Trouble in Paradise
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: s/o Weight gain
Of course I would. But that chick was all jacked up. And justifying her sudden change in behavior as "I found God" just made it even more strange to me. I would be just as upset if, say, he suddenly decided he hated doing things we'd enjoyed together in the past. Because it's a deep and sudden shift in his personality. I really think that's what was going on with the other OP. It's a symptom of an overall issue, not just weight. And there's nothing MORE frustating than someone who constantly feels bad about being overweight but stops trying to do anything about it because "it makes her legs hurt" or "she's starving and crabby". It's like people who complain about not having enough money, but refuse to stop going to the casino every other weekend and blowing a couple hundred on blackjack.
Also, I've been frustrated before and said things in a way that was way harsher than I meant. I've also gone back and apologized and tried to better articulate what I was trying to explain.
If BF is anything like his dad he'll probably gain 50 or so lbs in the next 20 years as he fills out. Right now, he's skinny and can't gain weight for trying, but his dad was like that at 30-ish too. That kind of weight gain - whatever.
But if right now, at 29 years old and can't gain weight for trying, he suddenly started rapidly gaining a lot of weight and wasn't taking care of himself in other ways like Trista describes, yeah, I'd be worried that something was seriously wrong, and I'd bring it up.
MASSIVE EYEROLLING
Yeah that's right my name's Yauch!
He could have a problem with his thyroid, have diabetes or another health problem. He'd need to see a doc first and foremostly anyway.
I think that's oversimplying things just as much as "you should always be attracted to your spouse no matter what they look like" is. It's entirely possible to find the extremely large gray area between attraction and repulsion as well.
So if Mr. Kuus were so round you could roll him down the street Violet Beauregarde style, it would have absolutely no impact on your attraction to him?
Of course long-term attraction isn't solely based on physical appearance, but when one's physical appearance changes drastically (and outside the normal "no longer a teenager" or "getting older" or "being pregnant" range) I think it's normal to at least be willing to discuss it with your spouse.
And that's a long way from claiming that intimacy has been commodified.
Not necessarily.
I knew of a very large plus sized woman who was gorgeous.
Her hair was impeccable; so was her makeup and her clothes were fabulous.
It's all a matter of perspective.
She was large, very overweight and she knew it.
I knew of another gent, also huge, who had average clothes -- but he also had zero lack of dates. It was his self confidence that did it.
This isn't what anyone said. At minimum, if that's the impression some regulars have given you, it's the wrong one.
Click me, click me!
I wonder if we aren't having some disagreement because of the differences in what each of us is attracted to. Kuus, you've explained what you find attractive. Size has never been apart of that or at least not sideways size lol or maybe it has. IDK.
If dude didn't need to be smaller in the first place to get your attention, you'd be less inclined to care about weight gain.
But if you like them tall and lanky as fuuk, you're more likely to notice a more than average spreading as it were, especially if it came with a difference in personality, interests, or some other behavior.
Click me, click me!
It's hard to say, but judging from the addition of 60 pounds onto a short, slight frame and the lack of waning of attraction there, maybe not.
But let's be real, we're not talking about people going from super-svelte to spherical here. We're talking about whether we look at our spouses with a critical and assessing eye, comparing them to some mental ideal (even if that ideal is a younger version of the same person), or whether we look at our spouses with a loving and accepting eye. We're socially trained to do the former; it's how body shaping and cosmetic industries make a market for themselves. But as we see below, it's hardly conducive to truly connecting sexually, and making each other feel loved and valued and safe.
I wonder how some of you would look at your husbands if on no level whatsoever did you feel that anyone, anywhere was looking at you and assessing how well you stacked up against the media image of what you should be.
I like short and thin. Or, at least I did. I have noticed Seth Rogen's attractiveness increasing in direct proportion to Mr. Kuus's waistline.
These don't have to be exclusive of each other. You cannot FORCE physical attraction for someone. If it goes, then how you deal with that is more important than the fact that it went. I can love my husband and still think he's got a bit of a beer belly that I'd like to see gone. He can still love me and wish that I hadn't gained 75 pounds over the course of our relationship. Of course he'd like for me to look like I did at 20. But the fact I don't didn't keep him from marrying me, and doesn't keep him from loving me, and that's all that matters to me.
Which is why I, and everyone else, said that weight ALONE wouldn't cause a problem. But weight gain with a substantial change in personality and the way you behave would.
Exactly.
What if, instead of weight, your SO decided to stop brushing his/her teeth? Would that present an issue? Is is different from weight? It would affect the marriage. It would.
The OP is too wrapped up in herself to have any objectivity about anything regarding her physical appearance.
Why is that an "of course" that he'd like for you to look now the way you did at 20? What, specifically, do you not like about his beer belly?
Come on. You're comparing bad hygiene to being fat? wtf? Totally different and you know it. That shiit is offensive, for real.
Well because I was physically more attractive to him 75 pounds ago than I am now. I know that, and he knows that. But that doesn't keep him from wanting to have a sexual relationship with me. Just because he was MORE attracted to me then doesn't mean he's suddenly repulsed by me now. And if it ever did get to the point where my weight caused him to be completely unattracted to me, I'd do what I could to lose it because I believe that I can't expect him to change what he finds attractive just because I don't feel like getting on a treadmill. It's just as important for him to be happy as it is for me to be happy.
And I don't like beer bellies because I don't find them attractive. They don't physically appeal to me.
This is too deep, Kuus! hah
Uh, I'm pretty sure that's nothing new. I could point you to some 15th century texts about exactly which physical features were desirable in women or in men, if that would help.
...because I can still find him attractive without finding a part of him attractive. You don't have to find every part and every piece of your spouse attractive to find them attractive overall. You can watch a movie and say "Yeah, I like that movie except for that part where *insert here*". It doesn't mean that you hated the entire film because of that one part.
I'm suggesting that the depression could have manifested itself in a different way that would be more universally unacceptable. How a SO is going to react to a signficiant change in appearance is not necessarily a measure of 'shallowness'.
People are touchy about weight. But the issue with the OP is only superficially about weight, IMO.
This is one of those threads that I'd like all of us to revisit in 20 years, lol.
When the pubes start to go grey, yup.
Yeah that's right my name's Yauch!
Okay, that's my point. A spouse isn't a thing to be broken up into parts, to like or dislike and then decide if the net additive effect is good or bad.
I will always maintain that if your spouse takes off his/her clothes and you're thinking "okay, I could do without the belly, but the ass is good" instead of "TOUCH THE NAKED!!!1!", then you're doing sex all wrong.
My H is similar (thin the whole time I've known him 6'2/140ish lbs). It would be hard to not notice if he even gained 10 lbs because of his build. I would probably mention something in a kind or maybe roundabout way if he started to gain weight (like, do you want to start trying to work out together more?). He's pretty sensitive about not letting himself gain weight because his father is overweight and has health problems.
You're on crack if anyone expects their spouse to look like they did when they were twenty.
COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF CRACK! Like Pablo Escobar levels of cocaine.
I still think we're talking semantics here. I don't really like facial hair well except for a certain and specific look like what Charles Brandon was sporting in the last season of The Tudors, yummy. But I digress.
The point is that I would still find H attractive if he grew facial hair. I might not find his facial attractive but he still is.
Click me, click me!
Are you my SIL? Ha. Seriously, those are his brother's stats, and FIL is very overweight with major health problems, including multiple surgeries for back issues. His parents are very inactive, so he's worried about weight gain leading to the same problems for him down the line.
Oh yeah, I've never liked facial hair, either. Mr. Kuus does now sport a goatee (or is it a Van Dyck? I can never remember which surrounds the entire mouth and chin) that looks good, though.
For the sake of admitting some shallowness, I will say that I wasn't as crazy about the Klingon facial hair pattern that he tried out for a week.