Am I fat? DH thinks I am

[QuestionTime]

Hi all
New here but wondering if you could give me some advice as this is really getting me down now.
My DH is very weight obsessed, to be fair, both with himself and me. When a curvy celebrity like Nigella comes on TV he says she is gross or disgusting.

He has recently lost about 2 stone but still looks in the mirror and dislikes what he sees. However he also thinks that I am fat and it is really destroying my confidence now. He tells me very frequently that we both need to lose weight, that we both are lazy, that we both need to exercise more. I have put about half a stone on recently (im now about 9 stone 10 and 5 foot 3 now, a size 10/12) and he is avoiding sex like the plague because of it. He also never gives me any compliments. However about a year ago when I was 9 stone he was still saying how I needed to lose weight.

I have tried talking to him about it but he says he doesnt see how he can give me compliments when he doesnt find me attractive like this.

I think part of the problem is that he is somewhat resentful of how I reacted to him in the past. When we first got together he told me that he liked dressing up like a girl, and I didn't react too well at all. Even after all this time when he shaves his legs and puts nail varnish on etc I just dont find him attractive - I think he just looks plain strange tbh and that has also caused a lot of rows.

Last night he told me his new year resolution was to become 'braver' as a transvestite - he wants to have a full body wax and start going out fully dressed, both to transvestite clubs and normal occasions.
I didnt say anything at the time but it makes me so sad inside. If I am supposed to accept him and fancy him dressed as a girl or totally hairless (something I dont find remotely attractive) cant he at least accept me with a bit of weight on?

Sorry seemed to have gone into a bit of a rant! Any advice would be lovely! Thank you

Question Time, posting is new for you and I am really pleased you seek advice.

Some posters can get quite forceful in their opinions, which can be off putting. but there are some really good points here. getting out of a relationship that is making someone unhappy and that is damaging is not a sign of failure.

It does seem like a good time for you think carefully about what you want for yourself. this relationship and any future children you have.

Don't have kids with this guy, not because he is cross dresses or any of that stuff but because you don't seem to have a good, trusting, caring relationship.

If there are fairly big cracks now, and it sounds like there are, it will crumble once you add the stress of a baby and the responsibility of kids.

From what you have said this guy will be a total nightmare to have as an ex trying to manage any kids between you. He will be the worst type of controlling ex. Seriously, take some time to think if you really want his children.

OP, if you are really earning 40K at the age of 25, we must assume that you are well-qualified and work in a professional environment.

Put your work hat on for a minute. Would your colleagues understand why you allow your husband to demean you in this way? Do you allow people at work to belittle your appearance or make you feel insecure? What happens to the competent and confident professional woman when she comes home?

Hi everyone
Thanks for all your advice and I think many of you have made some really valid points that have helped me almost take a step back from the situation and view it more objectively. I really do need to have a long hard think.
I think at the very least it is now clear to me that I need to be stronger with him about how this is making me feel and the results it will have for our relationship if it continues. As Mrs Flittersnoop has said, if one of my team was behaving like this at work I would come down on them like a ton of bricks so why am I different at home?! To be honest I think my colleagues wouldn't even recognise the 'home' me!

Brilliant post, MrsFlittersnoop.

Agreed, good post MrsF!!

QT, good luck with this. You are young and have (sounding horribly cliched!!) your whole life ahead of you.

If this isn't what you want for the many many decades to come, then you are right to have a good hard think. He won't know to change unless you tell him what it is that makes you unhappy and why. If he loves you, he will listen.

If he doesn't, then, as I said (and know from experience) getting out of a bad marriage is not failure!

Good luck!!

The best Christmas present you will ever get would be freeing yourself of him. He has mega problems. He is very screwed up.

Quite often on MN people will say "you only have one life to live". Please live your life freely, with joy and happiness.

This thread really frightens me.

To hear of a young woman who is successful in her career and slim enough to be the envy of a lot of women, take such behaviour from a man is heartbreaking.

This man is expecting you to participate in something which most women wouldn't want - it's inevitable this will lead to sex with other men and by participating in it (painting nails etc) he will expect you to go along with this.

He tells you he is unattractive and he avoids sex. You are told/led to understand this is because of your weight. Yet at the same time he's telling you he wants to go out dressed as a woman - the fact we all know he will be very unconvincing just shows the depth of his feelings about this.

Can you not understand that he is struggling with his feelings about his own body and is lashing out at you? Can you not see the link between his hatred of his own body and his hatred of yours?

I can't say this strongly enough. End the marriage. Let him move into this new sphere of his life. He does not love you in the way a husband should love you. He likes you, but he does not want an intimate relationship with you.

If you're not prepared to leave him no matter what he does, then you are going to have a shit life.

But ultimately, it's your choice.

Another one to add to my list (and feel better about myself in the process).
Sorry OP - what exactly are you getting from this relationship? Insults and no sex and an outlet for his issues.

I too am unsure as to why you would want to spend the rest of your life with a man much older than you who calls you fat, when clearly you are not. He also called you fat when you weighed 9 stone. He doesn't want to have sex with you. He is a crossdressing transvetite. Does he long to have sex with a man?
Has he been in relationships before and how did he say they ended? Was it due to him fantasising about sex with men I wonder.

Personally I think you need to find someone who loves you. It is obvious you want a baby but I would hesitate before having a baby with this man, he sounds like a baby himself and having your own baby will make his behaviuor worse. Also how will he cope with your baby weight gain? He will make yoiu feel terrible whilst pregnant I can guarentee that.

Speaking as somebody who has nearly completed those 30 years of faithful committed relationship/marriage, I think your situation sounds very worrying. I see nothing wrong with marriage or commitment to marriage, but to me marriage (or its equivalent) is about two people pulling together as equals and supporting each other. That was what I committed to, that was what was in the vows, and if that hadn't happened then I don't think I would have thought of myself as committed to something totally different, just because dh chose to rewrite the terms.

Your dh is undermining you and what with his older age and wider (though not necessarily better) experience, he is, unfortunately, in a position to do that. This is not furthering the kind of relationship marriage should be about, so from the pov of marital commitment it all seems pretty irrelevant. You are being undermined and he is being encouraged to behave badly: this can't be doing either of you any good.

Please OP if you do not want to end this relationship at this point in time, do not even consider having children at this point.

You do not accept your husband's transvestism (sp?), he is pushing your boundaries on a consistent basis. How does his new year resolution make you feel, not good I expect ?

I'm sure there are some couples out there where the DH is a transvestite and they live happily and perhaps there are even children involved. However this would involve massive compromises on both sides, is that something you are prepared to do at the age of 25?

He told you about his predeliction right at the beginning of the relationship, you chose to ignore that, you may want to think about why this wasn't a huge red flag for you and why you still chose to marry him knowing it was something that he enjoyed and that you hated.

I hope you find resolution I really do. It's up to you if you go or stay but to bring a child into this situation would be hugely selfish on both your parts, not to mention the emotional abuse that you are likely to suffer in pregnancy as if he finds your ( slim and attractive) body repugnant now it's not going to get any better if you got pregnant.

Good luck

I made your mistake of being more committed to my commitment than to myself, QT, and the result was misery for me and absolutely no thanks from the self-hating, anorexic, probably gay man I was married to.

He hates himself more than he hates you; someone who hates himself cannot possibly love anyone else. All you are to him is a symbol of some sort of elusive happiness he craves, someone to perform household duties; you would be far better off as friends enjoying the laughs together. My exH and I might still be friends if we had not married.

Your idea that you can fix things and that you have some sort of duty to do so is your pride speaking -- pride is not a bad thing, but this is misplaced pride and a misplaced hope that you will some day be 'enough' for this man. You will never be enough for him because he doesn't know who he is or what he wants. He needs to sort himself out completely before he will ever be able to engage in a relationship of the kind you envisage, and that relationship will probably not be with you. He had an open relationship with another woman for 8 years and even this didn't bring him happiness. I strongly suspect that he will eventually reveal himself to be gay.

Trying to fix things on your own will have the same result as clapping with one hand. And do not bring children into this mess. They will not change him.

200 ex partners, transvestism, anorexia (which is what he has) and a controlling personality are all huge red flags.

Everything SGB said is 100% true here.

WHat happened to you before you met him, QT? I know something did.
Something happened to you that made you think that you are worthless as far as sexual/romantic relationships are concerned and other people are within their rights to criticize and undermine you.
WHOEVER DID THAT TO YOU WAS WRONG. You are not worthless, and you do not have to put up with abuse and bullying just to be in a relationship: you are a lovely, important, valid human being whether you have a partner or not. It's much better to be single than to be with a partner who mistreats you, and this man is mistreating you.
He very clearly has issues about his body, his gender and his sexuality. TO an extent, this is deserving of sympathy but it doesn't entitle him to dump all his pain and confusion on you. YOU MATTER JUST AS MUCH AS HE DOES.
If you are convinced that he is a good person underneath his anger and fear, the best thing that you can do for both of you is separate from him as a partner while agreeing to be a supportive friend while he sorts himself out with the help of a counsellor experienced in gender/sexuality/body issues. Just putting up with his abuse of you is not doing either of you any good.

You say your parents think this man is controlling and do not approve of your relationship with him: this may be because they are good, loving parents who worry about you or it may be that they think you should be under their control. THink about whether your parents were very critical when you were a child: if so, you might benefit from counselling for yourself about increasing your self esteem and improving your boundaries.
But please, don't just carry on putting up with this when there is no need to do so and no benefit to anyone, least of all you, in living like this.

He sounds like an arsehole. I'm a stone heavier which I'm trying to lose (for me!) and my DH would never mention my weight. In fact I said yesterday I'm fat and DH said no you're not!

Hi QT, you have said that you're not religious, fair enough, but you have said you are married for better for worse. OK, what about the man's promise 'with my body I thee worship' ?

I would recommend that you get some counselling, just for yourself, so that you can understand why you let him treat you the way he does. Helping you understand this would be a useful way forward, whether you stay or go.

FWIW, dh has known me for 35 years, we've been married for 33 and, due to a thyroid problem he has twice the wife he used to have. He still fancies me, and wouldn't dream of saying anything like that to me.

Unlike a previous bf, who I split with when I was 19 and he was 30, and treated me in a similar way to your dh.

Hi QT, where do you want to be in a few years because in my experience many of these men escalate their behavior?

Will he expect to meet your work colleagues at next years Christmas party wearing a frock and heels? When will he request that you take him shopping to pick his make up? Will you or won't you go with him to the clubs? Are you happy for him to constantly push the boundaries of what you are comfortable with?

The weight issue is just subterfuge, his way of excusing himself from having a physical relationship with you. I would seriously question whether there is more to this than just weight. Maybe he likes his women straight up and down or maybe he just doesn't fancy women. In which case 200 plus partners might just be him trying to fool himself assuming they were all women of course!

"He is controlling sometimes but I love him so much and I really want to make it work and for us to find a way for us to be happy together. I know I am probably driving you all nuts but when we got married I promised to be with him for better and for worse so I need to find a way for us to sort this together. Whatever his faults are, and whatever mine are we honestly do love one another a lot. We have lots of great times where we are helpless with laughter, and very affectionate, and this gives me hope that it can be sorted. Im sorry but I will not give up on him and us yet. I do take all your points about holding off on the kids as I think you are right, but I made the decision to promise myself to him so it is my responsibility to sort it."

You Are Not A God.

he is broken (his whole attitude to you is broken!) and you cannot, that's CAN NOT, mend him.

It's not a case on giving up on him - if you don't get out of this you are giving up on yourself. Giving up on your right to not be malnourished for his pleasure, giving up on your right to be a healthy weight withought being told you are too fat, or without it being implied that you are too fat.

You are staying with him because staying is easy. If you must fuck your own self esteem by staying with an abuser, at least don't allow any children to be brought into the family, as he will abuse them too.

HI Questiontime,
I'm so sorry you find yourself in this situation it's a very tricky one.
It's hard when you really love someone but you know that it's not right. In this case there is a lot that is not right and I think you need to give yourself a chance to be in a different kind of relationship. It's too easy to believe that what you have now is all there is - NOT TRUE!
If you are really, really supposed to be with this fellow (as you feel) then it is not going to do any harm for both of you to have some time out of the relationship - for you, a chance to think about what you want and maybe regain a bit of your self confidence and for him, the space to explore a bit more freely his sexuality.
FWIW I had a boyfriend who liked to dress as a girl too - he loved me becuase I was so accepting of his 'habit'. He was a best friend to me, a lovely, lovely man - one of the best lovers I have ever had too. I came to realise that his love for me was more based upon the fact that I accepted him and stayed around rather than because he was genuinely IN LOVE with me, if that makes sense.
Now, I can imagine that if we had stayed together, got married etc, then ultimately he would have become frustrated in his sexuality and wanted more than I could offer him. I can easily imagine this frustration manifesting in the kind of behaviour you are describing.
I really hope that you can find the strength to put this relationship on hold, at least until you are sure it is what both of you want. I also think that if you have a good, honest relationship with this man you need to tell him about the things that are hurting you and both of you can work at it. If he is a good man he will want to make you happy in the relationship and that means a lot of changes in attitude.
You say these things are small but actually they are HUGE...
make them an issue for him too.
Good LUCK!

Do you maybe love being married mre than you love him?

Anyone who has had 200 partners, and whose recent history has included an 8-year open relationship has too many issues for you to deal with, let alone the TV and body image problems he is asking you to deal with.

Why did he marry you? Is he worried about getting to old to pull, or are you the most vulnerable he's met for a while?

I can see that the next stage would be for him to ask you to accept an open relationship too, because you love him yet obviously (to him) you're too fat to fuck. Except you're not. He'd damn well make sure that you didn't sleep with anyone else, though.

He's not a keeper, so listen to your parents, read what others have written, think about your future.

I salute your dedication to your marriage, but you can't do it alone. Sounds to me like you're flogging a dead horse, I'm afraid.

But equally, you're not ready to hear (or act upon) the advice given here. So carry on trying, go on a diet in a vain attempt to please him, and we'll see you back here in a year or two when it's all got much worse.

He sounds like a total arsehole. He certainly won't make you happy. Is that what you want?