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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Many prominent people have weight, infidelity contracts, it should be mandatory for everyone and [b]would strengthen marriages[/b].

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/love-contracts-demands-weight-drugs-cheating-sex-article-1.1362310
[img]http://img.memecdn.com/NOW-I-CAN-GET-FAT_o_96188.jpg[/img][/quote]

No, it wouldn't.

We engaged in a lot of premarital counseling and wrote our upcoming vows over about a six-month period. Our therapist insisted: Don't promise anything that you can't fully control. Don't accept any promise that your partner could break for reasons beyond their control." Sometimes, weight gain is related to other health issues, including medication, insufficiently treated eating disorders or depression or even an injury that prevents cardiovascular exercise. If so, it is not in the person's full control.

Full disclosure: I had a brief period during our four years together when I weighed as much as 192 due to a binge eating disorder worsened by medication for a chronic health issue. I was unhappy in my big body and frightened by the binge eating (which had been around since childhood, but never this intense). I was also scared that I had developed borderline high blood pressure. However, I got so much support from my SO. He learned about what was making me fat and helped build way to ameliorate the situation. I couldn't run, but I could walk very long distances. He walked with me. I decided that I could not have trigger foods in the house (seeing them outside doesn't impact me) and he respected that. He even took over grocery shopping so I wouldn't make impulse buys. When we took a road trip to Louisiana, he made healthy meals and snacks to take with us even though road trips were the only time he allowed himself McDonald's.

We didn't stop being intimate despite my discomfort with my body because being sexually rejected by your partner damages your self-esteem and people with low self-esteem often find it difficult to take on daunting tasks --like transforming their bodies. I felt fully loved throughout. In fact, he proposed while I was at my highest weight. I was kind of horrified at his timing because I didn't want fat engagement photos. I didn't want fat wedding photos. I didn't want fat photos of our life together. Not because I think fat is ugly. Because I equate fat me with unhappy, unhealthy me. I got happy and healthy through hard work with therapy and medical treatment before I lost the weight. I wanted our vows to reflect my own commitment to a happy and healthy me in a body that could meet our needs as we grew older together. I joked that I would say those vows to myself if we called the wedding off.

In the end, we wrote that we would each vow to safeguard our own health to the best of our abilities and to be gentle but honest about any weight-related concerns about each other. That means that you can't just sit in front of the tv and eat Taco Bell until your pants don't fit. You have to do something to keep your BP, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels in healthy ranges. You have to do something to keep yourself healthy enough for work, sex, and rigors of family life in 21st century America. We agreed that we didn't worry about waistlines or numbers on a scale. We also agreed that we would not devalue each other on the sole basis of body fat and would be supportive about sensible efforts to stay healthy even if they inconvenienced us. In essence our vow regarding weight was not actually about gaining weight. It was whether we each loved each other enough to not endanger our own bodies or our shared lifestyle.

I know a woman who had bulimia. At the time that she met her future husband, she was about 120 because she was purging regularly. They got married and she got pregnant. She realized that she had to stop purging for the baby's sake and sought treatment. Two years later, she weighed 30 lbs more. None of that was baby weight. She was exercising regularly and responsible about her diet. She was just meant to be 150 with the frame she had and a 1200 calorie diet. Her DH said he was no longer attracted to her. He liked skinny girls. He knew that she was skinny years before only because of an incredibly destructive health condition, but he said that anyway. He actually preferred the sick version of his wife over the healthy version. They divorced. She is now happily married to someone else who values her heart more than her waist.

Men gain weight, too. Often from depression. A coworker gained 50 lbs in one year following an internal coup that led to his titular demotion. Men take career setbacks hard. He self-medicated with food and beer, but mostly food. He ballooned up quickly. It was alarming to see. He could no longer use the stairs and had to take the elevator up one flight. He could not carry normal loads that even our super petite administrative assistant managed effortlessly. He started to fall asleep in meetings. It was obvious that his weight must have impacted his marriage far beyond sexual attraction. I can't imagine that he was able to help around the house or actively parent their small children outside. His wife implored him to seek medical treatment. He didn't until she left him. He went on anti-depressants. Most come with some weight gain. A few promote weight loss. He got lucky. Over two years, he lost most of the excess weight. His jawline has softened a bit, but you can tell that he is much happier and physically healthier. At the end of the first year, his wife came back.

Fat people have sex. And not just with other fat people or with chubby chasers. Fat people have sex with people who love them. The people who love them may also love them in a thinner fitter body, but they won't destroy the fat person's emotional well-being to see if that's true. If you are a woman and you gain 20 lbs over 5+ years of marriage with child-bearing involved, your husband should still love you. He should respect setting aside time for you to exercise and he should respect your dietary needs. If he doesn't promote you taking care of you for health reasons, just sex or what his friends think at the pool, then his pressure for you to lose weight is just emotional abuse.

As a postscript: I weigh roughly 150 these days. I look thinner than that for some reason and nursing assistants or the new trainer at my gym have been really surprised when I stepped on the scale at intake. Part of me thinks that my ideal weight is about 15 lbs lighter. If I focused on it, I could get there. But at what cost. We like a glass of wine or two at dinner. I could skip those calories, but then my fiance would miss out on what he refers to as my sparkly moments when alcohol has lowered my inhibitions and I shuck my introvert skin. I think he knows he'll get laid a lot more often and with more enthusiasm with sparkly 150 lb me than then the teetotaler 135 lb version. I could go to spin an extra day a week when my child is at my ex's house. But then, my fiance would miss out on Wednesday evenings when I have lost of pent up energy and am as loud as (he and) I want to be because there isn't a kid sleeping in the next room. Which would you chose?[/quote]

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