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Last Updated on June 13, 2018
First let’s rewind to 11 years ago when I met Mr. Bejelly. I was 24 and I was freaking hot. I’ll admit it. I’ve seen the pictures and I recall the years bar hoping without paying for a single drink.
Then the universe cleared the road and I met my future husband and well, I got comfortable. I love to cook and I had a sweet tooth that would rival Paula Dean pre-diabetes (BTW – I love butter as much as this gal does). So, I gain weight, slowly but surely as the years went by I packed on, egad, 90 lbs. Yep. 90 lbs of fat.
Mr. Bejelly says nothing. He’s gained weight too, maybe 30lbs, but nothing like myself and it’s during our holiday visit to Arizona he catches a glimpse of a photo taken of my hot self at 24. With trepidation he tells me that he is no longer attracted to me and he is worried for my health. To the heart of the matter, I realize what’s he’s trying to say is that I’m fat.
So what did I do? I took it like a man. I didn’t get all self-righteous on him and tell him that he should love me whatever size I am. I didn’t make excuses, hell, I hadn’t even had our child at this point so I can’t blame the kid. I look at my poor husband I tell him through the tears (hello, of course I was crying. I’m not Client Eastwood) that I will work at getting back to a healthier woman for both myself and him.
We got back home and I made changes in my diet and fitness. I walked 5 days a week after work during the middle of winter and started taking yoga at the community center. I lost 30lbs by summer and was happier so was Mr. Bejelly. He told me flat-out he only wanted a healthier wife and that he was worried about me. I’m sure he wouldn’t have complained if I had gotten as fit as I was before.
No one wants to have this conversation. Relationships are tough already and when you throw something like this into the mix it can be the powder keg that blows everything up. I don’t think it’s fair to your partner to not make a change if they are unhappy, particularly if you’ve gained a lot of weight during your relationship.
What are your thoughts? Has this happened to you? Share below.
I was worried when I saw the title, but now understand the context. Health is so important. I know I worry about my husband. He works a stressful job, loves to eat and enjoys drinking beer. None of these are inherently awful, but put them all together and it is a recipe for disaster. I do my best to offer healthy foods and he eats them which is good. However, he refuses to exercise. He will come up with every excuse not to. EVERY excuse. I do CrossFit and LOVE IT and I get so jealous when other couples are there working out together. :::sigh::: Maybe some day…
Thanks for sharing your story and I hope that your husband will make a change in the future.
I’m concerned with the way it was done, a husband telling their wife that he is no longer attracted to her. Obviously, you were ok with it, and I would never tell you how to feel. For me, when I gained weight, my ex-husband never said a word and called me “beautiful” every day, instead of my first name. When I did start losing weight, which I did for myself, it was because I turned 30 and was scared about what I was doing to myself. I lost a great deal of weight and became an instructor and my gym. Since the divorce, we have remained friends and I am concerned about the large amount of weight he has gained. I encourage him to come to my gym and share healthy recipes with him. I would never tell him, “you’re fat” because I know how personal a decision it is to lose weight and exercise. If he had told me something like your husband told you, I would have become resentful and bitter. Either way, good for us for getting healthier.
Good job on getting healthy Jolina. It was not easy for him to tell me this.
I’m struggling with this. I am 5′ 4″ and weigh 118 pounds. I have a very small frame but do carry a little weight around the middle (mind you I am still a size 2 so we aren’t talking a significant amount here). My husband became obsessed with his weight a few years back and has now projected these feelings onto me. He tells me the caloric intake of everything, tells me when I “cannot” order something, and begs me to work out. I appreciate the need to work out and be healthy. The problem is that he doesn’t have a healthy balance of working out and now has insatiable expectations of how I should look. And now he recently told me he thinks I am too fat. I am a size 2!?! How skinny do I need to be?!?
I’m sorry hun. From your description, this sounds nothing like what I was dealing with. I was size 28 – up from a size 12, so I had gained a lot of weight. I don’t know if you can talk to your husband and tell him his demands are not healthy.