When you find your significant other unattractive

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Layp3rs0n

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I am now seeing a wonderful girl whom I care for deeply. She is great in every way except I find her quite physically unappealing. I feel badly about this and am trying to look past it. I could honestly see myself marrying her. I enjoy my time with her immensely but at present (should I decide to marry her) the thought of the marital act with her does very little for me. I am entirely ashamed I feel this way. She is so unbelievably good to me, loving me deeply despite my many flaws. How can I get past her looks? She is quite overweight. I feel like such a jerk. I do love her, just not how she looks. I really want her with me always but wish she could try harder to shed the weight. Of course, I cant be like, “I love you, but you’re fat. Exercise more please.” I don’t want to not have her in my life though. What do I do?
 
What do you do? You stop dating her. It is okay if you are not attracted to her, but God intends for you to marry someone you are attracted to, and she deserves to be with someone who is attracted to her as well. You are not being fair to her by keeping her around.
 
Thank you, but no. Aside from her weight issue, she is pretty much a perfect match. I should maybe retitle this How do you politely ask your significant other to lose weight? Like I said, I love her. I will not dump such a wonderful person over a matter of looks.
 
Layp3rs0n said:
I am now seeing a wonderful girl whom I care for deeply. She is great in every way except I find her quite physically unappealing. I feel badly about this and am trying to look past it. I could honestly see myself marrying her. I enjoy my time with her immensely but at present (should I decide to marry her) the thought of the marital act with her does very little for me. I am entirely ashamed I feel this way. She is so unbelievably good to me, loving me deeply despite my many flaws. How can I get past her looks? She is quite overweight. I feel like such a jerk. I do love her, just not how she looks. I really want her with me always but wish she could try harder to shed the weight. Of course, I cant be like, “I love you, but you’re fat. Exercise more please.” I don’t want to not have her in my life though. What do I do?
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**"…for better or worse, in sickness or health, in good times and bad…"

Your turthfulness expresses a conditional rather than an uncoditional love. If your love was 100% her weight would not be an issue.

Please be charitable enough to let her know that now.**
 
Layp3rs0n said:
Thank you, but no. Aside from her weight issue, she is pretty much a perfect match. I should maybe retitle this How do you politely ask your significant other to lose weight? Like I said, I love her. I will not dump such a wonderful person over a matter of looks.
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If you were to ask that, my answer would be “you don’t”. If you are not attracted to her as she is now, you should not be with her. Even if she were to lose weight now, what happens when she gains weight during pregnancy? Or if she had a health condition?

The bottom line- there is no polite way to ask your girlfriend to lose weight. If you’re not attracted to her, move on and let her find someone who is.
 
Layp3rs0n said:
Thank you, but no. Aside from her weight issue, she is pretty much a perfect match. I should maybe retitle this How do you politely ask your significant other to lose weight? Like I said, I love her. I will not dump such a wonderful person over a matter of looks.
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Eat healthy together, exercise or do active things together, make sure to notice/praise and be supportive of healthy improvements. Small things can go along way. For instance, if yall are soda drinkers, try switching to water, you can cut a lot of calories just that way. Also, even walking more steps a day, you could buy Fitbit trackers, where you can keep up with each others progress, have mini competitions, etc on how far you walk, how many stairs you take in a day/week, etc.

Overall, focus on being healthy and doing it together Extra weight comes with a lot of health risks, and its a lot nicer to hear “Lets be healthy so we can live long happy lives together” than “you are fat and ugly”. (Not that you would say that, but that is what women sometimes hear when their man puts too much emphasis on the weight issue).
 
Consider these points:
1.) She deserves to be with someone who is attracted to her.
2.) You might not be attracted to her if she did loose weight.
 
Honour said:
Overall, focus on being healthy and doing it together Extra weight comes with a lot of health risks, and its a lot nicer to hear “Lets be healthy so we can live long happy lives together” than “you are fat and ugly”. (Not that you would say that, but that is what women sometimes hear when their man puts too much emphasis on the weight issue).
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The problem with this is that the OP did, in fact, say that he is not attracted to her because she is overweight, and did not mention a thing about wanting to live long happy lives together. The truth is that he is not attracted to her in the present, so it doesn’t really matter what activities they do together. If she loses weight, she might gain it again later. He’s not a bad guy for not being attracted to her, but it isn’t right to keep her around while secretly dreading the thought of intimacy. Who wants to be with someone who isn’t attracted to them? I feel very sorry for her, because she is discerning marriage with someone who only wants to marry her if she loses weight. 😦
 
While I don’t always follow the results of studies, I remember one that hit home with me. For a male/female relationship to work long term it goes through certain stages, in order:

Physical attraction
Deepening friendship
Shared purpose/shared life

Apparently if the couple does not go through those steps in order and/or never makes it to step 3, the relationship has less chance of success, or even survival.

If you are not attracted to her now, it’s unlikely you ever will be, even if she loses weight. Further the chances of her losing significant weight AND keeping it off, particularly after marriage and children, is minimal at best. It will not only be a physical barrier it will create discord in the relationship. Further this is more important to you as a male than it would be for a female…sexist but true. A woman can find a man not physically attractive at first but the physical attraction can develop based on his personality and other non-physical characteristics.

Do yourself and her a favor and let her know she is a dear friend and you do not want her out of your life, but there is no future in this relationship if her plan is marriage and children.
You need to find someone you find physically attractive and she needs someone who loves all of her.

Lisa
 
Lorelei12 said:
The problem with this is that the OP did, in fact, say that he is not attracted to her because she is overweight, and did not mention a thing about wanting to live long happy lives together. The truth is that he is not attracted to her in the present, so it doesn’t really matter what activities they do together. If she loses weight, she might gain it again later. He’s not a bad guy for not being attracted to her, but it isn’t right to keep her around while secretly dreading the thought of intimacy. Who wants to be with someone who isn’t attracted to them? I feel very sorry for her, because she is discerning marriage with someone who only wants to marry her if she loses weight. 😦
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Right on!
 
Layp3rs0n said:
Thank you, but no. Aside from her weight issue, she is pretty much a perfect match.** I should maybe retitle this How do you politely ask your significant other to lose weight?** Like I said, I love her. I will not dump such a wonderful person over a matter of looks.
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:bigyikes::bigyikes: Ummmm…you haven’t been around girls much, have you? Unless someone is morbidly obese and the doctors are saying that they should lose some pounds, you DO NOT tell a lady to lose weight. It isn’t polite at all. That would be like a guy telling his wife, “I love you, but you so have to get a face lift. Those wrinkles are doing nothing for me.” No, no,no. You need to get over the fact that she is a little over weight or you dump her. I had a cheerleading coach tell me to lose weight because my butt was too big. I wasn’t fat, just had a larger rump than what she wanted me to have. It made me over analyze myself and ended up bulimic. I still have problems when I am stressed out and I will succumb to throwing up.

:tsktsk:
 
Join the gym together or join a Zumba class. This way you get to spend more time together, and you get to exercise! This the perfect way in which you can indirectly ‘kill to birds with one stone’- you get to know her more and more and you don’t have to tell her that you find her ‘overweight’. I hope that helps, in a way! 👍 😃
 
Haha Zumba. Maybe. By the way, I want to reiterate, I love this woman very very much. I feel so happy around here. I look forward to seeing her everyday. If I sounded ungrateful I apologize. I smile when I think of her. She is out to dinner with a girlfriend from work. I will probably see her after she is done. All of you pray for me.
 
Layp3rs0n said:
Thank you, but no. Aside from her weight issue, she is pretty much a perfect match. I should maybe retitle this How do you politely ask your significant other to lose weight? Like I said, I love her. I will not dump such a wonderful person over a matter of looks.
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Here is the dirty little secret; Almost every woman is overweight at sometime. You need to decide if you can live with her the way she is. If not leave the relationship. If so Marry her. But do not tell her she needs to loose weight. tha is a recipe for disaster.
 
Steveabrous said:
Here is the dirty little secret; Almost every woman is overweight at sometime. You need to decide if you can live with her the way she is. If not leave the relationship. If so Marry her. But do not tell her she needs to loose weight. tha is a recipe for disaster.
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You know what, I CAN. I love her. 🙂
 
Layp3rs0n said:
Haha Zumba. Maybe. By the way, I want to reiterate, I love this woman very very much. I feel so happy around here. I look forward to seeing her everyday. If I sounded ungrateful I apologize. I smile when I think of her. She is out to dinner with a girlfriend from work. I will probably see her after she is done. All of you pray for me.
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Prayed for you! 👍
 
Lorelei12 said:
The problem with this is that the OP did, in fact, say that he is not attracted to her because she is overweight, and did not mention a thing about wanting to live long happy lives together. The truth is that he is not attracted to her in the present, so it doesn’t really matter what activities they do together. If she loses weight, she might gain it again later. He’s not a bad guy for not being attracted to her, but it isn’t right to keep her around while secretly dreading the thought of intimacy. Who wants to be with someone who isn’t attracted to them? I feel very sorry for her, because she is discerning marriage with someone who only wants to marry her if she loses weight. 😦
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The OP was asking advice on how to talk to his girlfriend about loosing weight, in hopes that it would increase his physical attraction to her with out being rude. I gave advice on that. I, nor any of us here, have enough information to recommend he dump her, or to pity her for their relationship, and the OP certainly wasn’t asking for advice on whether to continue or end the relationship.

I think a lot of yall are placing WAY too much emphasis on physical attraction. You think she should go find someone who is more physically attracted to her, you judge him for being interested in a life with someone where there is not a strong level of physical attraction…but as you yourself mentioned, physical attraction is fleeting, and subject to change.

What if he was to take your advice and dump her so she would be free to go find someone else to marry that was more physically attracted to her…and then her appearance changed…maybe her new man wouldn’t like her skinny if she did loose weight later, or what if she became disfigured? If physical appearance is so subject to change…why is it soooo necessary? And what is so bad about asking how he can ask her to make a change (a healthy one*) that also increases his attraction to her?

*edit: assuming that she really is overweight and not that the OP has some crazy standard.
 
Short story: He tells her that she needs to lose weight; she loses weight; she dumps him. :bigyikes:
 
I can’t imagine your girlfriend being upset if you have an honest conversation with her about her weight. Speaking from experience myself, my husband, from a position of caring, told me that he was concerned about my weight. I myself was silently wrestling with my weight issues but never talked about it.

When he brought up the subject, it was quite relieving for me since he was so supportive and caring. I was able to loose almost 60 lbs because we, together, took on the challenge to be as healthy as possible.

Now…reality check…if you tell her that you aren’t attracted to her…:eek:

Honesty, coming from a position of love and caring, even when the topic is difficult, is always a good place to start.
 
Honour said:
The OP was asking advice on how to talk to his girlfriend about loosing weight, in hopes that it would increase his physical attraction to her with out being rude. I gave advice on that. I, nor any of us here, have enough information to recommend he dump her, or to pity her for their relationship, and the OP certainly wasn’t asking for advice on whether to continue or end the relationship.

I think a lot of yall are placing WAY too much emphasis on physical attraction. You think she should go find someone who is more physically attracted to her, you judge him for being interested in a life with someone where there is not a strong level of physical attraction…but as you yourself mentioned, physical attraction is fleeting, and subject to change.

What if he was to take your advice and dump her so she would be free to go find someone else to marry that was more physically attracted to her…and then her appearance changed…maybe her new man wouldn’t like her skinny if she did loose weight later, or what if she became disfigured? If physical appearance is so subject to change…why is it soooo necessary? And what is so bad about asking how he can ask her to make a change (a healthy one*) that also increases his attraction to her?

*edit: assuming that she really is overweight and not that the OP has some crazy standard.
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👍
ElyseMarie said:
I can’t imagine your girlfriend being upset if you have an honest conversation with her about her weight. Speaking from experience myself, my husband, from a position of caring, told me that he was concerned about my weight. I myself was silently wrestling with my weight issues but never talked about it.

When he brought up the subject, it was quite relieving for me since he was so supportive and caring. I was able to loose almost 60 lbs because we, together, took on the challenge to be as healthy as possible.

Now…reality check…if you tell her that you aren’t attracted to her…:eek:

Honesty, coming from a position of love and caring, even when the topic is difficult, is always a good place to start.
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👍
 
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