Why do spouses leave each other after a dramatic weightloss

Gloomendoom

lulu_92 wrote: »

My OH and I lost loads of weight last year and if anything it brought us closer together.

Well it would, wouldn't it.

lulu_92

Gloomendoom wrote: »

Well it would, wouldn't it.

Ohhh you!

I didn't mean it like that (but that was a big plus!)

I meant that we were more comfortable with ourselves and each other and we had this new found confidence. It's so nice to go out without hating what you look like.

maman

I think losing weight is just one example of how relationships can end if one party changes and the other doesn't.


Losing weight is very obvious to outsiders but I've heard of many marriages floundering where one person took up, for example, Open University.


Just as in weightloss the 'other' partner may try to denigrate achievement the same can happen with studying. It often goes hand in hand with making new friends, having different conversation, wanting to spend spare time differently.


Basically one partner changes and the other one gets left behind.


It can be avoided by working together. It won't work if one person resents a loss of 'control' over the other who is breaking free. Depends how strong the relationship is in the first place.

Crabapple

I'm doing Slimming World and have lost just over a stone so far. I'm 2 stone lighter than when I got together with my now husband and when we married.

I made him promise he won't leave me if (when) I get thin. He made me promise I won't leave either!

He's really pleased and proud of me but I think there is a little bit in his mind thinking when I'm thin I'll go find someone better. Really can't imagine that there is anyone, for me anyway! I've got this niggling idea in my head that when I've lost some of my curves and have wobbly flabby skin with stretch marks on (had two kids as well as being overweight much of my adult life) he's not going to want me anymore!

I guess I should leave it another couple of stone and report back! Fact is, we are happy anyway and I can't imagine that will change. He's less confident than I am despite being average weight. If I start getting attention from other men it'll just make me laugh. I've been thinnish as an adult and the kind of men who paid me attention weren't exactly keepers :rotfl:

Peater

Losing weight & getting fit, if done properly, turns into a substantial lifestyle shift.

If one half of the relation goes and the other stay's put, it's going to put an enormous strain on things.

That's obviously not true in all cases, but is definatley a factor.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

If you're fat, you're less attractive or confident and therefore less likely to leave.

If you're dealing with resentment and anger, perhaps due to a controlling partner, eating enables you to literally swallow your anger and the words you want to say. The carb hit also sedates you.

A skilled controller won't like the change and will often resist it, not caring about the implications for the other's health. But if one person can identify this behaviour, it can be the final impetus to break free.



I won't be the only person here who caught their now ex carefully melting an entire lack of butter into a pan of reduced sugar baked beans 'oh, because it gives them a nice sheen. Why are you complaining about me cooking for you? I'm only being nice'. Or deciding that the intended boiled egg isn't acceptable and frying it, sausages, bacon, black pudding, all the tomatoes and pretty much the entire contents of the fridge. And going ballistic when it's not wanted.

Or suddenly 'just fancying' everything you've ever liked a bit too much, only buying full fat/sugar stuff, presenting snacks at every opportunity.

Or 'you're not well, you look ill, you're not attractive with loose skin'.

Or 'you're only doing this to meet other men, how can you do this to me?'



It's not being shallow, it can be finding the courage to not put up with the crap anymore, to say when something is unfair or unreasonable, to realise you do deserve a better life than this.

Or they realise they don't have control anymore and don't like it one bit.



I know that every time I tried to eat more healthily, the intentional sabotage started. Even my youngest noticed, and would ask 'are you trying to eat better again?' 'Why?' 'Because he's bought chips everyday, there's crisps in the cupboard and three tubs of ice cream in the freezer - and nothing else'.



I eventually had to break up with him before I could lose even a single pound. But once I could eat what I wanted, when I wanted, without feeling I was being scrutinised every second in case I tried to stop eating before I'd had less than a thousand calories per snack, never mind meal, expecting a row every time, I lost seven stone pretty easily. Don't know what I've lost by now, but I'm wearing size 14s rather than 28s being too tight, even with some loose skin.

raven83

Tenyearstogo wrote: »

I was overweight and my ex kept telling me I was fat. I went and lost a lot of weight. Ex stopped calling me fat.

A few months down the line, he told me I was too skinny and that I was better fat.

At no point during that weight loss did he compliment me on my new figure. I'd apparently gone from being too fat to too thin without being his optimum weight.

It wasn't the weight loss that caused me to leave but it was the weight loss that enabled me to see the state of my relationship.

I can relate to this, my ex told me when I had lost weight that I was "too skinny" and needed to eat a burger! :rotfl:

GobbledyGook

I imagine, like everything, there are a myriad of reasons. The control one is an obvious one.

I only know one couple who split after she lost a lot of weight. Somewhere along the way she changed, even towards her friends. All of a sudden all she talked about was how bad what you were eating was, how she'd never eat it and how disgusting chips/McDonalds/takeaways were. If we were out for a meal she'd pick over the menu and label certain dishes, even if other people were having them, as vile or disgusting and would make comments as people ate. Constantly she went on about it, and in a very rude manner.

She also joined a running group (fair enough) and pretty much dropped everyone in favour of them. She went from going out once a month to being out every weekend plus a couple of nights a week. She spent a fortune - gym membership, running group fees, workout clothes and equipment, supplements and nights out and in the end her husband had enough. He was working full time, basically being abandoned with the kids every single weekend because she was either out or hungover (funnily enough wine was never on the 'bad' list) and trying to make ends meet because all of a sudden she was spending hundreds more every month.

She didn't just lose weight, she turned into a really quite selfish, rude person (rude because she'd make plans with you and then call off at the last minute if one of her running/gym pals wanted to do something). She still reckons everyone is 'jealous' of her now - her husband split up with her, the kids chose to live with Dad, she doesn't talk to any of her friends (there was 6 of us who were quite tight knit) and she has also fell out with both of her sisters. But it's all us.... All she's done is get skinny....

I actually think rather than find the confidence she thought she'd find she lost what she already had. I don't think losing weight was the way to the perfect life that she thought it would be.

jaylee3

What a ghastly, horrible person ^^^^^^^ And GG, I have actually known several people like this; two female and two male. The women were a bit worse tbh, but the men were pretty dreadful too. They became mostly gym obsessives, ranting about how 'unhealthy' everything was, and yes, assuming that everyone is 'jealous' of them.

The one woman I used to work with left her husband and hooked up with a man 15 years younger from the gym, and assumed that all the women in the office were jealous of her 'toy boy,' (she was 39 and he was 24.) She used to say stuff like 'sex is better with a younger man.' and 'it lasts longer.' My 45 y.o. friend who had been with her hubby 25 years, said 'I know what sex is like with a 24 year old!' And this woman said 'REALLY?!' thinking she has had sex with someone else behind her husband's back, and my friend said 'Yes, I had sex with my husband when he was 24 years old, 21 years ago!'

This colleague of mine (who left her husband for the toyboy,) got brought down to earth with a bump though when her 'boyfriend' came in, and the receptionist (who had never seen him before) asked him who he wanted to see, and he said 'Jane,' and the receptionist called into the office 'Jane, I think it's your son..' :rotfl:

These people who lose weight and get all judgemental and find their partner is no longer good enough for them, better hope they can maintain their 'new body,' because if they don't, the new partner will most likely leave them. At least they will know how it feels then. :cool:

Occasionally, I have known someone lose weight, and they're not as slim as they think they are. They wear tight clothes, whilst still a bit chubby, and take pics of themselves from above, angled so their double chin doesn't show. I saw a pic of a friend of a friend on facebook, with all these carefully angled pics, and when I met her, she looked about 2-3 stone heavier than she did on her facebook pics! :eek: She claimed she was now a size 12, but was easily a size 16. Why lie? :huh:

sharnad

Maybe they put on weight as they weren't happy in their relationships and when they lost weight found the confidence to leave