Losing weight when SO wants you to stay large?

[HeadlessZebra]

Hypothetical situation:

 

You were large when you started dating your SO, and he was attracted to you that way. You are significantly overweight, maybe even obese. Some time into the relationship you decide to lose weight for health and personal reasons. Your SO is opposed to it; he says he will be less attracted to you if you slim down, because he likes large women.

 

What is the right thing to do?

 

I ask this because it mirrors the threads I've seen about gaining weight after being in a relationship. It's been said that you owe it to your SO to remain thin and attractive to him, as you were when he fell in love with you. That brought up the opposite question in my mind. Do you owe it to him to stay large if he fell in love with you large?

[My Fair Katie]

I have a few thoughts on this:

 

1. The most important aspect is a person's individual health. Being obese is NOT healthy and it puts you (general you, not specific you) at risk for serious problems later down the road. Likewise being too thin is unhealthy.

 

2. If you (again general) are not happy with your own body, REGARDLESS of how your SO feels about it, you will not have the confidence needed to maintain the relationship in a healthy manner.

 

I don't think you (general) *owe* it to anyone to be a certain body type. What you do *owe* is self respect so that you can feel attractive and confident, you also owe it to yourself to strive to be healthy. IMHO that's the key to remaining a head-turner.

 

Hope that makes sense.

 

Neat question HeadlessZebra.

[josie54]

1. Whenever a SO bases his/her love solely on looks, there is a problem. If he loves you large, he should love you slimmer. Now, attraction is more complex (I can see a loss of attraction if someone starts "letting him-/herself go"), but if he is less attracted to you once you become healthier, then the relationship itself is unhealthy for you. As the previous poster says, being overweight, at a certain level, is unhealthy. He should be glad that you want to become healthier.

 

2. Weight, health, and body image is a personal thing. Do what you need to do for YOU. If you remain overweight just to appease your SO, even when you don't want to, you will build up resentment. People need to be able to grow and change in a relationship, especially when it's for the better. If your SO doesn't want this, he doesn't want to allow change in your relationship. That's not healthy.

 

Do it for you. Keep communication open to make it easier for him, but in the end, he'll need to just deal with it.