DH finds me physically repulsive

[maybehesright]

been married 25 years. My DH is super fit and has a real loathing of "fat" people. I was a size 10/12 when we married. After 2 children quickly got back to size 12. fast forward 20 years... am an ample and chubby size 14 and DH finds my size physically repulsive. We have always been really close but now I just feel like a failure.. .and the more I get stressed out about my size, and the more he mentions it, the more I comfort eat/drink... vicious circle. Not really sure why I'm posting, it's between me and him really, feel it's his problem more than mine, just feeling a bit shit and wanted to rant.

Has he always commented on your weight or has it escalated?

This isn't just about size, he's basically bullying and belittling you. Nobody should be made to feel a 'failure' because of their size

You've had two children and in twenty years have only gone up about one dress size and are now a 14? That's only a couple of inches and about a stone. Most people would think that is good going!

You say that you would quite like to lose a few pounds, but that's not really the issue here. It's that you have been together for years, he knows your personality inside out, you have children together, you fell in love and married...and yet to him, that small weight gain is a bigger deal and counts for more than all of those things. It suggests that his capability to find you (or anyone) attractive is limited to a quite superficial level: they must not wear clothes size 14 or over. Fine, if he likes thin women but you were slim when he met you and he's been with you 25 years: how can he expect a woman to never age or her body to change? Does he think depriving you of sex is going to help you feel any better? It's awful.

Tying to see things from his POV, I can totally understand why someone fit and into healthy eating would find someone active /who eats well etc attractive. I'd rather be with a rugby player than someone who was ten stone overweight and who spent all day sitting on the sofa eating crisps, if I am honest. However, you absolutely are not the extremely unhealthy woman that he seems to suggest you are, you are pretty normal. He seems to have quite unrealistic ideas.

I'm sorry you're feeling so crap, OP.

You need to sit down and talk, be completely frank and tell him exactly how much his behaviour hurts you.

My DM finds fat repulsive. She wouldn't say it in so many words but I know she does. She had an ED as a teen, so did I, so did my Dsis. I've gone up to a 14 in the past few years due to ADs and my DM finds it very hard to accept. She looks at me with scrutiny and concern every time I see her. I'm not an unhealthy weight, I eat a very healthy diet, but she tells me every time we meet how good it will be when I'm off the ADs and I get slim again, asks me what I've been eating and suggests healthy meals for me which is kind of pointless considering my diet is very healthy. Later on she'll text me saying she's sorry and she loves me the way I am.

My point is, re: your situation, when people feel this way about 'fat' it's not right but it's often deeply ingrained and related to defence/control.

Talk to him. Make sure he knows this is hurting you. Make him see that his words and actions do have consequences and something needs to change.

This sounds to me like a man who, frankly, has his eye on someone else. He may not actually be having or planning an affair with a specific person, but an obsession with physical appearance linked with a recent change in his behaviour ie bullying you about your weight suggests that he feels entitled to a 'pretty' partner. So he's either justifying to himself the fact that he wants to dump you or he intends to start seeking out other women for sex and wants you so badly demoralized that you accept this and blame yourself and continue to service him domestically and look after the children.

Yes I wonder if the focus on the OP's size is actually an outward manifestation of other issues, and he's trying to pick faults with the OP to justify his state of mind... Not necessarily that there's an OW yet... He may just feel dissatisfied in his life or marriage and think he's entitled to 'more'... whatever that means to him...

He doesn't sound like a prize tbh. I was a size 10-12 when I met DH and have fluctuated up to an 18/20 since then (although haven't been down to a 10 since pre DC). My DH doesn't seem to mind what size I am and at my biggest still says he finds me really hot and sexy. Does your DH realise how much this hurts you?

Yes, same here. I was a size 8 when we married and got to where size 18 clothes were getting too tight (and my joints too achy) before doing something about it. At no point has DH ever said I needed to or that I was fat, he has always made it clear it is me he loves and finds attractive, the packaging helps, and the changes make life interesting. Even when I was ill in pregnancy and ballooned out so my fingers were like sausages. He chose me and he continues to choose me.

Mad bugger.

“Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds," Shakespeare

This little quote is something that has been proven to be true for such a lot of the posters on this thread.Which is exactly as it should be of course.

OP ,your DH does not love you and possibly never has. Time to let him go and find the perfection he seeks -and you can relax, stop comfort eating and regain the happiness and figure you once had.

Quite a few people seem to be suggesting that he has another woman and that he never loved the OP which I think is harsh and not really an outsider's place to say when they have no evidence.

I also think Blue Jeans's post (and the Shakespeare quote) are a bit idealistic. To say that to be in love, you have to accept your partner altering in every single way is naive. If people change too much from what you fell in love with, that can cause problems.

If I met a really active, sporty guy who ran marathons and surfed who then suddenly started drinking heavily, spending all weekend in bed and gorging on junk food, that is a big change of life style. I also think it reflects a change in personality from being active, adventurous etc to quite dull and uninteresting. My DH has just got back from a run and I much prefer that he does that than spend all his time in the pub or on the sofa getting a massive beer belly.

However, OP, you have not really changed too much (one dress size is nothing) and are fit and exercise a lot, so I think in your specific case, he is being quite horrible in suggesting you are unattractive to him because you have totally let yourself go. I'm sure he doesn't model for Armani.

Time for a bit of snooping

If your happy the way you are then stay like it, if not then find a way to suit you of how you can slim down abit (e.g find an activity you enjoy and gets you socialising). Whatever you do to make YOU happy, you should tell your 'D'H that if he has such a problem with the way you look or your size then you'll go and find a real man who doesn't

I don't know how old you are, OP, but if you've dcs in their 20s then this might be relevant. My best friend, who is a doctor, says it's no accident that women put on weight as they approach middle age. It's nature's way of storing up something to fight ill-health with in later years.

My mil was tiny, and was always cutting out this or that, or fasting for a few days here and there, low-fat everything. When she was fighting cancer, her weight dropped from 8 stone to under six and she had no reserves left to battle pneumonia when it hit. She died quite quickly in the end.

Of course I'm not suggesting that we should all balloon to 20 stone, as obesity brings its own problems, but I really don't think that a size 14 is massive, unless you're very short.

The problem is not you, but your husband.

Wow that's horrible. Criticising you and commenting on what you eat FFS. Ugh what a wankbadger.

By the way, my dh is very slim and exercises a lot. Loves to feel fit and energetic. I'm overweight, if I'm honest, not helped by a year out of action after breaking my leg, although I can't blame it all on that.

However, he thinks I'm gorgeous and is always telling me so, and feeling my 'squidgy bits,' which I hate, but he loves.

Out of interest, maybe, are your DCs repeating any of this treatment because they'll be picking up on it. What is your relationship with them like?

It sounds to me like your H has an eating disorder and is projecting to the point of emotionally abusing you

It is certainly not mentally healthy for anyone, male or female, to be so negatively fixated on other people's weight and eating patterns

25 years and you've only gone up one size? Tell him to stick it where it belongs.

I had a coworker that said something along the lines of you should be allowed to hold your girlfriend/partner to whatever weight you met them at because that's what you "signed up for". But he'd always complain about his fiance for one thing or another anyway. It doesn't take rocket science to see his relationship crashing and burning later (if it hasn't already).

You shouldn't put up with his bullshit. If he's not showing respect for you with your body, he's probably not showing respect for you in other areas.

My husband has been with me while I have fluctuated back and forth anywhere between a size 7-12. He's been supportive of whether I want to lose weight or not. He's happily indulged in junk food with me and jumped on the health food wagon and gone walking with me when I want to be healthy. But ultimately he's left it up to my choice, and found me sexy regardless.

This isn't about you gaining 2 inches, it about him and him not being a very caring or sensitive husband. Why is he hurting you? It is either being done deliberately or he is just totally not aware of your feelings.

I would just tell him bluntly how you feel about his behaviour. And I bet he's not George Clooney.

I just have to point out that the sonnet is ironic... and ends with the lines:

"If this be error and upon me proved
I never writ, nor no man ever loved"

This is not about weight but about what being over weight represents to your DH. So many people associate being fat with negative characteristics - lazy, greedy, stupid, failure, the list is long. Look at RedRooms's post above and you can see there the assumption that fat people spend loads of time in the pub, eat junk food and lounge about all day. The fact of the matter is that someone who is fat (which at a size 14 you're not) is just that. I would actually confront your DH about his comments and try and ask him why someone else's weight bothers him so much? I mean unless they actually sit on him what difference does it make to him?

Hang on, Anomaly, I NEVER said all fat people sit in the pub eating junk food! I said that if that was a way of life for someone overweight it would be unattractive, but said that the OP clearly exercised and was healthy. Don't put words in my mouth that weren't there and use me an example of someone who makes horrible assumptions about overweight people. I have an underactive thyroid, so understand perfectly well that some weight gain is nothing to do with overeating.

However, a lot of obesity is caused by poor food choices and lack of exercise, and the NHS 12 week weight loss plan clearly states: We will help you learn to make healthier food choices, suggest exercise plans to help you lose weight, help you adopt a healthier lifestyle [...] If people are overweight, it’s usually because they eat and drink more calories than they need.

So, those 'assumptions fat people eat junk food and lounge about all day' do have some grounding in medical evidence because a sedentary lifestyle and poor food choices do cause weight gain. I think the DH of OP is using a terrible approach to encourage healthier eating (constantly nagging, withholding sex, making her feel crap). Clearly, to him, fat is a huge issue. However, I don't agree that he is totally out of his mind to make some associations with being fat (not the OP as she isn't, but the other people that she says he thinks as fat) and making unhealthy choices / not being active enough.

OP, the worry here isn't that he cares for your health, or wants you to be active: we all want our DH/DWs to live a long healthy life. It's not that he dislikes 'fat': so do most heart surgeons and nutritionists, not because they have horrible stereotypes about fat being a sign of laziness, but because they know the problems that an excess can cause. The problem, to me, is solely the way that he is pushing his views on you, upsetting you and making out that there is a huge problem when you are actually quite active and health conscious. The weight is more of an issue for him than it is any sort of health concern for you. That implies that it is more for 'aesthetic' reasons than genuine fears for your health, and that's what I would be annoyed about. Childbirth and age affect most bodies, but he doesn't seem to get that.

Have you actually asked him if he finds you a turn off? If not, why not? What have you got to lose?

Th

Thanks everyone. Am going to leave this thread now. Although I was upset and needed to rant, am even more upset now reading all the responses as you have made me realise that things are even more serious than I thought they were, and I'm best dealing with that in RL. Thanks again