Too fat for my husband to respect me

[FootballFacedOrang]

Last night, somehow, the subject of my weight came up.

I told my husband I feel like he doesn't have any respect for me any more. It's hard to pinpoint. His general tone, lack of interest in anything I'm doing, undermining me in front of our 5yr old son. He just acts, quietly, like I'm something to be tolerated. Never celebrated, admired, or god forbid fancy.

I thought maybe I was being paranoid. No. Turns out my husband "can't have any respect for me when I don't have any respect for myself". By this he means that I am too fat (13 stone at 5 foot 6), don't get enough exercise and eat too much.

While he's right that I've not looked after myself as well as I should have done over the last five years, the fact that his respect for me is so conditional is hurtful.

I am studying at the moment. I got 87% for a piece of work this week. I'm dealing with lock down, which for me means seeing no one but my husband and 5 year old, not seeing my own family or friends for nearly a year, single handedly doing homeschooling + study ealier in the year. Now doing the vast majority of parenting, housework and cooking + my studies because I'm not out at work (my studies bring in as much more money as DHs pretty low paid job).

I should add that I had loads of massive surgery and a emergency hysterectomy when DS was born, so I was post baby, surgery, hysterectomy and menopause at 32. It's taken its toll.

I dunno. I agree that I should be healthier, but life isn't ideal and I am what I am. I don't think k that's a reason to respect me less. AIBU?

Wow, nasty. I would think gaining 87% shows massive respect for yourself. Maybe you like to focus on your brains and him on his gardens. What's he doing to improve his knowledge and intellect? Nothing? How lazy and lacking in respect for himself.

how sad not only do you do everything but he now disrespects you

what exactly does he bring to your life

So, Tatiana, you're saying that people with 'inhuman' and 'offensive' opinions, such as holocaust deniers, should command exactly the same level of respect from each of us as we each give to our respective spouses?

Eckhart could you stop me-railing OP's thread? Post a new one to have your bizarre theoretical debate on.

Sorry Max, didn't realise you were in charge of the thread. I'm discussing with Tatiana the question of when and where respect is due, which seems relevant to the thread to me.

How about you post a new thread about how to police threads?

@Gifgif

Wow, nasty. I would think gaining 87% shows massive respect for yourself. Maybe you like to focus on your brains and him on his gardens. What's he doing to improve his knowledge and intellect? Nothing? How lazy and lacking in respect for himself.

I think I might love you Gifgif!

Never heard the phrase 'me-railing' before, it's great !

I'd I had almost died giving birth to my DHs child I would expect him to absolutely cherish me and love me unconditionally regardless of my dress size.

So this is a man who doesn’t pull his weight domestically, doesn’t earn much money, doesn’t make his wife feel great.

So Apart from being thin - what’s the attraction?

I weigh this much at the same height and I'm a size 12? Bodies all hold weight differently of course but you can hardly be above average here. He should get in the bin.

You cannot expect someone to respect you if you don't respect yourself!

You being with someone like him and allowing him to treat you in such a disrespectful way is of course disrespecting yourself so I can understand why he wouldn't respect you - regardless of weight.

Ditch him - then learn to love and respect yourself - then find someone who respects you and makes you feel amazing!

Is that all you took from all OP's posts @4pence?

Cannot stand people with such BS opinions such as yours.

Lets gloss over everything else and just concentrate on OP's weight. 🙄

Sorry I didn't mean to put the line through my text!!

I'm afraid I'd have lost some respect for him for being so shallow.... partners are supposed to build you up and support you. Not tear you down, be rude and unkind

Nobody should be disrespected for their weight, but I think it’s also unrealistic not to acknowledge that different people have different preferences and thresholds.

Personality is what usually makes you marry somebody, but you’d probably have never flirted with them in the first place if you didn’t find them attractive (obviously there are also some cases where attraction grows, but I think in most cases we pick partners we fancy). For every suitable partner there are probably ten more with compatible personalities but whom you don’t fancy.

In an ideal world we’d all support our partner’s choices, but honestly would most women with successful husbands really be happy if the husband decided he was going to quit his career and work full time at McDonalds until retirement? I can imagine that many wouldn’t because this doesn’t reflect the ambitious person they married.

Sorry, I'm confused about how this is relevant. Is me putting on three stone over 5 years of early menopause and child rearing equivalent to a successful man chucking in his job and working at McDonalds, is that the jist?

Op you know you can do better.
He sounds threatened by your studying.
I would dump and move on. Easier said than done I know.

That does seem to be the implication @FootballFacedOrang.

And no, it's not an analogy that works.

Fuck me, no that analogy really does not work.

@FootballFacedOrang

It's been interesting to see on here that, for some people, being slim really does seem to be a qualifyer of success that trumps everything else. And therefore anyone who's not slim, for whatever reason, despite what else they have going on or might have achieved, will always be tinged with failure.

This is how my husband (and his family) think. They wouldn't say it in those terms, but it's implicit. There is no one in his entire extended family who is remotely over weight. Everyone is very outdoorsy. All the women snap back to pre pregnancy figures quickly. A Granny was always viewed as 'a bit dumpy' with a head tilt and sad face, like it was somehow a let down. She lived until she was 90.

I have learned that, while I think being healthy is important (I eat the right stuff, just too much of it, cook from scratch every night, walked up one of the three peaks last year), I do not think like this. And I don't want my son to grow up thinking like his either.

Well @FootballFacedOrang , if you don't want your son growing up like this either you'll need to be doing something about it quickly.
Whether that's leaving the arse, simply turning every comment he and his family make about weight into a joke or something in between is up to you.

It's been interesting to see on here that, for some people, being slim really does seem to be a qualifyer of success that trumps everything else.

You’ve got to factor in that some of them will have or have had EDs and and/or weight problems.The rest - well there is no defence.

I’m one of those types who’s always been slim and doesn’t really understand ‘battles’ with weight as such, although I’ve known anorexics. But it’s never crossed my mind to judge people for their weight. What’s it to do with me?

I’ve seen the flip side of it though, which is that you get excessive mad praise from some women for “being so slim” and comments and questions about what you eat. Even, or perhaps especially, when I did some modelling in my early 20s when it was a requirement to be a bit underweight. As if being thin was any kind of achievement!

At least two of my husbands family have had EDs in the past. One of them actually said very shortly after I had DS "I'm glad to see you haven't turned into a moose, like some people I know who've had kids". I'd just spent two weeks in HDU.

My succession to Moose status was a gradual one

He's not perfect but he's very fit (and will always be perfect to me, because I love the bones of him).

Loving someone who doesn’t respect you is not love, it’s servitude.