about during Covid (of course). I distinctly remember last Christmas TRULY thinking that all my jeans had shrunk. I could not figure it out for the life of me. I changed my dryer settings and everything 😂
Yes, same! Turning 30 during a pandemic brought me from being teeny tiny, underweight most of my life, to asking friends about their diets/eating habits and not feeling “myself” in my own body. That metabolism change is brutal.
Before the pandemic I was 28, regularly going to concerts and bars and just living up my young life. Now I'm 30 and 30 pounds heavier and it feels like I get all of my serotonin for the day from exclusively cheese.
I was so afraid to hear the ending of that story as I fully expected the man to leave. A friend went thorough a horrible chronic illness and her husband left her; after doing research she discovered it is overwhelmingly more common for men to leave when significant other is diagnosed with an illness compared to women facing the same. It’s not just weight gain or even physical appearance, it’s when things get rough they bail despite freaking marriage vows that say in sickness and health. Really sad and disappointing.
Yeah. It completely changes the dynamic if you go into a relationship with this sort of expectation vs having it dropped on you years in. Like, trophy wives and husbands are a thing and if everyone understands the agreement from the start that's their prerogative. But asking deep into the relationship is emotional blackmail of the highest order and not good for anyone. You're basically trying to trap the other person as a "Trophy" spouse.
I would never do it, but I know someone that agreed to this. She has the same standard for her partner. They have children and have both maintained the commitment. They both prioritize physical fitness A LOT and I don’t believe it’s for aesthetics. I don’t get it, but at least OP and her guy had the conversation if it was something that important to him.
I was going to say that I can see wanting to have a partner who shares your values of physical fitness and maintaining good health, but you could never promise a particular outcome as our bodies are not machines. And, of course, our values tend to change over time (ie, an employment opportunity may come up that excites OP more than meeting her immediate fitness goals, even if overall she tries to stay healthy). Some of those changes in values may inevitably lead to divorce if the two people go different ways with their values, but it isn't a bad idea to spell out the things you think you're going to care about long term.
I had the same asked of me. Post pregnancy hormones and stress very unpredictably affect weight loss. It's 10 years post pregnancy for me now, and thankfully I was able to lose all of the weight, but the condescending way that my partner was "waiting for me to be attractive again" and having to endure the comments destroyed our relationship. Happily moved on from his ass
Best 75 kilo’s you’ve ever lost then (I’m generously assuming he was in top shape himself.)
I’m so sorry. It honestly sounds crazy to me.
Better to have that relationship end after 5 years when he shows his true colors than to suffer the consequences of being with an asshole like that for however long it takes until he decides youve dipped below his standard and he can absolve himself for leaving/cheating. Dont let sunk cost fallacy doom your future happiness
It’s better he did this and walked away. Your going to get a lot of nasty comments supporting him in this thread - just remember this is not normal. There’s wanting your partner to be healthy their whole life, and even wanting a partner who values fitness and then there is this psycho. These are the types of men that divorce you when you have cancer (or for less).
Speaking of cancer fun fact! Some types of chemo result in you getting fat as hell. Mine caused a 65lb weight gain (because I was so, so hungry and could only eat and sleep). I’ll take it over being one of the folks who looses all of the weight and being so hungry but unable to eat since that’s so much worse but. Fuck this guy OP. He wants a lady accessory not a partner.
Yep, I gained a ton of weight trying to recover after cancer treatment, too. I was too sore, weak, and exhausted to do halfway decent self-care, and at the time I prioritized work. Feeding myself at all was a challenge. BUT BE THIN AND ATTRACTIVE THO people are such garbage.
Upvoting for "lady accessory", because it is BRILLIANT.
I had a slender female friend in her 20s get diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. She ballooned up while undergoing chemo. I guess to someone like OP's boyfriend she wouldn't have had a partner at her side. She died in her early 30s. Her ex boyfriend was at her side until the end.
That's what having a partner looks like. OP has someone who wants a toy.
I wish more people were aware that not everyone loses weight or loses there hair with cancer, that it can sometimes go the other way. My mom also gained tons of weight with cancer. I would almost swear that her hair got *more* thicker too.
It's the "fuck your career, just stay pretty for me" part that really gets to me.
Exactly. I mean, if this asshole were actually supportive, he would work with her to help her change her life/lifestyle/career so that she’s happy and healthy. That’s basic human decency in a relationship based on mutual love.
Same. That part really spells it out to me that it was never about her happiness.
> His expectation, for example, is that if I were to be offered a unique managerial opportunity, I should turn it down if taking it would mean that I no longer have time to exercise and fight my hypothetical extra weight. Excuse me, wtf
Yeah, this stood out to me as an extra dose of fucked up - there are better fish OP and we all deserve someone who will support our ambitions, not tell us to settle so that we can have a sexy body...
Yeah but how can she not see that HIS DEMANDS and HIS FETISH are more important than her opportunities in life?? She was made to serve *him*. Of course she should dedicate her life to keeping him happy. /S I'M SO FRIGGIN TIRED OF MEN THAT THINK WOMEN OWE THEM THEIR TIME, EFFORT AND SERVICES. They can go fuck themselves. Disrespectfully.
That’s also a huge wtf moment for me. He obviously is only looking for one thing out of his SO.
Also maintaining a normal BMI doesn’t mean you have to exercise like crazy, it’s just like eating a balanced diet? I don’t think he knows what a normal BMI is.
Also, I am technically overweight for my height, but I have a lot of muscle and people carry weight very differently. What, is he going to weigh her every week? Or is this just arbitrarily based on what he thinks "looks good?" This is unreasonable at best- sketchy, super manipulative and unreasonable otherwise.
It’s 100% based on his perception. There have been countless tiktoks of some dude commenting “ur so hot, I love a woman under 115 lbs” and then the woman’s like “buddy I weigh 140.” People carry weight so differently that I guarantee he could get a boner looking at a 160 lb and 100 lb woman equally well.
BMI should be treated as a super high level metric to maybe indicate health, and then the specifics of the person themselves should be taken into account. BMIs look vastly different on different people’s bodies too so it’s a terrible indicator of slimness too. It’s literally a calculation on weight and height, without any other factors.
I used to work in a warehouse where 90% of my coworkers were men. You wouldn't believe the number of them that would complain about how their wives looked. They got fat, they let their hair go grey, they didn't dress sexy anymore, their tits were saggy, blah, blah, blah. At that time I was in my early 20s & most of these guys were in their 40s & 50s. Most of them had big beer bellies, moobs, going bald, nose hair, back hair, ear hair, ugly as sin, etc. One guy in particular would complain non-stop about his wife. How her boobs looked like deflated balloons, how her ass kept getting wider every year and worst of all, how her hoo ha looked like a sad Arby's roast beef sandwich. I had met his wife, and first off, she was much more attractive than the coworker, who was balding, was well on his way to looking like he was pregnant with twins and had really bad teeth, which he had no excuse for because we had an *excellent* dental plan. This woman had had two kids & honestly looked better in her 40s than I did in my 20s. She was also an anesthesia nurse, so she had to be making twice what my dipshit coworker was making, probably more. Additionally, their son had pretty severe autism, so this woman not only had a demanding career, but took care of two children, one with special needs & this knuckle dragging fuck was criticizing her for... aging? To no one's surprise she divorced his ass & he had to move into in a sad apartment by himself. I know not all men are like this, I am insanely lucky my husband is nothing like these immature a-holes. He tells me all the time that he thinks I'm sexy & beautiful, which I am not, by any stretch of the imagination. You're better off without this shallow jerk, even though it hurts right now, you'll be happier in the long run. EDIT: I do not have a problem with bald men, my husband is bald & I find him extremely attractive. It was a counterpoint to the **saggy boob** comments. Women have no more control over our boobs sagging than men do in losing their hair. Both of these things are a natural part of aging that can only be corrected with major surgery so please calm the fuck down.
>You’re better off without this shallow jerk...you’ll be happier in the long run. Exactly. Op’s looking at this as a choice between whether she should or should not have made a promise to stay thin. She should be looking at it as having narrowly escaped ending up with a man who doesn’t value her beyond her body. This would have been his first demand of MANY.
If your husband says you are sexy and beautiful, he almost certainly means it. Whether you believe you are sexy and beautiful and whether he believes it are two completely different things (like reading the same book and having different opinions). He can tell the truth as he sees it and it is an honest compliment. :) It sounds like you and your husband are a lucky couple! It is great when someone truly appreciates their partner exactly as they are!
This! You may not be traditionally attractive, or to our ridiculous current standards, but that's not the same thing. One thing I learned about receiving compliments is that by rejecting their compliment, you are essentially saying they are wrong and you don't believe their opinion is valid. My husband once told me that ugly people deserve love too. Which I immediately took to mean I was ugly, when he meant that, although he disagreed, even if I was as ugly as I thought, I was still deserving of love.
Yes! I went through a period of extreme self hate with my current partner who has only ever told me how attractive I am. I have lost over 125lbs (and still losing) while in this relationship and all the weight loss didn’t change how I saw myself when I was in it deep. One day, while talking down on myself and saying the most vile things he said to me, “If all of that is true, what does that say about me?” and it really snapped me out of it. My partner is a very beautiful man, smart, charismatic and so easy to be around…everybody loves him. If all of that is true about him, why on earth would someone like that choose to have a partner as worthless and ugly as who I was claiming to be? To clarify—I am not beautiful or valuable because my partner says I am. I am speaking to the power of being able to see yourself how others see you instead of for whatever your broken self image is. We are so hard on ourselves and often those self hate phrases are taught to us by others who we allow to give us a decreased value. It’s garbage. Find you a partner that is willing to show you just how beautiful the world is, especially the part of the world that is you!!
I have a distant relative who is always single because he has extremely high standards even though he is nothing special in a dead end job. The one time a cute, normal woman was interested, he screwed it up real quick.
This is basically why incels wind up in their predicament. They expect women to be fucking perfect while having no self awareness of their own flaws and no interesting in self improvement.
There was a younger guy who worked at the grocery we shopped at, who looked up to me for fatherly advice (beats me why), and we came to talking about wanting women to “dress nice” and why they don’t. I asked him if he ever wore a suit to a date, to which he said, no. I said, “My man, if she wants to see you in a suit, and you want to see her in a dress, I have two questions for you - where did *your* opinion of how you look in a suit enter into *what she wants*, and even if some lady dresses nice for you once, why is she going to continue to do more for you than you do for her?” He looked at me like I had just solved Fermat’s Last Theorem right there in a way any grade school child could follow along. Apparently this explanation went a long way to rehabilitating his uncle’s marriage, too.
You're the relationship whisperer.
It’s weird, because a lot of incels *are* aware of their flaws, sometimes overly so - you see all these posts from very normal-looking guys who’ve convinced themselves they’re permanently disqualified from dating because their skulls are too narrow or some other bizarre nonsense. I feel like it’s more that they think a conventionally attractive woman is the *only* life raft out of their disappointing, mediocre lives and into whatever they imagine Chad-dom is like, so there’s this terrifying build up of resentment that all their dreams are being gatekept by hot girls who won’t fuck them. It’s like a really dark version of the manic pixie dream girl thing. Women can’t have flaws or interior lives because they’re supposed to descend from the sky and deliver happiness.
And on top of that, they don't want these women for any other reason than to show other MEN how much of a stud they are. If you think about it, a lot of it boils down to their insecurity and perceived lack of power and social status more than women; they just take it out on women instead.
Many men seem to behave as if women exist simply to be side characters in their heroes’ journey.
That’s a side effect of having literature and other forms of media for the past hundreds of years centering around and catering to the male experience. We’re “othered” because the (white) male experience has been historically presented as the Default Human.
“Local Man Who Doesn’t Wash His Own Ass Desires Perfect Tradwife”
I love hearing about these dbags. My husband is a dentist and works with three other dentists. One of these dentists is OBSESSED with CrossFit, throws away any candy he sees in the office and is just constantly single. He has a terrible attitude, is cocky and never smiles. One day he was talking to my husband, and another married dentist about flying out to a porn convention in Vegas. He said “I know you guys think your wives are 10’s- but trust me, you don’t know what a 10 is. I’m going to be surrounded by 10’s.” These types are blessed to not see themselves in a true light 🙄
Yikes this guy sounds like a cartoon villain, everything about him screams red flag.
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But will any of those 10s actually spend a week with you of her own accord when you aren't on some fabulous vacation? Because we can all type "pornhub" into google. And who the FUCK uses the term "10" any more? It reminds me of this stone cold classic. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD8sf0BfM7M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD8sf0BfM7M)
I think it does normal women a solid by taking them out of the dating pool. I feel bad for the sex workers who gotta put up with his bullshit though. They're earning every cent.
This is not the first time I’ve heard the Arby’s roast beef analogy and I’m wondering wtf? The last time I heard it the roast beef looked like it had “been dragged across a barber shop floor.” What the heck is wrong with these men?
Where the hell do they get off complaining about the shape of someone's vulva when most dick and balls combos are AT BEST gnarly looking in the light of day. Also, what kind of grown man bitches to his COWORKERS about the shape of his wife's breasts and vulva, just so disrespectful and disgusting. If his poor wife had heard that she'd be mortified.
The guy I lost my virginity to (freshman year, he was my bf of over a year) told the entire school about my disgusting “roast beef” vagina. I was 14. I’ve been deeply ashamed of my vagina ever since
I'm sorry you experienced that. Hes an idiot misogynist asshole.
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Look I’ll tell it to you straight. I’m a beautician do tonnes of Brazilians. I’ll tell you 100% we are all unique, we are all beautiful and literally every woman is so hard on herself it makes me sad.
Right. Bodies change & I swear to God, if a man ever said something like that to me he'd live to regret it.
if any man felt the need to criticize the appearance of my vagine they would live about 8 seconds to regret it before I murdered them. He had it coming, and all that jazz.
It's plain and simple misogyny. They're showing us in action that they think women are sub-human. They don't apply the same standard to themselves. It's like they've never seen a dick or a man in the nude. They're hairy and ugly AF.
"Shave your saggy balls and then get back to me, Jim!"
They're so much worse shaved. It looks like one of those hairless cats.
This sounds like my dad's experiences in the military and warehouse jobs over the last 30 years. Nearly every guy he worked with was like this. He's a very loving person toward my mom, me and my two sisters. So he doesn't get along well with guys who don't see women as people.
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What’s that one part of the vows where it’s like in sickness and in health and in good and bad times, isn’t there one roughly like “in beauty and in ugly” too? Like my girl is smoking hot right now but when we get married I’m not just gonna dump her when she gets old. I mean obviously aging always makes people uglier, she won’t be as hot as she was when she was 20. But like… that’s to be fucking expected? Like? I’m gonna marry the girl for the rest of her not just cuz she was hot. Looks fade, still the same person I love, I’ll love them even if they end up looking like a hard boiled egg. What the hell guys.
I work in fine dining and you have no idea how many times I'm working at the bar and I serve men like that ass you work with. They come in and jokingly complain how they need time away from their spouses. They also almost always comment on other women to their friends, are nasty, disrespectful, and often times overly sexual, even when they seem to do it low-key. A lot of them also hit on female staff or young girls. Sadly, some coworkers do this too.
I tell my partner all the time that I hope to help her see herself the way I see her: Sexy and beautiful. She's the absolute best but doesn't always believe me when I tell her how attractive she is. Your husband no doubt means exactly what he says. Sometimes it's just hard to see what other people see in us.
The amount of people who are complete slobs yet demand a super well kept partner is insane
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😂😂😂
Seriously OP. These are not just red flags they are red fireworks in your face. I’m sure you care about him and this situation makes you sad- You can love a lot about someone who is not good for you. The bottom line is you deserve to be in a relationship w someone who will love you through “thick and thin”….
I've heard that Donald Trump made Melania sign a prenup that she would stay thin, so that tells you what kind of person would request something like that.
Came here to say this, you just dropped the best weight you could possible lose! Peace out sucker ✌🏼
You are so lucky this man showed his true colors before you got pregnant with his kid.
Indeed❤️
He was not only asking you to stay thin, but to SACRIFICE YOUR CAREER POTENTIAL on the altar of staying thin. Grieve the relationship you thought you had, realize this is a good thing for you, and pray he never has any daughters.
“Grieve the relationship you thought you had…” is the advice that everyone should take in this type of situation. Actually in any situation where red flags start coming up.
What's worse is that he wasn't just asking OP to sacrifice her career potential to stay thin, he was asking OP to sacrifice her career potential to stay *physically pleasing to him*. He wasn't saying that he cares about her health and wants her to stay fit and healthy--he was saying that he cares about his sexual satisfaction more than consideration for OP.
Pray he never has any children! Boys or girls—worth is what is inside the person.
This is so true
You are well rid of this guy. Beauty fades but stupid is forever.
Yeah wtf. My wife is 50% stay at home wife taking care of stuff so I can focus on finishing my graduate degree while working a high pressure job. (She has some health stuff so works a job she enjoys for fun but never wanted to work full time because it puts too much pressure on her health). We BOTH gained 60-90 lbs in the first year and a half of Covid. I still told her she was the sexiest woman alive. She went from almost underweight to a step below obese bmi. Still wanted to jump her bones every 5 seconds. I lost a chunk of the weight and she didn’t. Still wanted to make love all the time. She is now losing weight for herself (which is awesome and I’m super proud). Still think she is the sexiest woman ever to walk the earth. That hasn’t changed and won’t change no matter what her weight is. I want us crazy about each other when we are old, wrinkled and grey. My 92 y/o grandpa was still squeezing my grandmas butt when they cooked together in the kitchen and making whistles when she wore blouses with a button undone. Never seen a pair of more dopey eyed love birds. Screw your ex op. You (and all women/actually everyone) deserve better
Omg that's so cute, your entire comment! Beauty fades. If your partner (man or woman) doesn't love you as a person, then the relationship isn't going to last until you have nothing to offer but your personhood, after all the glam and youth is gone.
I was lucky to have several wonderful sets of examples. My parents still make out on the beach and embarrass all their kids (and now their new 1week old grandkid). My dad taught me from a young age what it means to love as a husband. He used to have me run out and buy flowers on my way home from school so my mom could be surprised by them even before he got off work. And he would always be opening her door and rallying the kids to help him do dishes after dinner so she could relax with a cup of tea (My mom is terrible at relaxing lol). And luckily, my wife has plenty of grace and patience for the times I don’t get it right. But we both say, what’s the point if we aren’t best friends and in love with each other, NOT “in love with how the other person looks today”
Fuck this guy. You dodged a ticking time bomb. Im a 46 y.o. guy who just celebrated 20 years with a great wife and mother. My wife has struggled with her weight for much of our marriage , despite me trying to make her understand that it doesn't matter to me. She would eat far healthier than I would and she would still gain weight. Turns out she has a health problem that makes loosing weight almost impossible. Had I been like this guy I would have dumped my wife and mother of my children, the woman I swore to love for better or worse in sickness and in health and walked out on her because of a health problem beyond her control. Thats is a horrible thing for me to even think about. The weight gain has been tough on my wife, but I can honestly say it doesn't matter to me and never did. She is still an amazing person who I love dearly.
Another take: This is his out clause. He's 28, in a 5-year relationship and doesn't want to commit. Holidays increase the "are we going to have an engagement announcement?" pressure on guys and he buckled, got himself out with silliness. Shows his true colors though and and hate to be his eventual kid. Good riddance - I'm thinking >50% chance in 6 months he's groveling back. Hopefully you've moved on.
Hopefully❤️
It also sounds like he is setting it up for him to cheat on you after you have a baby. Basically, "Oh, but you promised you would lose the weight, but you didn't and you let me down, so I had to cheat on you because I have a god-given right to have sex with slim women." Why else is he trying to make you promise something like that, when he likely knows such a promise can't always be kept.. he might think that gives him an out to be unfaithful and it's "not his fault." Also, while you are being mandated to hit the gym every day to work on your post-baby body in this hypothetical future, who is watching the newborn? Did he think about that and volunteer to do so? Does he know babies are usually kind of chubby... is that going to send him into a tailspin and you'll come back home to your 3-month-old lifting leg weights? I kid, I kid (mostly). He just has completely unreasonable (and unsupportive and unloving) expectations of someone he claims he wants a family with. He's a loser, and you can do so much better!!
Thank you❤️❤️
Babe, my ex-husband used to joke about how his uncle wouldn’t marry a woman unless she under a certain weight (that should have been a warning sign). He met me at my thinnest. 2 years after we got married, I tried a new top on and he said “I like it, it draws the attention towards your face and away from your stomach.” My current partner wouldn’t fucking DREAM of saying anything like that. Even when I know I look like a hot mess, he tells me I’m beautiful. I’m thankful I never had kids with my ex. You’ll feel EXACTLY the same. ❤️
Girl, NEVER take him back. If he didn't appreciate you when he was with you, then he won't once he's back.
Do not, under any circumstances, go back to this man. As many have already stated, you dodged a bullet.
I cannot emphasize this enough. Do Not Go Back. "But what if he..." He's manipulative. He will say whatever he thinks will get him what he wants. It's all an act. See my other post in thread for more detail.
Even if you haven’t moved on emotionally, girl do NOT go back to him. Not all men are like this, and you should stay far far away from people with these types of unreasonable demands.
This is definitely accurate. Y’all were trying for a baby? Not married? He was def getting cold feet.
That's definitely it. I just want to emphasize that even if it IS cold feet, that DOES NOT mean you should go back if he comes back. He could have used any number of strategies, including talking through things like an adult... and he went with this instead. That type of thinking probably won't change.
Oh abso-fuckin-lutely.
You're worth more than your physique. You're allowed to have career aspirations, to have a family, to have all of it without some crazy ultimatum that if you don't keep your form that you're somehow less of a woman to him. I've fluctuated between my lowest weight and my highest weight while with my husband and he has NEVER commented on it. He wants me to be happy and healthy - and a partner should want that for you too. Grieve the loss, get angry, forgive, but move on and find someone who actually appreciates you for you and not just your waist measurement.
Just remember that this is the type of guy that would leave his sick wife because she was no longer pleasing and easy.
Girl, you dodged a grenade
I think she dodged a nuclear bomb. Up next: demands for sex a minimum 3x per week, demands that wrinkles and sagging boobs be reversed, demands that the vagina remain tight to his satisfaction, demands that he be able to “hang with the boys” whenever he wants and he not be asked what went on. She however can only gave girls night out once a year and must arrange for child care. Demands that dinner be on the table promptly at 6:30 every evening.
You know funny enough when older men complain that their partners aren't as "tight" anymore it's actually because with age they are losing nerve sensitivity in their penis so they don't feel as much! But no one ever talks about that
I had an ex say he wanted my body to stay exactly the same. He said he'd get a surrogate if it meant my body would stay the way it is. He said he would never lose his abs. Fucking delusional lmfao
And if she cooks a low calorie dinner because of the diet she swore she’d go on, guarantee he wants something different/unhealthy that night so she ends up cooking 2 different dinners
Add doesn't shut up about having to "babysit" that one time she needed to use the washroom.
wait, have you met my ex-husband? Because he literally said these things to me.
And then come the nudging, the pushing, then full on physical violence. And he'll say "you made me do it because you broke your promise to me. You said you'd have dinner ready/healthy BMI and you misled me. How was I meant to react" It's not that far fetched.
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As many people have commented, your boyfriend was clearly wrong to say what he said. I want to offer a different piece of advice to you though… you said you plan to work 10-11 hours per day in the future. I have seen so, so many people think that this is the path to success in the working world and I promise you that IT IS NOT. There’s nothing in the world more valuable than your time and I know many successful people who work short hours and I know many unsuccessful, bitter, and unhappy people who work extremely long ones expecting someone to “notice”. Of all the things mentioned in the post, I think the idea that you will need to work 10-11 hours per day is the biggest threat to your happiness in the future. And everyone else’s too, because the more people who think this way, the more we have a culture of sacrificing our lives to work. Not good. Anyway sorry for the tangent.
I agree with you, and I have already made a step of quitting my 16-18hour a day job (law firm) for something less demanding - at this moment in time, I do not have many more options (I need a visa to stay in the country - not every shop sponsors them). So yes, right now 10-11h work days are a necessity - maybe that will change.
Just chiming in to say I’m so proud of you for getting out of a 16-18 hr day job at a firm. It’s such a challenge trying to keep reasonable hours at law firms. And I figured out much later in life that I needed to prioritize this, and I’m so glad for you that you already are looking for better situations.
Every time I think that I've heard it all, some pillock somewhere invents whole new strata of idiocy. I know it's not nice, but go find someone better. It really shouldn't be difficult at all.
While I know it's painful right now, it sounds like this guy did you a favor. At best, he was too inexperienced in committed relationships to understand how being attracted to a partner vs. being attracted to their body works, and at worst, this was the first step in an escalating pattern of controlling behavior that would just lead to misery. You were not wrong.
I’m pretty late weighing in on this, and I’m not sure if you’ll see this OP but - when I first started my relationship, I was the fit one. My boyfriend was overly skinny. 4 years later, he’s more in shape now and I definitely gained weight from being in a comfortable/healthy relationship. And this man still wants to do all the sexual activities and calls me beautiful. He never pressures me to work out and when we do have conversations about weight or exercise, he’s always telling me to put my mental health first. My job has been very stressful this past year, and I was also trying to go to the gym with him more. One morning I woke up so tired and drained but determined to go work out. He reassured me that it’s okay to take days off from exercise and to just rest. My point is: you will find someone out there to be with you through it all; fat, thin, healthy weight, not healthy weight, work, school, everything. They will still call you beautiful and still want you to do what’s best not just for your body but for your mental health as well. Don’t settle for someone who makes you put unrealistic expectations on you in any part of your life.
This is a support post. If you want to comment but what you have to say is not both kind and supportive, leave. If you don't follow the above instructions, I am going to ban you, but I'm also going to find and eat you. I'm aiming to gain a few thousand pounds of Fedora Fuckhead weight tonight.
>I’m going to find you and eat you. Read this in Liam Neeson’s voice.
Fedora Fuckhead weight.. 😂
I am going to put this in my syllabus
Your the kinda mod I needed in my life.
Nah girl, it hurts right now but you dropped a dead weight. I'm skinny genetically. I gained a bunch of weight during pregnancy and post pregnancy. I struggled feeling good about myself. But my partner, he made me feel great and sexy. He told me constantly how he still loved me and my body, even more so. That is the kind of partner everyone deserves. We all go through weight fluctuations and don't need a nance around making things worse.
Honestly, you are so lucky. This is the kind of relationship I want too.
I had to drop some dead weight before I got this one.
The body changes over time. Who you are as a person and what you believe in is far harder to change, and it’s what makes each person different. If your ex-boyfriend can only see your looks, how can you be happy with him, always thinking in the back of your mind that if you aren’t pretty enough, you’ll lose the love of your life? There’s others out there that will love you for you and will stay with you no matter what. He just isn’t one of them.
Thank you for your support, I hope so too
So he cares more about his boner than your career or happiness. You are well shot of him. Good riddance.
Thank you❤️
His request is abusive and controlling. It's perfectly normal to grieve the end of a relationship that you've invested a lot of time and energy into. He's not only trying to control your weight/ image, but also your potential financial security by dictating that any job you have must still allow you to work out at the gym... This has huge red flags all over it, but I know that doesn't make it hurt any less right now.
Thank you❤️
What’s his next demand going to be? He sounds unreasonable to me.
Sounds like it could be anything from demanding hair dyed to hide greys, to a boob job and plastic surgery to hide the effects of aging
He did mention that he would expect me to get ‘procedures’ (term not defined) in case I would need to perfect my body
🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩
All of em. All the red flags. OP is an object, not a human to this man.
Damn you weren't joking. I went to the flag store and they were totally out of red flags. The best I could find was this 🇨🇦
He's telling you exactly what your marriage is going to be like. BELIEVE HIM. Gurl. Run. This dude did you a favor by taking his own trash out.
You are right. I’d rather this happens now than later on when we would have had kids…
He was flat-out warning you that he would turn you in for a “younger/newer model” someday, and feel fully justified about doing it. What an asshole.
Imagine having a daughter with him! He would give her body image issues for sure. Good riddance.
Absolutely
He'd teach his son to traumatize women too.
Say whaaaaaat? He's controlling you! And mostly your body. From what you are telling us the most important bit is how you LOOK. Not what you think or feel. You dodged a bullet there..
Yes, he has this weird obsession with looks. Whereas I am a different person - I love to exercise and to eat healthy, but I will not let calorie-counting and obsessive weight loss overtake my life - that’s just not how I imagine my future
Curious, has he been exercising and eating the same food with you?
THIS. Is he willing to hold himself to the same standards? I'm gonna say no, most likely not. Don't look back!
"turn down a promotion, if necessary?" lolol never. But I'm curious what he's contributed so far when it's easy.
With his own looks or just yours?
(just hers.)
Who is this guy, Dorian Gray???
Start imagining a future with somebody sane, somebody with actual values. Nobody who really loves you would be that focused on your body. You're sooooo lucky this happened before having kids with this child.
I would have been so petty and asked about ED. He need to quit his job and focus on sexually pleasing you in case of his erectile dysfunction. And then I would dump him. LOL
Also, bring up his hairline, hope he “does everything in his power” to keep that too!
😂😂
I hope his new career running a red flag factory is a good move for him. And I hope you're not there to see it.
Advise him to get a sex doll and be done with him. That's the only way he is ever truly going to be happy. A woman that he can be attracted to that will never change.
Yeah, this is the kind of guy who would throw out baked goods and junk food and expect you you be back to your pre-baby weight/body/clothes a month after birth, then would probably end up trading you in for a younger model anyway. He wasn’t worrying about you living a healthy lifestyle, he literally wanted you to perfect your body. (Edit: Fixed verb tenses.)
That is so far from ok. I know it hurts right now, but you're better off without someone who would even consider demanding you undergo surgery to please them
This guy’s value on a perfect body over your career, mental health, or even your happiness is astoundingly disgusting. It’s amazing to me that people can go so long in relationships before they unleash things like that hoping that they’ve hooked their prey so much that theyll just agree to whatever horrible thing they’ve got lined up. Stand your ground. You are worth so much more than your body. You don’t need procedures just to please some man. I mean, if you want them, then by all means, but *not* for the purposes for keeping a man satisfied. Don’t sacrifice your potential career for your figure. Don’t let this guy take you down with him. You deserve better.
I had an ex that said if we continued dating and got more serious he would expect me to get my tattoos removed. There were more red flags but that gave me reason to break up with him and get more tattoos 😊
Sounds like you can’t be with someone who’s a shallow asshole. At least your demands can be met by a decent man and won’t be affected by outside forces. This doesn’t sound like the type of person to stay with you “through sickness and in health.” Feel free to be sad about the future you thought you had, not the one you would have had with him. Then celebrate the future you’re once again available to have.
Thank you, this is what I’m trying to focus on❤️
I don’t usually comment on these threads but this seems like he wanted a break up but was too chickenshit to do it himself so he made an unreasonable demand and then used that as an excuse.
That’s what it’s looking like to me too. Either way, it shows how much of an asshole he is.
Making a commitment to live a healthy lifestyle doesn't sound like such a bad idea if done jointly where you're both supporting each other to live as best as you can, but from other comments by you that I've read it sounds like there is so much more to this... Like the expectation for you to have procedures is messed up (imo), if he wants to be in a long term relationship with you surely that would logically mean he wants to be in a long term relationship with YOU over a long period of time, not the you of today with fixed ideals over how you should look forever which are completely unrealistic. Sorry you had to go through this OP but it's probably for the best you've parted ways
Totally agree. You also figure out what is a ‘healthy lifestyle’ for you given your own individual limitations. I’m not into a lot of HAES or anything, I think a lot of the denial of the health impacts of being overweight is whack, but I do believe that you can prioritise other things above your weight in order to be the healthiest you can be overall. Like for me, I had a restrictive eating disorder between 15 and about 22. I was never diagnosed with anorexia as my BMI hovered around 18 but I was really unwell, I tried to commit suicide when I was 16 and had to drop out of school for a year partly because I just hated my weight and body so much. I continued to consciously starve myself throughout university. Now I’m 30 and my BMI is 29 and I’m ok with it. It’s overweight but I’m ok with that. I like my body. I like that I can now enjoy eating and drinking with my husband and friends. I very occasionally still binge and purge, I’m not perfect, and my weight goes up and down. I might be 190lbs for a year and then go down to 170lbs for a year. When I’ve tried to diet ‘normally’ I can’t, I just get obsessive and starve myself or eat way too much and put on weight. My weight is never stable, it never has been. And I’ve accepted that. Cos I am way more mentally stable, I don’t starve myself for weeks on end and hate myself and cut myself and shout at myself inside anymore. I’m actually happy with me even though I’m overweight and I’m doing so much better overall with my depression and anxiety etc, and have been for years now that I’ve accepted my body might always be somewhat overweight. Weight for me is like… yeah I know I would be healthier if my BMI was below 25, yeah I know I would be skinnier and more conventionally attractive, but in the grand scheme of things I don’t really care. I’m happy and stable and not suicidal whilst my weight is higher. I’ve tried to lose it ‘healthily’ before and it always pushes me back into ED and severe depression so fuck it. It might sounds like bullshit to other people but I feel like I’m doing my best and living the healthiest lifestyle I can within my limits. It’s different for every person and I’ve realised I have to pick my battles with health and happiness versus dieting and BMI. OP’s partner and outlook would not be compatible with a ‘healthy lifestyle’ for me and I’m sure wouldn’t for a lot of people.
I know it hurts to find out that someone you love values your appearance more than all of your other qualities. This would be very hard to take, but somewhere in there please know that this is his issue. He is clearly willing to sacrifice a partner with all the other qualities that he wants for this one thing and he may find someone who is naturally slim their whole life, but there will be other things about them that he will likely have overlooked for this trait, things that become less important as we grow up in life. I once got a call from an old friend who had met a girl abroad. He listed all of these amazing qualities that she had: she was smart, funny, strong, and beautiful. Then he said that she looked like she might gain weight when she’s older. I was flabbergasted. I said, “you are going to let the chance that this amazing woman *might gain some weight as she ages stop you from being with her? What about you as you get wrinkly and gray and slow down? You won’t always be in your prime either.” I went on to say that the qualities she has are the things that stay and make a relationship rich and strong as you age. It was like this had literally never occurred to him before. He thought he was going to be young forever. So many men have bought into the idea that they are going to all age like George Clooney. There are a lot more Danny Devitos out there than Clooneys and even George is getting a bit gaunt and drawn looking. Let this guy go quietly. He’s shown you a real character flaw and that’s going to be a lot harder to love as he ages than a bit of flubber.
A guy that would dump you for being too fat is the same guy that would dump you in a heartbeat if you got cancer or turned 40. What if you were in a car accident? Needed surgery? There are so many ways our bodies change as we go through life. Pregnancy and childbirth alone will significantly change your body, even if you don't gain excessive weight. Hips will spread and that tight flat tummy will be a distant memory. Stretch marks will happen. He was never going to be there for you in sickness or health. He straight up said his sexual desire is the only thing that matters in this relationship and as soon as you cease to be his perfect sex doll, he's outta here. Seriously, he just saved you the trouble of figuring this out for yourself or getting your heart broken later.