Even before I married my husband, I joked that my ideal marriage would include His/Hers duplex (I was 35 and still single when we met). Funny thing, is it's sounding like a good idea again.

I have to admit that we have been bad influences on each other (he began to exercise less like me, and I began to eat crappier like him).

For general psychological support, I couldn't be happier. The reason I had such a hard time finding "Mr. Right," was that most of the guys who were attracted to me, were really only attracted to fat girls. I didn't want to be in the same boat as the women whose husbands can't accept a weight gain, and have a husband who couldn't accept my weight loss. I finally found my "fat prince," who found me sexy fat, but wasn't turned off by my wanting to lose weight.

I am not particularly attracted to "fat men," in general (as in, it's not my preferred body type), and my husband isn't particulary attracted to "fat women," but we find each other incredibly attractive (we liked each other, but weren't hot and heavy from the start, that had to develop as we got to know each other).

I think it proves that sexual attraction is often more flexible than we assume, though some people may see we were able to be so open-minded, because as they say, "beggars can't be choosers," but I disagree (I was pretty choosy, sometimes too choosy as for a long time any man's interest in me, was reason enough for me NOT to be interested in him - and I didn't even bother to check if he was also attracted to thin women as well as me).

Ramble, ramble, ramble. Well, I think if you dig, you might find a point in all of this mess I've written, but for the life of me, I've lost track of it.

Haha. I used to work with a woman a long time ago whose husband was a home builder and they had a huge tract of land for her horses. They ended up building a second house on part of it with a little walkway connecting them and her husband moved out there. She was always joking about how the ideal marriage is one where your husband lives next door.

Christina

Thanks for the kind words, perspective :)

I'm just trying to focus on me. (not easy after a lifetime of not saying 'no', is it?) LOL!

Heather

Kaplods, I'm totally with you. It'd frustrate me when I'd meet the guy who liked "big girls". Uhh yeah ok bud, I'm not planning on staying this way. I was also pretty picky and I've only dated a couple guys long term because I used to screen them out pretty fast. Anyway, I am pretty independant and I just got married so it has taken a lot of adjusting in the time from when we lived together and now our married life. Anyway, I think men should support you and they should understand that we may struggle with our weight from time to time. My DH is one of the most understanding guys I know in this area.

Heather - I do hope you figure things out and I do wish you the best.

Yep, MY husband and daughter both are skinny. I hate the looks we get (or rather I imagine we get) when Fat mommy and the Skinnies go out to eat.

I still remember so vividly calling my mom 9 yrs ago to tell her about a DR appt. when the pediatrician was talking about how my daughter was on the low side for weight (she was very healthy so it was not an issue at all!) and my mom said "Well Starla, The DR probably looked at how big you are and firgured you ate all her food" :hun: I cried so hard and so long over that. At that time I was only about 15 lbs over weight too. *sigh* I had Post Partum depression really bad and that just pushed me over the edge *over eating* That was when my weight really went up. I went on Anti depressants but neglected to read the fine print that said weight gain might be a side effect :eek: So after gaining 30 lbs in 1 month I came off those. So depressing.

Hmm now how did I spin this post out of control??

Umm, YES I have a skinny hubby :hug:

Yup. My boyfriend is 6'3 and weighs about 140 lbs. Higher metabolism and all that jazz. I hate him. Lol.

Not only do I weigh 110 lbs more than him, but I'm 1'3" shorter than him. He loves the height difference, although I know many people find the difference in the shape and size of our bodies amusing. He encourages me to lose weight but hasn't loved me any less for my higher weight. :)

Honey, my hubby is 5' 6" and 120 lbs. He was 115 lbs when I married him. And I was 175 lbs that day and sporting a size 16 wedding gown. After I stopped nursing my son, I gained 30 more lbs. His whole family is thin too. I always felt out of sorts. Most of the women in my family are obese, but I found a "weigh" out. You can too. :) Keep on keeping on..

skinny hubby
 

Hi everyone!

My hubby isn't what you would call skinny, but he's smaller than I am & has taken up jogging & lost approx 30 lbs in the past 2 yrs.

He brings in junk food for himself & the kids, & it makes me so mad, because not only do I have to resist it - my 10 y/o son doesn't need to be eating it either. Poor little guy has my genes & will have to battle his weight. It's hard to tell a child not to eat something that's right there when Dad & little brother are munching away, not gaining an ounce. GRRRR!

I've always thought I use my weight as a way to test my hubby - to see if he really loves me, no matter what.

Thank God he has always been attracted to me at every weight & his love gets stronger the longer we're together. It amazes me how he can be giving me a back rub & say "Nice Buns", when I know perfectly well what they must look like! :o

True Love is definitely blind, & I agree with an earlier post - that we still see the guy we fell in love with & they must look at us the same way - Thank Goodness.

I think it gets easier for men & women as we age too. When you're young & newly together, there's a lot of pressure on us to be thin & on them to have the "perfect" woman they can show off. Then as we get older, we learn not to care so much what other people think & everyone around us pretty much is packing on some pounds - so it doesn't matter as much.

Heather -
I hope you know how valuable you are at any weight & that you deserve to be treated like a goddess.
Like Dr. Phil always says "People will treat you the way you demand to be treated. We teach people how to treat us." If you teach your man you're not gonna put up with his crap, he'll either straighten up & fly right, or you'll see him for what he really is & tell him to get lost.
Good luck & BE GOOD 2 YOURSELF.

Skinny husband who doesn't understand
 

I have a skinny husband who looks 40 and is about to turn 50. He doesn't understand my issues with food. Sometimes I get mad when he gives me the "you're not going to eat more?" look and sometimes I ignore it. When I talk about it with him he just doesn't get why I can't control my eating. Last time I had a heart to heart with him, I told him that he has issues as well, but that mine are visible and his are not. I think he heard that, but still can't figure out how to be truly supportive.

I just found a couple of South Beach Diet cookbooks that he bought and I asked him where they came from. He said that he thought he would start doing more of the cooking. I guess that is a start in the right direction.

I just don't know how to get him to understand. I have been in the process of testing for lap-band surgery. He worrries that whatever makes me eat, will come out in other areas if I have the surgery. I feel like I have to do it to save my marriage. I have tried every diet and pill. I just keep dissappointing myself by gaining the weight back and then continuing to gain. If anyone has any suggestions, I would love the advise.

Amy

Amy,
I'm sorry to hear about your struggles. Do you track your calories? How many calories do you eat on average? How often do you exercise? Are there any trigger foods that you keep around that you shouldn't? I hope you can find the support you need on this website.

Hi, I have been reading the boards daily and it is funny I saw this topic today. My husband and I are in San Francisco for a few months while he works for his company out of town. There are several other guys here from Portland with us.

I will be married 21 years July 5th and my husband is the same weight I married him at then. I, however, have added over 150 pounds!!!!!! The funny thing is, he used to be a model. He is one of those guys people "women" LOL come up and say, he's good looking and can tell they can't believe I am with him.

When we married all those years ago, people used to tell me, your kids will be beautiful. I had my fair share of moments when I felt good about me, but that was so long ago...

He has NEVER told me to lose weight ever, he tries to understand my struggle, like I did his when he stopped smoking. But I will say I am blessed that he isn't a jerk about it. I have put on another 10 pounds in the last month and I am just now, getting back on track because I am horrified. But the thing is, when I came down here, we had to get together with all the guys from Portland and their girlfriends to go to Alcatraz.

I knew I was going to be the heaviest, does anyone else, think that way, out there? I was dreading going just for that reason. I was the one who booked the trip and the guys had to come and get their tickets from us. I could tell a couple of them were eyeing me and then him, with an almost disgusted look.

I could tell they probably never would have pictured him married to such a huge woman. He is about an inch taller than me, but I out weigh him by over 120 something pounds. It is really showing. But I was then even more self aware on that trip.

When I meet people though, I am still, 'thin' in my mind until something reminds me of being much larger than my husband, I've had two waitresses here, bring me diet coke, when I've ordered plain iced tea and then, say, oh sorry, I just thought that's what you'd ordered, almost like they are on auto pilot for the fat crowd.

But I don't know really what I would do if my thin husband acted any different, it is like he cannot see the enormous amount of weight I have put on, he still holds my hand in when we are out, he kisses me in public and never makes me feel the way I make myself feel.

I have to lose the weight for me, but I also need to do it for him, so we can be married another 20 years and me not drop dead from health problems, which I've had due to the weight already. I am only 37 and have had a slipped disc and now nerve problems in my leg from the weight pushing on a nerve in my hip. YIKES

But it is something on this trip I am profoundly aware of, I am much larger than him and when we go out, I feel like people are looking at us and thinking, how can he??

By the way I love this site and I will be doing a lot more posting for support here in the coming weeks. My dad and step mom are coming in from kentucky for a visit and my father is the biggest jerk about weight. He is horrible and I want to get off as much as possible before he gets here. In JUNE!

I was 125 pounds when my now ex and I started dating in 1998. He was muscular and perfect. When I got pregnant, I gained 55 pounds and he was absolutely horrible to me. Eventually he left me because I was fat at 170 pounds.

When he left I was a wreck, but I look at it as I lost a whole person, and gained my best friend, my daughter.

Funny thing is, I gained even MORE weight since he left me 5 years ago, and only JUST now am I starting to remember that I am a person. I'm not the number on a scale. I want to be healthy and feel pretty again. I want to have energy to play with my 7 year old. I want to be happy.

I really envy you all who have supportive husbands, but I totally know how you feel, not feeling like you belong together and feeling kind of bad b/c of it.

As long as there is love involved, there's nothing you can't overcome. Just proves to me what we had wasn't love. It was superficial.

*hugs to all*

My boyfriend is freaken skinny. Of course, it's not like he's skinny in a "healthy toned-muscle classical beauty" sort of way...he's about 6' even, skinny enough that his hipbones can be pretty painful when we're doing *cough*interesting things*cough* (I don't know his actual weight or I'd have given that instead of embarassing descriptions!), and pale enough to glow in the dark. This is not to say he's not attractive, his is just an unconventional beauty. Did I just say that? He better never find this post...:o

Oh, and to top it off, he did ballet as a kid, until he was about 11 or 12. So not only is he thin, but he's also very lithe and flexible and graceful. He is basically me as I want to be, only male. (Dancers are second only to gymnasts for the group of people whom I envy/despise/covet their abilities most in the whole wide world.) Now he REALLY better never find this post, cause he'd kill me for revealing his dirty childhood secret. ;)

So I have to choke down on my envy pretty hard sometimes, to keep from tossing out nasty comments when he offers to buy us pizza - "Well that's f*cken fine for YOU, you don't gain an ounce no matter WHAT you eat, unlike some of us who have to actually WORK at being skinny. (Additional muttering of four-letter words commences, and I can actually FEEL my skin turning green after a little while.)" - and I'm always paranoid that he's going to realize he isn't attracted to me anymore because I've put on weight. When we started dating I weighed 150 lbs. But I swear, it seems like he just doesn't even notice it! When I started actively trying to lose weight again, I told him so that he'd stop taking me out for fast food and buying us chinese takeout for dinner. And you know what he said? "If it'll make YOU more comfortable with you, then go for it. Tell me what I can do to help. But please don't feel like you have to do it for me or anything, because honestly, I don't see what you're b*tching about." :dizzy:

wow i just joined minits ago and was wandering around(lost lol) and i see this...this exact topic is a running joke at family dinners and such, when we met in highschool he was 135lbs i was 145-155 area...well 3 kids later and 16 years, i am 245lbs(i dot like that #) and he is 170lbs(hes happy). Its crazy...but he loves me for me...personally i think thats part of the prob but anyways i ramble

I have been with my bf for 5 1/2 years... he was skinny as a rail when we started and he still is- I was average when we met, maybe a little chunky, but through all of my ups and ups and the few downs he has always been there. Our weight difference doesnt bother him, but it does me

I am 5'6" and 240 he is 6' and 155- :-/

My husband isnt fat, but he ain't skinny either. He's built from living the Army life. It's so frustrating hearing him complain that he's fat when he's never more than 5lbs from his ideal weight.

Sometimes when I'm alone I wonder just what it is he see's in me, but then he'll come along and look at me and I realize just how much he loves me. I find it amazing the way he'll look at me like I'm the sexiest person alive when I feel like I've been beatin' with the ugly stick and then run over.

Just had to respond to this post. My normal weight is between 125-130 pounds :goodscale and my DH has weighted between 130-135 since coming home from Viet Nam 35 yrs ago and he can eat everything in the House and not gain a pounds sometimes I look at him and get really mad :mad: Oh well I guess it could be a lot worse :D

yep, my boyfriend is healthy, lean and muscular. I am super unhealthy, fat and can barely do 1 pushup. He used to be skinny the first few years we were together and just a 2-3 years ago he bought some weights and started training from an Arnold Schwarzenegger book. Within 6 months he had gigantic biceps and went from about 150 to 185 within the next year or so. Now he is about 210 but he's super-muscles. I just wish I had his determination and drive, I would really like to start losing weight because now I only have to lose about 40 lbs and then I would actually weigh less than him! The problem is we eat very well, and I eat like he does, but I don't have a fuel burning body like he does. I just stay fat. I try and use the treadmill but I am not consistent. I am going to work on that this summer.

I posted somewhere about my Hubby... He is 6'1 185, a LT CDR in the Navy, races Mountain Bikes, rides his road bike to work (12 miles each way), works out at lunch, and is an avid runner.

I actually ended up breaking up with my long distance ex boyfriend because I was so self conscious and worried about him finding someone prettier than me who was also physically there. Lame story but we met on a message board and began talking off of it and realized that we were basically soul mates and were together for 3 1/2 years. He lived in Nebraska and I lived in Georgia though moved to college in Massachusetts at the tail end of the relationship. The first time he visited me, I was 180 and 5'5 while he was 6'3 and 125. The last time I was 225 and he was 140. He's also got the great boy next door looks and is a redhead to boot, so he attracts a lot of attention and girls would openly flirt with him in front of me or, almost even worse, girls on the forum would fawn over his pictures. We're still good friends and if he ever gets his life and finances under control, I hope we can one day be together again but I can't be in a long distance relationship while being a big girl... even though I KNOW he doesn't see things that way, I can't get over that hang up.

My boyfriend is 6'6 and I'm 5'6...so we tend to look rather odd at times. I don't even notice unless I happen to catch our reflection in a window when we're walking together.

He's about 210-215 pounds though and while lean isn't "skinny" he's all muscle...just the body type that doesnt gain/hold onto bulk muscle all that well (much to his disgust!)

Hehe...even more to his disgust is the apparent irony that MY body DOES gain muscle with ease and keeps it with little effort lol (although it's also quick to deposit a nice layer of padding over them when it wants to -sigh-)

We've been good for each other though because not long before we met he'd gone on a healthy kick and lost 50 pounds and toned up incredibly...ooooh man those abs *drools at memory* and so had I so we've been keeping one another on track...both on the same page with food, going running together, we go to different gyms but ask how the others gone at it that day etc.

It's good having him because he understands what it's like to have been over weight and the amount of effort and discipline that go into losing it again...and the rewards of finally being fit!

What IS it with most of us?!
 

What is it--why do we feel compelled to "look that gift horse right in the face" and almost REFUSE to believe the treasure is for us--even when it's got our name on it??!!

I, too, have a husband much slimmer and leaner than I. But he married me when I was a relatively svelte 165, and even though I'm at 200 & coming down (from my ultimate high of 222), he tells me I'm "the most beautiful girl in the world"--and he means, it, too.

Maybe it's because I didn't get heavy 'til after we got married, but that's not what I'm insecure about. I'm not a terrific housekeeper, and that's where my weak point is.

But you know what? Every person here is loved by someone who loves them, no matter what. That's a treasure beyond gold and precious stones.

Just accept it as the great gift of love that God (or creation, or Who or whatever you call Being) has given you, out of All Givingness. And give thanks. That's what we're supposed to do, and enjoy it!