Significant Other Comments on Weight

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on_the_hill said:
Do yourself a favor and break up with him. You will never, *ever *meet his demands. It’s impossible. And it’s not you. No one will ever meet his demands. I’ve known guys like that. Eventually, they end up very alone.

:hug1:
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Yeah, he sounds like someone who is never really satisfied, even with himself. A person who merely has high standards for himself and a constant desire to improve himself doesn’t worry ahead of time that his wife is going to fail him. He would consider his worry something he needs to work on in himself, since what his wife does is not in his control. A person who is always trying to improve himself might admire a woman who also likes to push herself, but worrying about himself and admiring his wife instead of the other way around is how a healthy “self improvement person” thinks.

What she doesn’t know is that if she loses the five pounds, he’s going to take the credit, too. “See? Aren’t you glad I encouraged you to lose weight?”

Did I mention to the OP that she ought to run? I think I did. RUN! RUN! RUN! Or you will live to wish you did, OP. It is only a matter of time. :sad_yes:
 
notredame16 said:
He will tell me I’m beautiful, but then wants to know how many miles I ran that day.
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I think you **should **take up running.

As in “away from him”. 👍

Your outward appearance is just packaging: the real gift is what’s inside. If he can’t see that, you need to get clear of him. A real mensch would love you for who you are, not for what you look like.
 
1ke said:
No, you don’t.

.

You can’t.

Which is an indicator that this may be a deal breaker. That’s the purpose of dating, so if so it’s served it’s purpose of discernment as to whether you two are compatible and meant for each other. Sounds like a no to me.
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Agree.
 
Tell him, the next time he asks you how far you ran today, tell him you are going RIGHT NOW, and then don’t come back.
 
op,i’ve never seen so many people on this forum agree on a thread since i’ve been a member.dump this jerk !!
 
Agreeing with everyone else.

My XH made little cutting, hurtful comments routinely (not about my weight but about other things). I came to a point of feeling very worthless, that even my own husband, the one person who should love me and see good in me, apparently didn’t.

By contrast, he gained weight steadily over our years together, and I would never have dreamed of saying a thing to him about it, because it would have been unkind. It’s simply not how you treat people you love.
 
notredame16 said:
Let me be clear: he is not consciously trying to hurt my feelings. I believe he genuinely thinks that what he is saying is acceptable because of his lifestyle and those around him. But how can I get him to understand that his comments are hurtful and that I don’t want to lose any weight?? We’ve tried and failed at this conversation several times before.
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Let us be clear, BTW: He does not have to want to hurt your feelings or want to ruin your self-esteem or intend to act like a jerk that any person with a healthy sense of herself is going to come to resent in order to accomplish all of that. He can think he’s being your best friend, and it not only wouldn’t matter, but would make it worse! Why? It is worse because few people are humble enough to repent from doing what they believe to be something so good that it is worth making it into part of their self-identity. He is extremely unlikely to ever amend this habit of acting.

This is the even-worse part: Even if you currently saw his controlling behavior as something done in your interest and something you can profit from, what he’s doing is going to undermine you as a person. Living to please a human being instead of living to become what God made you to be is the road to misery. Worse yet, it is the kind of misery that people can feel without understanding why they’re feeling it. It can express itself as a generalized sense of not being good enough. IOW, this may not end with you disliking what he is doing. It may end with you disliking yourself.

This meddling in the work of *your *growth and self-care is a habit with him. He not only sees nothing wrong with it, but sees it as and expression of one of his good points! This is why you will continue to fail at having this conversation every time you try. That is why it is almost certain that this behavior will go on until you leave or he wears you down into ordering your life around keeping out from under his “suggestion” box.

We aren’t telling you to run because he has his heart in the wrong place. We are telling you to run because what he’s doing will do you so much harm in the long run. It is an insidious kind of harm, as those of us who have gone through it can tell you. It will put a steel band of anxiety around your chest and a weight on your shoulders, a constriction that will grow so gradually that you might not even notice what is happening to you. You won’t appreciate the weight that is building up already until you shake it off. Then you will wonder why you didn’t shake it off sooner.

You aren’t going to change him and you are going to suffer harm if you take him as he is. That is why you ought to run. Don’t let that prison grow up around you, the prison that won’t even let you take an easy breath!! Believe us now! Leave! 😦
 
I’m from Southern California (the Inland Empire area, actually living along the foothills of Big Bear Mt.). No one I have ever known would talk to someone the way your boyfriend has, so I would not say it is an attitude that we have here. On the contrary, people would call him a jerk behind his back!

Edit: I wrote this before reading the other posts with the word jerk! Kinda just wanted to defend us folks in CA. And full disclosure, I love biscutts and gravy!
 
Add me to the list of those who say you should run. By the way OP, it’s not too common on this forum for everyone on a thread to agree- that should say something.

You mentioned that you think it is a “cultural difference”. I guess in a sense maybe your feelings toward fitness might be, but writing it off as a cultural difference places the blame on circumstances beyond his control. The problem isn’t your different attitudes, the problem is how he is treating you. And that’s not a cultural thing, that’s a jerk thing.

If you’ve already tried to explain to him that his comments are hurting you (and really, there isn’t much more you need to say to him than that) and it’s continuing, the bigger issue is not even what he is saying but rather that he doesn’t care about how you feel. If you stay with him, not only will you find yourself depressed for not meeting his standards, you will be married to someone who is impossible to communicate with and insensitive too. That’s not what you want. This guy is not husband material, not even for someone who runs a marathon every day.

I hope this thread helps you to see how wrong his behavior is, and that you break it off before your self esteem takes any more hits.
 
Notredame16 said:

“He goes to the gym five days and week and expects the same from me. He has made comments such as, “I would like if you lost five pounds” or “I’m worried about being attracted to you in the future.” He says it is because he is a self-improvement person and that we should both be constantly working to improve our physical, spiritual, and intellectual selves.”

Oh dear.

I agree with the general sentiment that this is not a good long-term prospect.

I think I’d add that your physical type should be attractive enough to your future husband that you have a certain amount of leeway with regard to weight gain and loss. If even a minor weight gain would make you unattractive to him (and it sounds like it would if he wants you to lose weight NOW), maybe you aren’t really his type.

Also, a 5 pound weight loss is virtually invisible, unless you’re tiny. Hence, I don’t think that would be the end of his demands.

Also, I note that while there’s talk of improving your spiritual, physical and intellectual selves, physical improvement seems to predominate.

If you do decide to stick with him (which I do not recommend), I suggest going to your doctor, getting your doctor’s recommendations for amount of exercise and weight, and then responding to any advice from your boyfriend with, “My doctor said not to do that.”

Bear in mind that joints only have a certain amount of life in them. Your boyfriend’s running mania could be, medically speaking, a disaster. I’m a 38-year-old lady with some foot problems, and my podiatrist is very insistent on the importance of cross-training. He told me that he himself ran for 20 years and totally trashed his kneed.
 
By the way, it’s not a “trusting” relationship on his end if he is convinced that you are going to blimp out unless he micromanages your exercise regime.

And one more thing–unless he is a trained sports medicine professional of some kind, it’s very unlikely that he knows much at all about the many differences between men’s health and women’s health with regard to exercise and diet.
 
There is a right way and a wrong way to bring such issues up. You’ve been the victim of how this issue should not be brought up.
 
Are you living in the same area now? And how old are the two of you?

But, I have to say that I concur with everyone else.

Even if you don’t break up permanently, I would give a break in this relationship. That will give him an opportunity to reevaluate how important you really are to him - and it will give you the distance to see how he treats you more objectively.

Because, like it or not, most of us don’t maintain the body we had in our younger years. All kinds of things from a change in metabolism, pregnancy, demands on our time, stress, illness, injury will affect it. Just look around you at the average 40 year old verses the average 30 year old verses the average 20 year old. It’s great to have high goals for oneself - but it’s dangerous to demand them of others.

So what will happen to your relationship if you fail to keep up to his expectations for working out and eating?

It’s not bad that he wants you to be as great as you can be. What’s upsetting is that he is micromanaging how you do it. It won’t work in the long run.
 
TheWarriorMonk said:
There is a right way and a wrong way to bring such issues up. You’ve been the victim of how this issue should not be brought up.
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If it were just that he has been ham-handed about saying he’d noticed she’s gained some weight, the reviews on this question would be far more mixed.

The problem is that she has repeatedly given him feedback to let him know that he’s been inappropriate, and he’s still making his way of doing things into some kind of reflection on what kind of a person someone is. Someone like him is a “self-improvement” kind of person. Someone who gains weight, OTOH, is someone he could not be attracted to. Add those together, and if the OP does not conduct her life as he thinks she ought to, he will tell her that this means she is unattractive because of what kind of a person she is. Most of us over a certain age knows someone like this. They’re very bad news for those close to them.

IOW, he has betrayed a very damaging world view that is the most likely to harm her while he is convinced he’s doing her favors and that is very likely to be entirely resistant to change. And yes, that everyone here agrees on that speaks volumes. That is extremely rare!!

The best thing in the world for him would be if everyone he tries to influence with his “be a self-improvement person like me” line will run like rabbits until he realizes that he is the one who needs to change, not everyone else.

The best thing in the world for the OP would be to leave him and not look back. She knows her own mind, and she shouldn’t have a thing to do with any man who is going to undermine her sense of herself like this fellow does. This is almost always a deep-seated problem in a person. She should not stick around to try to change it, because those close to him are too much in the line of fire.
 
Havard said:
I’m also from California, and have lived in the Midwest (Notre Dame, actually). It makes no difference where either of you are from, there is NO excuse for this kind of behavior.
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This would be a HUGE red flag for me if I was dating this man. As you grow older you are going to physically change, if he can’t handle that you need to find someone who will. Your worth it!
 
His focus on physical beauty is a little troubling. Will he have issues loving you when you’re both 50? 60? 70? What happens if (God forbid) you’re in an accident in your 30s, and say, lose an eyeball? Develop scars? Lose a limb? Would he still love you then?

Beauty fades, and I wouldn’t want anything to do with a mate that’s as focused on it as he seems to be.

Best get out now.
 
I agree this relationship sounds problematic. I’m not sure I have any new insight to give, but let me highlight some of concerns other previous posters have said:

-Losing 5 lbs is not about health or even appearance. It’s about obsessing with the numbers on the scale. Unless you’re 4’10" or shorter, you won’t look much different if you lose 5 lbs. I counsel people on weight loss. If a young person with no health concerns and a healthy weight for their height comes to me and wants to lose 5 lbs, my first thought is “screen for eating disorder/distorted body image.” He may be projecting his own body image issues on to you. Who knows?

-The fact that he continues to discuss the subject in the same manner after you have asked him not to speaks volumes. He doesn’t respect your wishes.

-The fact that he doesn’t even attempt to change after you told him what he said hurts your feelings probably means he will disregard your feelings in other areas in the future, if he thinks he knows what is best for you.

-This is not a “California thing.” Granted, I’m a northern Californian (we’re supposedly not as image-conscious as our Southern counterparts), but even when I was in college in SoCal no one I knew would think a boyfriend talking to his girlfriend this way was normal or acceptable.

As an aside, I found online dating (even on Catholic sites) to be a rather artificial environment. I ended up dating men I probably would have just been friends with had we met in a more natural environment. I found there was a tendency for relationships to become romantic more quickly than they naturally should. I know people who online dating has worked for, but that was my experience, before finding my husband IRL.
 
Please ask this man, in the event you two get married in the future, how will he view you when you are pregnant? Will he be accepting of your body during pregnancy…

This is a red flag. Just be careful !
 
oldcatholicguy said:
If he can’t figure out his comments are hurtful to you, than he either isn’t trying to place your needs above his own (something a husband is supposed to do) or doesn’t care enough about your needs to bother himself to figure out what they are (something else a husband is supposed to do). Either way, save yourself a lot of grief and get rid of him. If it helps, you can dump him, not exercise all week, eat ice cream all week and still lose at least 120 to 150lbs of excess weight (I’m guessing he weighs between 120 and 150lbs).
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Love it! So evil! With this sense of humour you may not get to heaven!! All these posts are full of good advice and red flags, it could be either a papal enclave or a communist rally. God too understands our humour as He made us in His image.
 
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