Wwyd? Partner is obsessed with me exercising.

[Talktalk33]

I have been with my partner 13 years and we have 2 children under 6. He has always had comment about my weight/fitness levels, but it has started to really affect my confidence and self esteem.

Obviously I’m not as thin as I was when we met and now in 16/18 clothes where I was in 12/14 when we met. He tells me weekly I need to do exercise, that I need to join a gym or do a workout at home.
I work from home in a desk based role so have started walking a mile a day before I start work to try and get some steps in, he asks me everyday if I’ve been on my walk and doesn’t speak to me or gets annoyed with me if I don’t go that day.

I was supposed to go swimming but forgot my bank card and had to come home and he didn’t speak to me for 2 days as he was “disappointed I didn’t exercise this week”. he asks me when I’m going to go to the gym or do a workout at the start of the week and if there’s not time in the week (ie work commitments/afterschool clubs etc) it ends in arguments.

We eat healthily as a family and I do most of the cooking from scratch, but he has started to be more restrictive with “treats”,(for the most part he will do the food shop on the way home from work) for example, he will no longer buy crisps or snacks and refuses to buy bacon for bacon sandwiches which we used to have on a Sunday morning as a family tradition. He will also judge if I have too much butter on toast for breakfast so I have taken to eating when he’s gone to work.

I have tried to explain how him pushing me to exercise is making me feel but he gets very defensive and says it’s because he wants me to be healthy for the children. He says I can’t keep up with them or run after them and he doesn’t want me to end up “massive” (his words not mine).

I struggled with ppd after our 2nd child and occasionally have bouts of depression and he says it’s due to my lack of going to the gym/exercising, but I feel his constant judgement about it is making things worse.

How do I make him understand I don’t particularly enjoy the gym? Or is he right and I should be working out more?

I love how your story ended 😂

So your daughter heard when your ExH was telling you to lose weight while you were size 12?

How dare men bully their wives like that!

The model industry is constantly encouraging anorexia.

What size did he want you to be?

How slim & fit is he himself?

This can’t go on OP. He’s destroying your self esteem and the relationship.

Why are you doing all the cooking if you work?

We should take control of us being active for ourselves and our health at all times and not wait for anyone to give us a reason to be active.

Not being active and not getting activity hormones dopamine & endorphins, is one of the reasons people can feel low/lower in their mood or even get depressed.

OP I feel for you I really do.

I had a Ex partner who was the same. He bought us bikes even though I said I really didn’t enjoy cycling. He would wake me up early on my day off and insist we went for a bike ride….these bike rides would be 20-30 miles. He’d give me the silent treatment if I didn’t want to go or if I said I’d had enough and wanted to go home. He’d tell me when I saw my ‘shape improving’ I’d thank him.

I rode horses every other day. I was on my feet at work for 12 hour shifts. I swam 2/3 times a week, did Zumba, home workouts etc.

The fact was that he wasn’t in the least bit concerned about my ‘shape’ nor my mental health or happiness. He was concerned about controlling me and keeping me in line.

I left him because I knew that if I stayed every single aspect of my life would be controlled.

What a judgemental prick.

Is he shouldering 50% of the household burden? Not that he gets to arbitrarily add to your task list anyway, but interesting to know.

What exercise does HE do? This hits very different if he's extremely health conscious and works out 2-3 times a week, and really does worry that you're setting yourself up for mid/late life health concerns.
If he sits on his arse and comments on your shape and restricts your treat food as a form of control (rather than suggesting whole family has healthier snack habits) then he's an absolute arse, likely sexist too, and you need to get rid.

She is not abusive for trying to encourage her partner to lose weight, that's completely different. I can't think of anyone who will "love" a pot belly either.

Does he look like Dwayne Johnson like?

DH went to the shop yesterday for something and came back with daffodils and a box of malteasers for me. No reason. . . .

He will also judge if I have too much butter on toast for breakfast so I have taken to eating when he’s gone to work.

This takes control to a new level.
There’s concern for your partner’s health and there’s control — I’d say he’s the second.
I assume you don’t control and criticise what he eats? Or monitor what exercise he does?
Either put a stop to it now. DP , stop controlling me, you don’t have the right to do that. I will eat and exercise how, when and what I please. Stop now.
Or you leave him. I would.

Sunnygirl07
My lightbulb moment was after I had a leg injury and couldn’t exercise for 3 months- when that was out of the way I was determined to lose the weight I’d gained and got down to a size 10. We were going out one night and I actually felt fabulous. He sneered at me and told me my ankle was fat.
It hit me that it was never about weight at all- it was about making me feel bad about myself. But i find the issues he caused to my daughter most upsetting.
No, he was not especially slim or attractive himself, and for most of our relationship i did more exercise than him. Again, I heard the ‘walking isn’t exercise’, Pilates isn’t exercise, which from the OP’s post also rings alarm bells for me.

I agree that slim & fit people prefer to be with likeminded people healthy weight & fitness wise.

I am very proud of myself for being size 10-12 & I was choosing my DH also based on looks and his healthy weight as well his other important for me qualities like intelligence, kindness & generosity.

At school, I used to do athletics as a professional sport and very often we were weighed by the coach to make sure we stayed in shape. It was quite tough while being a teenager when your hormones could give you a few kilos even if you eat healthily and not that much. But it gave me good weight discipline and healthy eating habits for life that I taught our teenage son and help my DH.

When someone is struggling with their weight, I would never ever bully them like that making myself look better at their lower self-esteem expense.

In this case, only a soft approach works - self-love & self-care. Doing little things step by step but often & regularly.

Maybe you could get him more involved and suggests walks or other exercise together and finding new rheslthy recipes to make together.

At the moment he just piles the pressure on you and doesn’t seem to be actually trying to help.

That’s awful @Sunnygirl07 💐

Be cautious OP, even if you are the ‘perfect’ shape, he still might criticise and belittle if he’s capable of being this mean and controlling.

He is going about it all wrong. Really quite abusive actually. I think he might have a point though, but it's delivered appalingly so he's impossible to listen to.

If you have suffered with depression, and you don't exercise and am overweight/obese the correct thing to do would be to take better care of yourself, this includes eating healthy and exercising. It does sound like you have started doing that though, but walking 1 mile is really far to little on a daily basis. You would have burnt off the calories of 1 orange during that walk.

If you really want to put him in his place you start to really focus on yourself, get him to look after the kids whilst you do it. Get in perfect shape then leave him for someone fitter than him. He doesn't sound like much of a keeper.

I would find something I liked doing, for myself not for his benefit. Sounds like yoga and walking is something you enjoy which is great. Try out some other activities and see what’s for you. Some people love team stuff (like netball), I don’t but I do love aerobics with great music, and swimming, and more recently weights. I’ve recently seen too many older relatives struggling and in pain due to bad health and inactivity, and my motivation is to be strong and healthy for as long as I can.

Then I’d give him the choice of being supportive, or saying nothing at all. Those are the only options really.

I had a boyfriend like this at university (when my self esteem was in my boots, he was such a total prick in so many ways his shitty attitude towards my body barely registered). I remember once we'd just had sex, I was all rosy glow like and smiling to myself in the mirror, he came and squeezed my upper arm and said 'what's this, superfluous flesh?'. 20-year old me was mortified and heartbroken. 38-year-old me would have punched that fucker in the face and never let him touch me again. I would heartily recommend you take the latter course.

Your body has made babies and raised them to children. It is amazing. It is totally normal for women to put on and hold weight after childbirth, mainly (IMO) because we do the vast fucking majority of night-wakings, get bugger all sleep for years, and our hormones and eating drives are all to fuck as a result. I assume Mr Adonis did his fair share of the shitwork when your kids were small, enabling you to get a solid 8 every other night and thus to regulate your leptin/ghrelin appropriately? I'm sure he puts the kids to bed every other night so you can go to the gym/swim in your spare time?

It's so hard not to care what other people think of us, but I have found after children it's a fuck of a lot easier. You know who you matter to the most? Your kids. You know what they think about your 'weight problem', and your fitness levels? Fuck all. They think you are beautiful, and perfect, because you are their mum. They don't notice if you are a 12 or an 18, if your boobs sag, if you get a bit breathless when you pick them up and spin them around in the playground. You know what they do notice though? If you are sad, stressed, self-conscious, given to talking yourself down or taking it meekly while your husband, the man who is supposed to love you the most in the world, does. They notice that, all of it, and THAT is what will give them issues, not your weight.

He's such a shit to use your kids against you like that when really this is all about what he wants to see.

Stop 'telling him how you feel about it'. He doesn't care. In fact he knows it makes you feel like shit and that is WHY he is doing it - he is using your feelings against you to control your behaviour. That is what he is actively, consciously doing. He is nasty.

So don't 'tell him how it makes you feel', he knows and he doesn't give a shit. Tell him what you will accept.

"I have heard your thoughts on my weight and fitness. My weight is my business, whether I exercise or not is my business, what I eat is my business. Not yours. If you don't want to be married to me looking like this and doing what I do, you can leave, that is up to you. But unless and until you do, I absolutely REFUSE to hear another word about it. Do not ask me if I have exercised. Do not comment on my weight. Do not comment on my food. If you do this one more time, our relationship is over, because you will be making it clear you do not respect my very clear boundary."

I think it would depend whether you have been diagnosed with a weight related illness such as type 2 diabetes. My ex was obese and his GP said he wouldn’t live to 50 if he didn’t start exercising and eating healthily. I did occasionally ask him to do some exercise and referred to the GP’s comments. He is still obese, never exercises and eats junk. He is my ex but nothing to do with this issue.

That’s because he’s not trying to help he’s just trying to control and undermine her. It’s completely untenable. He needs to be less involved not more.

Whether OP could do with some exercise is completely beside the point.

He's using controlling and coercive behaviour OP. He's starting to restrict the type of foods you eat; you'll end up with an eating disorder if this continues.
What an absolute cunt.
Are you able to leave him?

He’s a jerk and not worth your attention!!!😊

Plenty of advice on here OP, and it's all spot on. What are you going to do?

He is obsessed with your exercising, he is obsessed with your weight. If you were slim, I expect he would not care how much you exercised.

Oh my life what have I just read. She needs to lose weight to 'save him from cheating on her'??? Or, you know, he could just.... restrain his rampaging skinny-seeking missile of a dick, rather than be DRAGGED into another woman's pants by the sheer iresistable gravitational pull of their size 10 label???

FF S. I cannot actually believe what I am reading.