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I had Leukaemia for over 10 years and underwent a lot of various treatment , one of which was steroids in the form of cortisone. I am the one who gained a lot of weight. I used to be not only slim but extremely fit and healthy , very toned and athletic.
Despite Doctor's assurances that I would drop the weight again when the treatment stopped I never did.
Hubby not only stood by me through what must have been extremely difficult for him ( being told your girlfriend has a few months to live at best and watching her in constant pain and physical discomfort cannot be easy- I certainly hope never to have to go through that myself with Him) but NOT ONCE did he make me feel any different , less of a woman or less sexy.
He tells me how beautiful I am almost on a daily basis and our sex live and physical affectionate side has never really been affected apart from of course me having been at times too ill to always be in the mood. We always made sure to have a very tactile relationship even if full sex was sometimes a little too much. Sex is great, I love it but there are different ways to keep each other satisfied...
I genuinely believe when he says that to him I still look as beautiful and sexy as I did when he met me at the peak of my physical attraction. We have been together for 22 years and been through hell and back. We know each other backwards and I think he is still attracted to me because to him I am still the person he fell in love with despite my extra pounds.
I eat very healthily ( and always have done) and since I was physically able again I have started to exercise as much as I possibly can because I personally hate being overweight. I never was a couch potato and used to be about as physically active as you could get ( went semi-pro at skiing ) and now I want to regain at least some of my former strength. It is hard. Very, very hard. I have lost 20 pounds but it took me over 18 months of incredibly hard work. 22 years ago it would have taken me about 2 months at worst... My immune system is battered, my metabolism is really slow and I get very weak.
I do half an hour on my exercise bike every day ( well 5 days a week), and half an hour on an ab bench with some weights as well . I have started archery to gain upper body strength because I cannot really do exercises which mean using my ankle.
To me it is primarily about regaining health and toning up but of course as a woman my looks are still important and I would be lying if I said I did not want to be slim again. I do.
But to be honest I am doing this for myself not for my husband. I want to be fitter and healthier and slimmer for me. Because it is better for me. If Hubby was so superficial as to judge me on my appearance then he would not be the man I love. He would be a total jerk .
Because he should love me as I am . I love him as he is. He has less hair than he did 22 years ago , is going salt and pepper and yes is a little heavier than he used to be . So bloody what ?
I love him. I fell in love not simply with a superficial envelope but with a whole package. I still find him as sexy and attractive as I did 22 years ago when I met him and went "hubba, hubba" to myself !
We put far too much onus on looks and physique. I would like to think that I would still love my husband if he was disfigured in a terrible fire. I would simply have to adapt my "ideal" with reality.
As a husband, or wife unfortunately you do have the responsibility to try to help your spouse stay healthy.Standing by and watching a big weight gain, or a smoking or drinking or other unhealthy habit while saying nothing is irresponsible. After all, if your health is gone - what do you have? When a spouse is middle aged and you see these things happening, you really have to speak up. If you take the easy road and "live and let live" you may both pay for it, in spades. Sometimes the truth hurts, but that is part of the tough job of being a good spouse.
Again, study after study shows that the people who are successful in losing weight are those who do it for themselves--NOT other people.
As far as spouses being responsible for keeping each other healthy, no. Adults are responsible for themselves. What you describe sounds more like a parent. If anyone else--spouse, friend, relative, whoever--decided it was their place to be responsible for my health and I'm not already senile and legally incompetent, that person would be cordially invited to butt out. That attitude is just much too disrespectful of me and too much of a violation of my autonomy as an adult capable of making her own decisions. Forget it.
A relative of mine use to be so beautiful and thin and sexy. But that was in the past. I was looking at her wedding photos the other day. She must have been maybe 120 pounds at 5 foot seven. She was so thin and so pretty.
Now fast forward 15 years and she is divorced, angry, bitter, and maybe 350 pounds. She looks terrible!
If that happened to your spouse could you stay interested?
Well basically she was underweight then at 120lbs.(122 is min for 5'7'') Thats what can happen. If she was not suppose to be that weight and had to really fight for it then she probably blew her thyroid.
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We were friends before we were an item so there was more to our connection than how do-able the person was. I would not marry anyone just because I thought they were hot or that was the major slice of the attraction pie.
We both got to be fatties. I got rid of my poor health weight pretty quickly and kicked him into gear too. And ooh there was a lot of griping. LOL
But I would not let someone I care about succumb to diseases from weight or the mental strain that can cause emotional overeating. Actually helping him lose weight we have grown closer, claws and all. Not he talks about crap instead of eating. He is a bottler. I also got him back into exercise which improves his personality overall. And just by a trickle down a couple of his friends started cleaning up their diet and quit smoking. Its kinda cool.
"I'll raise hell, till its heaven"
-Jay Z
But if someone does not respond to normal diet control and exercise you have to go to a doctor. So to just say f, u fatso well..lol...whatever happened to: "in sickness and in health". Because someone who eats themselves into a diseased weight is sick in body or mind and they need to change.
There was study done recently too that most obese people don't even believe they are fat.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20100902/hl_hsn/manyamericansdontevenknowtheyrefat (broken link)
Its kinda alarming. So I guess some people do need it pointed out.
Is having a preference for people who are in shape and not wanting someone who's overweight the same as hating them?
I think we all know the difference, Denny.
Well, most of us do.
Those who blather about eating Ho-Hos, "digging in fat heels," and how overweight people deserve to be alone don't.
How one expresses themselves indicates what is inside one's heart. Ugly, callous words mean ugly, callous heart. It's just that simple.
The karmic payback is that those who say others deserve to be alone speak in irony: An ugly heart will land you by yourself a lot faster than 50 extra pounds. Believe it.
You're fond of punctuating your posts by saying "that's reality". Actually, it's just an opinion and calling it reality doesn't change that. And unlike you, I don't need to tout my rep points in order to bolster my argument. I also noticed that you never really answered the questions I posed. Instead you responded by presenting a bunch of "wouldn't it be nice" scenarios. The reason I talk about the ideal is because you have to have a starting point in order to figure out whether the relationship you want is the one you actually have. The bottom line with healthy relationships is that both people have to feel like they can be candid with each other. It may not happen in the real world, but the point is that people at least know WHY it's necessary. While one person might be afraid to bring up a subject because they know their partner will freak out, what does it say about the person who freaks out every time that subject is raised? Mature adults should be able to discuss uncomfortable subjects with their partners. If they can't, then that says a lot about the kind of relationship they have.
Do you think it's right for a man to feel like he he has to tiptoe around his wife or be made to feel like certain subjects are off limits? I agree that someone who's overweight already knows it and doesn't need their spouse to remind them of that fact. But not saying anything can cause harm too. A buddy of mine has a wife with a weight problem. She's been out of work for 2 years. She sits at home depressed, eating lots of junk food and drinking. My friend never tells her to get a job or lose weight. But he's learned from some of her friends that she's actually passed up applying for jobs they've sent her. Why? Because she's been rejected so many times that now she doesn't even want to try. I'm sure you've seen people who do this with their weight. They try and fail, try and fail, until finally they just don't bother anymore because they're convinced they're just going to fail again. So even though they know what they need to do, they no longer WANT to. Is a supportive spouse still supposed to keep quiet? What if that person wants help, but they're too afraid to ask?
There is no easy answer to this. Leaving a spouse over a self-induced weight problem (too much food, not enough exercise, whatever) is not much different over leaving someone due to cancer (I told you not to eat that), paralysis (I told you to wear a helmet), unemployment (you should have tried harder), or any number of unfortunate conditions. Everyone has his own idea of when he is at the end of his rope. Some people have very short ropes.
I remember your earlier thread asking people whether they have told people close to them about their mistakes and misconceptions (dating out of their league, trying for jobs they are not qualified for, etc.). When pressed, you admitted you had not had one of those conversations with someone close to you. This is the same kind of conversation. Just as I shared that I couldn't think of how to tactfully, kindly tell our roommate that his dating chances were very slim (practically none) with the hotties he was pursuing, it's not an easy task to tell a spouse, "Slim down or I may have to divorce you or at least seek sex elsewhere."
A relative of mine use to be so beautiful and thin and sexy. But that was in the past. I was looking at her wedding photos the other day. She must have been maybe 120 pounds at 5 foot seven. She was so thin and so pretty.
Now fast forward 15 years and she is divorced, angry, bitter, and maybe 350 pounds. She looks terrible!
If that happened to your spouse could you stay interested?
My husband of 12 years is 6' and his weight ranges between 170 and 180. If he weighed 350 pounds I would still love him and I'd stay married to him, but I would no longer find him attractive. If that makes me shallow, I'm shallow.
I briefly dated an overweight guy but could never get past the belly. There were other reasons I didn't like him after a few weeks of dating. Not sure what I'd have done if I was crazy about his personality but not his body.
My husband and I are both interested in eating well, exercising plenty and setting a good health example for our daughter. Not sure what would happen if only one of us had those goals. It would cause stess in our marriage for sure.
Damn, instead of picking up an additional post for the multi-quote, I gave an unintentional rep to a post I hate!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Avienne
Tell you what--and this is coming from someone who is not obese by any stretch--I'd rather date someone who was overweight than someone with the attitude you display here. It is not only distinctly lacking in compassion, but entirely offensive and flat-out nasty and cruel.
Yep. Better hope it never happens to you.
Ditto.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mooseketeer
I had Leukaemia for over 10 years and underwent a lot of various treatment , one of which was steroids in the form of cortisone.
I know what you're talking about as I was on steroids, too, not long ago, and I was terrified by other people's stories about the side effects. I was either lucky or some of the numerous things I did to try not to gain weight helped, but I didn't gain much and I lost half of it. I'd be happy to lose another 3-5 lbs., but that's not the end of the world by any means. I didn't even buy next-size clothes.
However, the thought of becoming somebody other than myself physically in so many disgusting ways was killing me. I was already divorced. As many of you know, appearance is important to me, whether it's mine or somebody else's or whether that's shallow or not. Had I become a monster (because it's not only weight gain we're talking about... you know that), I have no idea how I was going to deal with it other than trying to end my life somehow... I can't accept it. I also had no idea how I'd deal with men from now on. Obviously, I would've had to set my eyes only on men who would match the potential new appearance. However, my thinking wouldn't have changed even if my appearance had... Quite frankly, I can't say I'm sure how my ex-husbands would've reacted had we still been together, either... I think both would've stayed, but one was more likely to stay than the other. I'm just speculating, though. In any event, if something like this can be a reason for leaving a spouse, screw that marriage!
How one expresses themselves indicates what is inside one's heart. Ugly, callous words mean ugly, callous heart. It's just that simple.
How is describing the consequences of one's behavior the sign of a callous heart? If you tell someone they're smoking will turn off others and cause them to be alone, does that mean you have a callous heart? No. You're just informing them what will result from their behavior.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Avienne
Actually, I have. Read through the thread. I'm not going to repeat myself because you can't take the time to read what I've written to other people.
Actually you didn't. I asked you whether a spouse is supposed to keep quiet if their partner knows what they need to do, but can't motivate themselves or can't ask for help. You dodged that. Instead you just told me to get with reality and said that people can't talk about everything with their partners. But that's still not an answer.
Moderator cut: off topic
Last edited by Keeper; 09-09-2010 at 02:16 PM..
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