Wife Has Gained Weight - How To Approach Her About It?

[Anonymous]

OP those late night snacks are what's doing it, you know that and so does she, the soda pop isn't helping either. The snacks of crackers and cheese aren't helping either, loaded with unnecessary calories.

I would wait until she brings it up again and then have a talk about how you can help. I would look at your ages and calorie intake. Perhaps your regular snacks are too many calories now. Exercise together. Ask her how you can help her. Talk about it from a health perspective.

Unfortunately a lot of it is personal meaning the person has to do it for themselves. Diet is key so if there is no ice cream in the house she can't eat it however if she buys it herself what can you do.

Is she getting close to menopause or peri menopause because that can really impact things. I would have an honest conversation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a similar issue with my pregnant wife. I brought it up at her doctors appointment and that seemed to help her.

Is this a sad attempt at humor??! 😊

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much weight are we talking about?

OP here. The most she has gained is 40lbs but she will gain 5 or 10lbs, lose the weight with a diet, and then gains 20lbs. It’s a constant cycle the last six months.

Maybe she is just more comfortable at a higher weight.
Can you just tell her to get some clothes that fit her now, drop the dieting, and just focus on living her life? Tell her that you don’t mind the 20 lbs, but you miss her being the fun, active person that she was when she wasn’t obsessed with her weight and dieting.

OP here. She isn’t. She is the one that brings up how much weight she gained and gets mad and goes on a diet. Then she is god for a little while and starts slipping and gains the weight back.

Oh. I’m sure that has nothing to do with your implicit judgement of her.

Wow - so much pent up hate and vitriol toward the OP (who is male) in this thread. Some of you must truly hate your husbands- or is it all men you hate?

It’s all men they hate. They need men to have kids and support them but then hate them.

A lot of Hatorade drinkers in here…

[Anonymous]

Woman here. I promise you, OP, if you mention lightheartedly that one of your female friends just lost a lot of weight and looks great, it'll plant a seed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Woman here. I promise you, OP, if you mention lightheartedly that one of your female friends just lost a lot of weight and looks great, it'll plant a seed

But what kind of seed? If my husband did that I’d either get depressed, resentful, or think DH was being weird. Hard to be sure since he’s never do something like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Woman here. I promise you, OP, if you mention lightheartedly that one of your female friends just lost a lot of weight and looks great, it'll plant a seed

But what kind of seed? If my husband did that I’d either get depressed, resentful, or think DH was being weird. Hard to be sure since he’s never do something like that.

Motivation

[Anonymous]

Do you spend time with her? Does she truly know you care about her well-being, mental health, her thoughts about life, etc?

I often eat really poorly when depressed. I sometimes get depressed when I feel like my husband doesn’t actually care about me, but rather just wants me to change into something more pleasing to *him*.

I also get depressed because well, life is just hard sometimes. And when DH sees that and cares, it makes things so much better. It’s not like he controls my depression, but it does have an impact.

So I’d just pay attention to her mental health. It could also be anxiety. However if she is eating junk alone, it’s probably a shame issue and saying something will make her gain even more weight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Woman here. I promise you, OP, if you mention lightheartedly that one of your female friends just lost a lot of weight and looks great, it'll plant a seed

But what kind of seed? If my husband did that I’d either get depressed, resentful, or think DH was being weird. Hard to be sure since he’s never do something like that.

Motivation

That was a rhetorical question lol. I’m saying that as a woman it would not motivate me to lose weight at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Woman here. I promise you, OP, if you mention lightheartedly that one of your female friends just lost a lot of weight and looks great, it'll plant a seed

But what kind of seed? If my husband did that I’d either get depressed, resentful, or think DH was being weird. Hard to be sure since he’s never do something like that.

Motivation

Yeah motivation to leave. She might lose weight but it won’t be for the OPs benefit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much weight are we talking about?

OP here. The most she has gained is 40lbs but she will gain 5 or 10lbs, lose the weight with a diet, and then gains 20lbs. It’s a constant cycle the last six months.

Maybe she is just more comfortable at a higher weight.
Can you just tell her to get some clothes that fit her now, drop the dieting, and just focus on living her life? Tell her that you don’t mind the 20 lbs, but you miss her being the fun, active person that she was when she wasn’t obsessed with her weight and dieting.

OP here. She isn’t. She is the one that brings up how much weight she gained and gets mad and goes on a diet. Then she is god for a little while and starts slipping and gains the weight back.

Oh. I’m sure that has nothing to do with your implicit judgement of her.

OP here. I have not said anything about her weight or late night eating. Our relationship had remained normal - still very attracted to her and we still have sex. We still show affection through cuddling and kissing.

If you like her at the higher weight, but you are concerned about the specific foods and the sneaky eating, just tell her that you want her to get the calories in during the day or ask her if she wants to add in a dessert after dinner most nights.
I think most women who yo-yo diet would be able to stop if their husbands told them explicitly that they prefer the higher weight.

[Anonymous]

OP -- I read what you said about what you have observed. Some advice.

First, do NOT bring up the weight fluctuations. She knows, and she's already thinking about them all the time. The most important thing you said is "I see you tormenting yourself and even when successful with your diets, you're not happy. Maybe you should see a professional to try to get at the underlying issues and who can help you with underlying strategies to cope. It makes me sad to see you unhappy."

You are NOT her dietician or exercise coach, or even her shrink. Many food issues come from a desire for control, and having someone else trying to control you just makes it worse. My DH was a saint when I went through a period of extremely disordered eating when we were dating, and he never said a thing because he knew I had to figure it out myself. The one thing he did do is realize that I was the most crazy when I was particularly starving, so he'd just say "hey, let's go out for lunch today. I feel like cheeseburgers". For some reason, if he said we should have cheeseburgers, I would eat one at the restaurant, and I would be a lot less crazy for a while because I actually had food in me. But he never said 'you're too thin, why are you doing that, just eat food, you have a disease, stop that, let me take care of this for you, etc". Because I would have doubled down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP -- I read what you said about what you have observed. Some advice.

First, do NOT bring up the weight fluctuations. She knows, and she's already thinking about them all the time. The most important thing you said is "I see you tormenting yourself and even when successful with your diets, you're not happy. Maybe you should see a professional to try to get at the underlying issues and who can help you with underlying strategies to cope. It makes me sad to see you unhappy."

You are NOT her dietician or exercise coach, or even her shrink. Many food issues come from a desire for control, and having someone else trying to control you just makes it worse. My DH was a saint when I went through a period of extremely disordered eating when we were dating, and he never said a thing because he knew I had to figure it out myself. The one thing he did do is realize that I was the most crazy when I was particularly starving, so he'd just say "hey, let's go out for lunch today. I feel like cheeseburgers". For some reason, if he said we should have cheeseburgers, I would eat one at the restaurant, and I would be a lot less crazy for a while because I actually had food in me. But he never said 'you're too thin, why are you doing that, just eat food, you have a disease, stop that, let me take care of this for you, etc". Because I would have doubled down.

Good advice. Be real with her that you see how hard it is for her and want to be a support but you can’t commander the situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Woman here. I promise you, OP, if you mention lightheartedly that one of your female friends just lost a lot of weight and looks great, it'll plant a seed

But what kind of seed? If my husband did that I’d either get depressed, resentful, or think DH was being weird. Hard to be sure since he’s never do something like that.

Motivation

That was a rhetorical question lol. I’m saying that as a woman it would not motivate me to lose weight at all.

+1. This sounds very mean and manipulative and would, if anything, make his wife more miserable and obsessive with weight and dieting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much weight are we talking about?

OP here. The most she has gained is 40lbs but she will gain 5 or 10lbs, lose the weight with a diet, and then gains 20lbs. It’s a constant cycle the last six months.

Maybe she is just more comfortable at a higher weight.
Can you just tell her to get some clothes that fit her now, drop the dieting, and just focus on living her life? Tell her that you don’t mind the 20 lbs, but you miss her being the fun, active person that she was when she wasn’t obsessed with her weight and dieting.

OP here. She isn’t. She is the one that brings up how much weight she gained and gets mad and goes on a diet. Then she is god for a little while and starts slipping and gains the weight back.

Oh. I’m sure that has nothing to do with your implicit judgement of her.

Wow - so much pent up hate and vitriol toward the OP (who is male) in this thread. Some of you must truly hate your husbands- or is it all men you hate?

It’s all men they hate. They need men to have kids and support them but then hate them.

A lot of Hatorade drinkers in here…

Better than drinking two cans of “pop” a night. That word is like nails on a chalkboard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had a similar issue with my pregnant wife. I brought it up at her doctors appointment and that seemed to help her.

Wait, what?

+2 omg hoping this isn’t real. Op, as someone whose weight fluctuates and whose body will never be as small as it once was unless I starve myself and never stop - the whole “worried” about her thing jjst.. woof. If she was eating and exercising the exact same and wasn’t gaining weight, would you be “worried” about her? Probably not. No one was worried about the health of my sister whose diet consisted of Mac and cheese, sandwiches, and plenty of Wendy’s and Taco Bell because she has my moms stellar gene pool and stayed quite skinny. But suddenly family members are very concerned about my “health” when I start to look more like my dad’s side of the family (whose gene pool I clearly pull much stronger for) even though I had a much more varied and most would say diet that include more “healthy” foods.

My point is - the vast majority of people aren’t worried about your health when they point these things out to you. They are worried about you being fat. Because it’s pretty rough in our society to be fat, totally agree, not ideal. And we very much associate weight with health even though like you said, there are a lot of factors. I would just really try to reflect on what you’re actually worried about. It’s also fair that because we all live in this society it does impact us and attraction sometimes at first when our bodies change. I get it. And also, I would say that it’s probably a good time to start accepting that almost no one remains unscathed from their body changing over time. They are meant to change. And sadly, despite huge efforts from many people, research still shows that it’s incredibly hard to keep off weight you have dieted to lose, almost no matter what you do. So you can either continue the yo-yo or try to embrace living a healthy lifestyle for yourself and not your weight.

That’s probably the most helpful thing you can do for your wife. Because shame just makes us have a harder time to actually make healthy choices.

This is such a thoughtful response. Thanks for posting!

+1