...to start being a little miffed at how friends' weight affects my decoration choices?

[AlmostChristmas2019]

That really. We have a couple of friends who weigh 21+ stones and it affects what furniture we can feasible get.

We just moved and this is the second time this is really starting to bug me.

A few examples:
...I have chucked out my top 5 choices of dinning chairs, because they either couldn't take that weight and/or had armrest that would literally dig into their bodies.
...changed my choice of sofa so it can support multiple obese people.
...did not get a shoe bench because their weight crashed the last one after a couple of uses (yes, that was the issue)
...tried to get an airbed that would support the weight of two obese people safely for occasional overnight stays (e.g. New Years) - found one that was tested to a high weight but apparently, even then they are likely to pop. American Amazon was a scary eye-opener.
...holding off on new Garden chairs, as the ones that they can sit on are pricier than the ones I'd usually get (shared, very social garden, so not looking for anything fancy) - which means we barely used the garden since moving.
....all of the options suitable for heavy people are way pricier

I do want my guests to feel welcome, I really do. I am just so over having to check the maximum weight every time I look at furniture that is meant to support human bodies in some way.

It doesn't help that most of them are friends DH kind of brought into the relationship and which I have neither a paricularly good nor bad friendship. They were all friends at uni and we are the people who live where it is easiest to meet for everyone. That is fine, I usually love a full house, but I feel so limited by someone else's choices right now*

DH does arrange to meet up out of our house with them more often now but that doesn't change the fact that our furniture needs to be able to support a good deal of weight relatively frequently. And I would feel hypocritical to say "no, you never get to bring your friends here" because I would have no issue with it if we didn't need specialised furniture.

Bottom-line: Am I being unreasonable for wanting to choose my furniture without having to think about the weight of people who do not live here?

-

• Not to go into too much detail here, because it is not relevant to my question, but as it is sure to be mentioned: I know obesity can have lots of underlying causes. Besides two of the people in question here, the cause is poor food choices + no exercise. They're quite open about it.

And you could be 12 stone and still break furniture. Some people just flop down. Furniture wasn't decided for this, but to sit gently.
Nothing would withstand that. Just think about how knackered you feel when the toddler just jumps sitting onto you.
Now older, still doing that it causes damage.

Might be the occupants of the house that are ruining things not necessarily their mates.

It's a tough one. DP's dad's partner is very overweight and she broke our sofa. We can't afford to replace it so now we just have one massively saggy seat that no one can sit on. We didn't want to say anything because we didn't want to be rude but it does make me worry about her coming round again.

Fair enough, then, ffswhatnext - I stand/sit corrected!

I bet you don't weigh 21 stone, though....

None of my larger friends have ever broken any furniture in my home
Unfortunately it does happen in work, they had to purchase two larger bariatric chairs as the ordinary chairs were breaking weekly.
I felt sorry for the culprits.
It is not a very kind thread, there is truth in it, restaurants are going for benches, lots of hospital beds operating table wheelchairs are now purchased for bariatric patients.

WagtailRobin, How does your husband feel about you mocking his friends?

I fail to see her mocking them in any way. What I can see is her going out of her way to try to manage the situation.

My sister in law is morbidly obese, thankfully she lives overseas. My other sister in law and her husband argue about giving said S. I.L. lifts because they are worried she will damage their passenger seats.
I think the OP has a point, I would worry about my furniture too.
I don't know what the answer is, maybe some Ikea armchairs, the ones with a beech frame?

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

I have been everything and everything from 6stone to 25 stone and more than once. Even without pregnancy.
Cushions were used more than the beanbag during the more heavier years, because well they kind off flattened, hence needing re-stuffing 🤣

I used to tell myself, you know what your a fat cunt, but you can still get up from the floor 😆

I have many, many, many issues. And when I come across cultures that do things like that I love it, in an, I'm not completely nuts way.

I fail to see how OP is 'shaming' anyone. Seems to me, she's being kind and considerate, tbh.

And I'm amazed at the furniture choices of some people, I must have been shopping in all the wrong places. My exH and I broke two beds before. Just sleeping. I was 'just' 17.5 stone back then, my ex probably a bit more. That was enough for 2 beds to break. Standard mid-range ones, not super expensive, but not IKEA. So I can very well believe OP's sofas and chairs are breaking and I fail to see how is it 'shaming' to state a simple fact.

Poor op, having to furnish her home with ugly, oversized, barriatric furniture that she doesn't want to accommodate others eating choices..
It's a conundrum. Don't buy it, have it break?

Op I've just had a quick Google, apologies if it's been mentioned but knights Bridge furniture do bariatric range and it's not bad actually there are some really nice pieces.

You can't ask to lose weight or sit on a beanbag.
There is no option other than buying larger sturdy furniture or visit their home instead.
It would be mean to say it to them, I am sure an obese person worries everytime they see a slight chair, it can't be easy, unfortunately shame doesn't help anyone lose weight.
It is such a complex issue.
Your only option is to stop hosting.

I'm a psychiatric patient and as a result of a horrifying amount of meds, all of which cause weight gain, I'm about 10 stone too heavy. I rarely go out but appreciate that family members always tell me where to sit. Restaurants are a nightmare but I have mobility issues so waiters etc tend to be thoughtful about where to plonk me. I try to look like I don't care, my clothes are funky and my hair is ares length bright purple. But I do care and if I thought that someone was buying furniture especially for me, I would die a bit inside.

to those talking about weights cars can carry - I believe it's predicated on smooth roads and equal weights. To say nothing of size and wheel base. I'm light and my exP weighs 3x more than me. Going down a farm track or over speed bumps was always a worry, and the car needed to be fixed more often.

@Quetiapina If you're ~10 stone too heavy, nobody will need special furniture for you

Most common sofas are build with an "individual user weight" of 95-110kgs, so roughly 15 to 20stone. 21stone seems to be when things start to get difficult but furniture won't just combust at that stage either. Some of DH's friends are over 30 stone, which is the issue in our case.

I hope you feel better soon - you have more important things to deal with than what random strangers think of your weight. People have stressful lives and nobody can juggle every darn thing life throws at us. Something as got to give - no point for anyone to be judgey about that.

Thank you very much for your kind words x

We get the furniture we like , I wouldn’t even think about anybody else , it’s bizarre

Blimey, you sound like an absolute delight.
There are lots of ways to bodyshame but this is a new one, so well done.
Secondly, this whole post is weird... your friends aren't there enough I assume to actually break the sofa.
If something does break, which I can't see happening unless it is a plastic garden chair etc, then they should pay.
But why on earth would you ever check the weight limit on furniture? One of my friends is 22st, almost 23st I think last time we spoke about it, but she has NEVER broken any of my furniture... sofa, bed, dining room chairs... or even mishapen them. It has never even occurred to me to check weight limits on furniture...
Strange that you do.

I've also just read one of your updates... your first post mentions 21+st and then you talk about 30st... 21st is not an issue in terms of sitting on your furniture, how do rugby players sit anywhere?

I know it would be pretty awkward but you may have to have a conversation with them about it.

@asnugglysnerd

Body-shaming would be the exact opposite. It would involve OP telling the friends in question not to visit because she's worried they'll break the furniture - or letting them come but then telling them to stand up or constantly saying not to shuffle "as my standard chairs will already be struggling to accommodate the excess amount of weight" or similar.

Not wanting to upset them (or to break her own furniture) and keen to find a solution that suits everybody by asking strangers anonymously on the internet without actually saying anything to the friends that might embarrass them is surely the opposite of body-shaming.

Normal furniture and arrange to meet elsewhere from now on?

your first post mentions 21+st and then you talk about 30st... 21st is not an issue in terms of sitting on your furniture, how do rugby players sit anywhere?

I gather that the friends' weights range from 21st to 30st+ - there are several of them.

I presume that rugby players also have to make sure that they buy/choose sturdy furniture to sit on. If a chair cannot accommodate more than a certain weight, it makes no difference whatsoever how the occupant arrived at that weight, whether through being a 6ft 9in muscle-bound body builder/rugby player or an obese person with Prader-Willi syndrome.

I'm also very fat. I haven't broken or even damaged any furniture of my own or that of other people. I don't choose much own furniture - except in the case of a deck/camping chair, when I'd be sure it had been weight-tested to a higher level than the cheapies at the bottom end of the market- based around weight concerns, so why on earth would you?

Likewise, I have a very fat father, and always have. He has not broken any furniture in the last fifty years, though I appreciate he might have done in his first 30 (though tbf, he wasn't fat then).

My very fat grandfather also went at least 35 years (ie how long we were both alive) without breaking any furniture, of his own or others.

It's an incredibly odd thing to worry about, frankly - unless you only buy flat-"?pack furniture from the far East, which is lightweight in general and probably unsuitable for anyone above 75kg long term (as well as likely to be made by people undergoing jiuye, though that's another matter...)

It's clear that you have no fondness for these people - but don't make fat-shaming over furniture your excuse: own it.

I like how no matter the situation obesity is discussed and how, there are always people going on about fat shaming.🙄
Talking about it and how someone can deal with the issues it causes is NOT fat shaming.
Especially when everyone (except people claiming fat shaming🤷) was actually polite about it.

@asnugglysnerd OP is not body shaming.
It is a common issue my friend in work is in the 20 stone or above, she has broke many swivel chairs, the boss bought her a special chair, as others were injured using the work station after her.
It definitely happens.