Last night my fiancé told me she thinks i should lose weight.
To start, I think I need advice, support, and kindness. I came to reddit because I feel too embarrassed to go to friends or family, especially since my heads so unclear and I don’t know how to go about this.
My fiancé (we can call her Z) and I have been together for almost 5 years, engaged for almost 2 years. We were long distance for about 2.5 of those years. She was my first girlfriend, first kiss, first everything. She is a ray of sunshine and its impossible for others to not like her. She is everything that most people strive to be. She is kind, uplifts others, is hard working and has such a pure heart. Ive always been fat my entire life and have dealt with self-esteem issues for as long as I can remember. I had a really rough upbringing and some genetic health issues that went untreated for most of my life, so it contributed to my weight issues including having a really hard time being able to lose weight. I was going through a severe DV situation where my dad was abusing my mom, sister, and I before and after Z and I had started dating. At the beginning of our relationship, I was probably a size 18. Even then, I genuinely had a really hard time believing that I was worthy of love or that someone could even find me attractive. She has always said that she loves the way i look and everything about me. Im currently in a size 24 so Ive gained quite a bit of weight since we first met. Z moved from across the U.S. (east coast to west coast) to be with me and we have lived together for about 2 years now. The first year of living together was great. Our connection was amazing, we went on lots of dates, had sex pretty often, she never went a day without complimenting me or telling me how beautiful she thought I was. We are both really secure in our relationship and Ive never had to doubt if she was cheating. About a year ago, things changed drastically though. We stopped going on dates, we only have sex like 1x/month, she hardly compliments me anymore and when she does it’s not the same as she used to. Her compliments were so full of passion and admiration and made me feel so loved. I asked her last night to be completely honest with me about what was going on. I explained how I was feeling and why I thought something felt off and asked if it was something she was going through or if there was something in our relationship that was bothering her. She spent a few minutes silently thinking. I asked her again to just be honest, even if it hurts my feelings. She told me that she thinks i should work out. I asked her to clarify what she means and she said she thinks I should lose weight. It was clearly hard for her to be honest with me and she seemed torn apart and guilty. I asked her some follow up questions to understand when and where this came from and she had said about a year ago she just felt like my stomach had gotten too big and that it is unattractive to her. She said she missed how my body looked when we first met. It wasnt the biggest shocker that she said that since I spent my entire life insecure and anxious about the day something like this would happen. It did catch me off guard because she spent our entire relationship telling me that she thought I was very attractive and that she genuinely thought my body was beautiful and that she wouldnt change a thing. Both men and women alike have types and things they find attractive/unattractive and in our community I know there are some lesbians that dont find fat women attractive (which is totally okay). She knew that I was fat when we got together and we had many talks about if our bodies changed, bigger or smaller, would we still think the other is attractive. I know that its somewhat normal to fall in and out of love with your partner and to not be attracted to your partner at ALL points in life. We are only human. But it really cut me deep. She was the only person in my life that ever made me feel beautiful and worthy of love. Ive gotten to a point in life where I know my worth and beauty doesn’t come from other peoples opinions but its nice to know that someone thinks you are worthy and beautiful. My heart feels so broken and I dont know where to go from here. I told her last night that I think for now we need to take a break from our relationship, that we don’t have to tell anybody and we wont go out and date other people, but just to process and give each other time. For the first time in our entire relationship, we had an argument, i slept on the couch, and we woke up and didnt say good morning or do anything from our usual morning routine.
I just need advice. We have been together for 5 years. We live together, have pets together, she is a huge part of my family’s lives, and of course im in love with her. Im unsure if this is even something I should be making a big deal about. She clearly feels guilty for saying it (even though she has comfirmed that she thinks its true even if she feels bad). I dont know how I feel, I just need advice and opinions on how big of an issue this actually is and what you guys would do in this situation. Theres a side of me that wants to stay and work this out so if saving our relationship means losing weight however possible even if its really hard to do, i would do it. But theres another side of me that hurts and doesn’t want to stay if she cant look past vanity and accept me for me. At the end of the day, human bodies change and grow in all sorts of ways and it was inevitable that change would happen. I guess im unsure how to feel or go about this since what she said hurt but she said it with guilt and sadness. If she had said it in a rude/harsh way it would be a no-brainer that I would not be staying in this relationship.