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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Seeing both sides

365 replies

newwave · 22/11/2010 21:46

I am a regular exerciser and tend to watch my diet so when a friend of mine who had not been to the gym for a very long time called me and asked me if I was going on Saturday I said yes and she said she would see me there. This surprised me as at one time she had been a regular but had stopped about three years ago saying that at 47 she had grown fed up with the gym and dieting.

Later I asked her why she was back and she said her DH of over 25 years had said: "I didn?t marry you to end up with a fat blob and you need to sort yourself out" bit harsh I suppose but she had ballooned from a trim 10 to a wobbly 16.

She told me he had been getting upset about her size for a while and admitted it was due to getting a bit lazy.

I consoled her said the right things but AIBU in thinking her DH had a point.

BTW her DH is very fit for a man in his fifties, running, and golf. Still plays football.

OP posts:
newwave · 24/11/2010 17:12

Mardy, sorry but I don?t just walk up to people and impose myself, we have people just having a look round a lot of the time and the owners give out free trial day tickets sometimes.

It wasn?t me but one of the group instigated the conversation and then she was "in".

I love the use of the term "gym bunnies" as a pejorative term, I find being a gym bunny admirable, far better than being a fat lard arse slobbing out on the sofa eating yourself to an early death.

Still whatever rocks your boat

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MardyBra · 24/11/2010 17:58

Begony - it's all in the name. I thought this was AIBU, not insult someone and call them "a bit thick" or "fat lard arse" if they don't agree with you.

I've never used this phrase before, but it seems appropriate: Just jog on, there's a love.

Hiding the thread as I'm bored now, so no need to reply.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 24/11/2010 18:10

newwave - is that your true feelings about your friend coming out then?

newwave · 24/11/2010 18:25

Fanjo, no not at all, do I have an opinion about her putting on weight, yes I do and it is a bit negative, would I hold this against her or upset her by saying it to her, no i would not also she has very many psotives as well (like most of us). She is a nice person who deserves support (if she wants it) whatever she wants to do (or not do).

Mardy, do grow up, I did not call you a "fat lard arse" read the context, do you work for the Daily Mail, you seem to have a habit of editing posts to suit your predjudices

OP posts:
newwave · 24/11/2010 18:28

Off the the gym with the bunnies now, my DF is doing the driving tonight, must get ready.

See yah

OP posts:
Mumcentreplus · 24/11/2010 21:00

Ha! aint life sweet ...here's hoping you haven't got wrinklier...she might just be writing a thread somewhere ...

newwave · 24/11/2010 22:26

No wrinkles just laughter lines although nothing is that funny :o

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fortyplus · 24/11/2010 23:07

I'm a healthy weight and quite fit and muscly these days despite advancing age! It wasn't always like that - I put on a lot of weight after ds2 and was about 3 stone more than I am now (I'm 5' 9". Dh and I were having a chat the other day and I said how much I hated being overweight but he he said he honest;ly still fancied me as much then as he did before and does again now. Bless 'im! Smile

newwave · 24/11/2010 23:09

Forty, sounds like you have a diamond there

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bumblingbovine · 24/11/2010 23:36

God this thread has reminded me how awful most people are when it comes to appearance.

I personally am glad I have always been quite big. It is an amazingly good filter for all those shallow twats out there. Dh found me attractive enough to want marry me and to want to shag me constantly despite being a size 18+. He also loved me and fancied me when I lost loads of weight (5+ stone). He still loves and fancies me now I am back to the big stuff again.

In my youth I had many boyfriend and I also spent too much time yo yo dieting. My weight seemed to have little effect on the quantity of men I attracted but it sure affected the quality. Men attracted to me when I was slim were generally more twattish than those who I went out with in my fat stages. I also find it a good filter for real friends too. It is amazing how many wwomen judge and look down their noses at fat women.

I may be fat but at least I know my dh genuinely loves and wants who I am and although what I look like is part of that, the attraction he feels for me is based on so much more than my size that it is laughable. It has bog all to do with some artificially, externally decided frame of reference of attractiveness and everything to do with connection, intimacy and chemistry, none of which is dependent on my thigh circumference

.

SonicMiddleAge · 25/11/2010 04:17

I'd consider balooning 3 dress sizes (barring health issues, and no I do not count a couple of normal pregnancies in that)showed a lack of respect for myself, and my partner. I can see why the dh might be a bit upset, but can imagine there's better ways to have expressed it.

piscesmoon · 25/11/2010 07:56

If you are overweight when you met, or you both put on weight together there isn't a problem. In the first they fancied you at that size and in the second they can't object if they are the same. However if you were both slim and fit when you met and one works to keep it up and the other doesn't bother there is bound to be resentment.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 25/11/2010 08:08

'ballooning' is such a daily mailesque term for putting on weight!

SonicMiddleAge · 25/11/2010 08:31

Don't say that - I'm a guardian reader you know! As evidenced by my lack of ability to spell correctly...

working9while5 · 25/11/2010 08:43

"I love the use of the term "gym bunnies" as a pejorative term, I find being a gym bunny admirable, far better than being a fat lard arse slobbing out on the sofa eating yourself to an early death."

You can tell what someone does in their leisure time and that they will die young if they are a size 16? Sounds like a circus freakshow talent to me!

Some of you are a bit hysterical. An awful lot of women and men go through periods in their life when they may have put on (or lost) more weight than their partner would find attractive. Or have a dodgy haircut. Or slack on any other indicator of "attractiveness". Usually, it changes back again or moves on in some other way. Sometimes, it doesn't.

Nearly all women and men will change over the course of a relationship in quite significant ways, gaining habits that the other partner may or may not find attractive. Generally speaking, if you marry someone you really are making a commitment to putting up with that as long as it doesn't involve, oh, a new criminal career, an addiction or nefarious sexual activity.

I put on weight because I had an illness that required heavy duty doses of steroids for a period of time. Of course, in your warped worldview, being fat because I couldn't help it is somehow different? Yet at the same time, fat is the barometer whereby you judge personal attributes like self-respect, respect for others, industriousness, intelligence etc so you might meet me and extrapolate from my (rapidly shrinking - though you wouldn't know that) girth that I was a bit of a lazy cow with (understandably) low self-esteem
given my sloth-like movement and propensity to greed and self-indulgence?

It's all so.. Victorian. Go to the gym. Continue on being weirdly smug about being a particular dress size because you "work hard at it". Carry on assuming you know the lifestyle habits of others based on a brief encounter and that you can accurately judge their "health" without access to their medical records based on a statistical probability of mortality. Meet others who are similarly obsessive about their "health" (ha!) and if they are "unhealthy" as judged by a chart (as opposed to actual measures of health like their blood pressure, heart rate, ability to climb up a steep mountain or run a race), make sure you let them know that self-respecting, respectful, hard-working folk like you can't be seen to tolerate fat, lazy slobs who are stuffing themselves into an early grave.

Take care now, size 14 ladies at the gym might sit on you and never move again so blatant is their disregard for your (and their) personhood. Lumbering fatsos, taking over the world like an army of zombies. Never mind, dears, you can flash a taut tummy at them and it may stun them momentarily so you can make a dash for it.

IWouldNotCouldNotWithAGoat · 25/11/2010 10:22

Yup, Working, it's certainly not you who sounds like the hysterical one here.

Ormirian · 25/11/2010 10:33

Prompted by this thread I asked DH if he thought he might leave me since I had let myself go. He said don't be bloody stupid and take your knickers off!

Well OK not the bit about the knickers but he did tell me not to be so bloody stupid Hmm

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 25/11/2010 10:46

Orm - some things don't need to be said, I'm sure it was implied! Grin

fruitstick · 25/11/2010 10:47

This thread seems to deteriorating somewhat so I think I'm going to leave it now.

The OP seems to have shown her true colours with her abusive remarks about 'fat lard arses' etc and quite frankly her outward appearance probably has to compensate for her deeply unpleasant character.

What it boils down to, is that it is never OK to be rude or abusive to or about someone because of their appearance or their lifestyle choices (or anything really). Especially when they are someone you pretend to care about. Name calling and ridicule are not acceptable and we are no longer in High School.

It's called respect.

Consider myself flounced.

Ormirian · 25/11/2010 10:48

Yes indeed. It was 'implied' later in the evening

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 25/11/2010 11:36

ooh i do like a good implying Grin

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 25/11/2010 12:01

that earned me a bona fide hairy trucker PM!

Gissabreak · 25/11/2010 12:04

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

harpsichordcarrier · 25/11/2010 20:34

working9while5 may I commend you on your biting wit and incisive humour
I enjoyed reading that Grin

newwave · 25/11/2010 21:04

"I love the use of the term "gym bunnies" as a pejorative term, I find being a gym bunny admirable, far better than being a fat lard arse slobbing out on the sofa eating yourself to an early death."

IN MOST CASES if you eat crap you die sooner, it was not an opinion of DF of at any particular poster or size but a generalisation in the same way that if you smoke forty fags a day you will probably die sooner than someone who does not smoke although statistically a few may reach a very old age.

Working9. I put on weight because I had an illness that required heavy duty doses of steroids for a period of time. Of course, in your warped worldview, being fat because I couldn't help it is somehow different? Yet at the same time, fat is the barometer whereby you judge personal attributes like self-respect, respect for others, industriousness, intelligence etc so you might meet me and extrapolate from my (rapidly shrinking - though you wouldn't know that) girth that I was a bit of a lazy cow with (understandably) low self-esteem
given my sloth-like movement and propensity to greed and self-indulgence?

Did you actually put any thought whatsoever into that at all.

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