If you lost weight for your spouse, did it help your marriage?

[Anonymous]

“You’re not crazy, OP. I’m still trying to reconcile that you used to plan role plays to have with your DH and he *still* asked you to lose weight. I don’t blame you for ruminating about it.”

You seem like a kind person.

OP- you seem like a reasonable and nice person too. I don’t think you’re crazy for feeling angst about this. I do feel bad that you feel embarrassed to discuss it with close friends. FWIW, I’m one of the recent previous posters (5’2” and DH wants me to lose 10 lbs) and I appreciated this post, so thanks. It was reassuring to hear that I’m not nuts/lazy and that I’m not the only one experiencing this. My current mindset is that I’m working on (slowly) cultivating healthy habits for me (cooking healthy foods that I like, improving breathing and posture, exercising to make my body stronger and more limber, saying daily affirmations) and if these things result in weight loss, that’s nice but if they don’t, that’s fine because I’ll be proud of my healthy habits.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My husband of 15 years asked me to lose weight. He said that he wasn’t attracted to me and hadn’t been in a long time. We have three kids. I put on most of the weight while I was carrying my middle child and some other life things were going on at the same time. But my youngest is in first grade now, so, while I put it on during pregnancy, it’s hard to claim that it’s baby weight.

Even still, I’m angry that he even asked. I have gone through a lot with him and done a lot for him. I am a fairly highly paid professional, a good mom, a good partner and friend to him, and a creative and fun sexual partner. Why can’t he overlook this one thing?

So, I look at articles about weight loss and marriage, and I see that marriages improve, and people feel sexier and more confident. But it’s been about three months, I have lost 20 of the 40lbs that he asked me to lose, and all I really feel is irritated and resentful. And our sex life, like my daily meals, has stopped being a source of pleasure (and fantasy), and is now boring and monotonous at best.

Did anyone else experience this dip initially? Did it eventually get better?

Do you do any strength training OP?

I did some hit or miss before all of this. I was a college athlete, and have been coaching high school teams off and on over the last twenty years.
I have been doing strength training 2-3 days a week for the last three months as part of my weight loss routine.

OP, if you’re still reading this thread, what are you hoping to hear that you haven’t already? That you’ll lose the weight and eventually stop being resentful and things will improve? They might, but that also sounds like pretty magical thinking, given everything else you’ve described going on in your marriage.

I think many women would struggle to have a spouse whom they needed to fully support for several years, who then moved to a new city while they were pregnant with their third (!) child, who expected them to go along with this massive life change, and then when they miraculously did all that *still wanted them to lose weight*.

Given all you describe you’ve given to and up for this marriage, I’d be a human flame-thrower by now.

Haha! I am feeling a little like a human flame thrower right now.

I don’t know what I was looking for in this thread. I’m so embarrassed to talk about this to my friends or family. I think I just wanted to hear some other perspectives rather than just ruminating in my own mind. I really appreciate the responses. I feel a little less crazy.

You’re not crazy, OP. I’m still trying to reconcile that you used to plan role plays to have with your DH and he *still* asked you to lose weight. I don’t blame you for ruminating about it.

I still think therapy would be helpful, at least individual for you, if not couples (yet). Hang in there. You sound like a good person and, frankly, a better partner than your DH deserves right now.

Thanks. I’m thinking about it.

I do think that someone pointed out that I sound kind of naïve about how important weight is to men, and that’s probably true.

I disagree with that argument. There is a small percentage of men who care a lot about having a thin wife/female partner, and frankly, that’s more about control than about actual size. Most men don’t give a rat’s ass about a woman’s weight, unless it’s associated with other kinds of problems (e.g., someone with severe binge eating disorder). And if they see a thin partner as some kind of status symbol, is that really the kind of attitude you want to accept?

Many straight white women obsess about their weight, and the weight of other women, and they want to believe that men do, too. Most don’t.

[Anonymous]

I feel really badly for you. I am a new post. I am much older and post menopause. I do not eat a lot but I have slowly gained weight since menopause. I am now about 20 pounds overweight and I am on my first diet ever. What concerns me about your post is what will happen when you go through the time of life change? Some peoples metabolism slow down as mine did and it’s harder to lose weight. Fortunately for me, my husband has always been supportive and says he finds me sexy no matter what so I am on a diet because I want to be on a diet not because somebody asked me to. I think that makes a huge difference. You’re losing weight because somebody told you that you were not attractive anymore. That sucks. It sounds like your husband‘s love is conditional.