Okay so the watch has been compared to some of the top ones and this one is only $30. I feel that $30 is not to much to ask for since he can spend twice that much on a video game and not think twice about it. And i would buy it for myself but i can because i am a stay at home mom, this is how it has been since i had my son 16 months ago, he would rather me stay home and i love being home with him. So what i am saying is he would have to be the one who gets if for me. I dont ever ask for anything, other than to buy food when we need it but that is not a want it is a need. **** I didnt even ask for a hair cut for a year. And you know i know some of you say that i dont need thing like that or whatever, it is not that i need it i want it i feel it would help me.

$30!? Geez that's really nothing for a birthday gift for your girlfriend And yeah, no kidding if he will buy a video game 2x that.

Did you tell him these things? What does he say? Have you told him that you need his support and that he's hurting your feelings??

yeah i have tried to tell him i need and want his support while i am doing this. I also told him that I need to workout to keep from going crazy. Then today i told him that i have lost 2.2 lbs and 15.5 inches all over in the last 5 days and it was like he didn't really care much, I have known since i got with him that he is not a very emotional time guy and all that but i would have liked a little excitement or a i am happy for you. I dont know if he thinks i am going to give up or something. But I have been reading this book called Are you ready by bob harper it has really helped me get a handle on everything.

Sometimes men don't want you to succeed in losing weight because it makes them feel threatened in that you might expect them to lose weight or that you want to lose weight so that you'll be more attractive to other men.

I think some men don't even realize that this is why they're unsupportive.

IMO, since you asked right!
Do this for yourself or not at all, no matter if your bf is behind you or not.
My DH couldn't care less if I were overweight or not (however, he has not correlated my moods with being overweight, yet!)
Second, I agree w/LoriBell in that you don't need all the fancy gadgets to lose weight.
HOWEVER, I am a Type A personality and I HAVE to know. I use a digital scale for measuring food and a separate one to measure body weight.
I use My Fitness Pal to log food and activity.
I use an old Garmin to measure the pace when I run.
And I use a Polar FT40 (which I LOVE) when I exercise. I included a link and highly recommend this site to anyone who is in the market for a Polar!
It really changed the way I exercised & proved what I knew to be true in that my treadmill #s were WRONG. I thought I was burning more than I actually was!

Best of luck to you with your fitness goals!

I think the much bigger issue here is that you seem to have absolutely no financial indepence, and your BF is in complete control of the family income.

It sounds like both you and your BF see his income as "his money," rather than your money together. Unfortunately, depending on which state you live in, and how long you've been together, the law may agree unless you're married.

You don't have to have a job outside the home to have financial independence, but you do need your BF's cooperation. He has to also see that you have as much right to discretionary income as he does.

If you can't come to an agreement you both feel is fair, I'd highly recommend couples counseling.

My husband and I faced a similar issue recently - I didn't drive and rarely left the house alone. While I've always had access to the family money, to spend money without my husband's permission, I had to do it online (and because he took care of the bills, he'd see the online payment and would ask me what I had bought). As a result, I couldn't buy anything without my husband noticing, and asking about it, which made buying him a birthday or anniversary present rather difficult. In order to surprise him, I would have to buy his gift at the very last minute online, and would wrap a print-out of the gift.

I got tired of being unable to spend a cent without my husband's input or commentary, so we set up a bank account that I am in complete control of. We agreed on an amount that would be deposited into that account every month from our main account.

My husband is very supportive.

However, whenever I'd get all worked up about eating better or losing weight, he never shared my enthusiasm....and he ALWAYS supports me. I found this odd, so I just asked him one night.
He told me that it was hard for him to act supportive and to encourage me when I'd done the same thing over and over and never made any kind of change. I'd "try" for 2 or 3 weeks, so no results, and stop. He was right.

Once I actually DID make a change, and he could see me trying regardless of situations that came up that would make it easy to quit, he has been amazing.

Now, I'm 10.5lbs down and not a day goes by where he doesn't mention something about how well I'm doing. He even dug out his old 10lb bowling ball from middle school to show me how much weight I lost...


Could it be that your BF just needs you to SHOW him that you're truly willing to do something? You don't NEED his support (althought it's nice to have) to do it. For me, showing my husband that I actually COULD do it was part of my drive.

as far as the money thing...yeah, it isn't healthy for either of you to look at the money as "his". Your job is to stay at home and take care of your child...that's what he wants you to do as well....but that doesn't mean he should be the only one that ever gets to spend any money. You should both have a say.

My husband doesn't get all "Woohoo, go you!" when I start on a weight loss mission. Why? Because I've bounced up and down a 50 lb range in the 4 years we've been together.

I asked for an ellyptical once, and he shot me down. He said "You can exercise for free! I can really only see you using this a few times..." And by ask, I meant I consulted him before buying it. And he was right, I wouldn't have used it. I'm going to make my goal to exercise at a gym 3x a week before I buy it.

He doesn't want to invest enthusiasm or money into something I've never kept up with, and I don't blame him. It gets a bit like a broken record after a certain point...."I'm going to lose weight!" then I gain it all back. "I'm going to REALLY do it this time!" Gain it all back PLUS more!

This time around, I haven't mentioned anything to him except that I'm counting calories. End of story, not saying another word until I've lost a lot more weight than this.

As far as the money situation...No. Not right. Now I've heard about situations where a couple having separate money works, but only when both parties are making an income. You're doing a full time job at home, that doesn't mean you should suffer.

I don't want to jump to conclusions because I don't know your full situation, and he could very well be a great guy....but to me this sounds like an abusive situation when you couple his comment with the money situation.

In not giving you control of any money, he is controlling you THROUGH money. You're not a child, you're an adult and you are his EQUAL. You shouldn't have to ask your husband for money every time you need to grocery shop, and you shouldn't be scared to ask for a haircut! You should have money available to do whatever you want (responsibly, of course.).

If you feel like his comment was a flat out refusal of something that isn't a lot to ask for, and if you feel like he wants to keep you overweight...do you feel like he is trying to control your weight?

I'm not saying this is the situation at all, just a thought. Control is abuse, and this kind of abuse does manifest in: Controlling all of the money, giving you no financial freedom and therefore putting you in a situation where you are stuck. Control over weight through put downs, making you feel bad, ect. Abusive men do things to keep their women at home and feeling bad about themselves.


Either way...you need to have money that you have control over. You need his support, which you should be able to gain by proving that your serious (losing weight, exercising, eating well CONSISTANTLY!).

All in all...you are NOT a child, and he shouldn't treat you like one. You need to step up and talk to him about this, or else its not going to change.

Dude. I need to do this for my husband. we can never buy eachother stuff, and he always spends way too much money. He thinks his debit card is a magical piece of plastic...he just swipes and swipes lol. I've thought about taking away his debit card, but I hate for him to be without it in case something were ever to happen.

Anyhoo, the separate account for the household's non-bill-payer is a fantastic idea! I'm going to open up an account for him when I get paid again.

I love it! My husband isn't tight with the purse strings, in fact he's the spender and I'm the natural "budgeter" in the family. However, when my illnesses started interfering with my short-term memory, and my ability to do simple math, I had to turn over the financial reigns to hubby. He's done an ok job, but we'd be saving more and spending less if I were still in charge (well, if the "old me" were still in charge).

It would drive me crazy, especially since our disability incomes are about equal, so I felt like I was contributing half of the money, but not getting half of the control (but I couldn't take on half of the control).

I felt like I was having to "ask" for money that was already mine. I also felt I had to compensate for my hubby's spendy ways by cutting back on myself - and then I'd resent that.

We're actually considering opening up a third account - for his discretionary income. That way, we're both on a budget. The household account will be for necessities and savings and then each of us will have an account for our individual spending money.

I can kind of see why the BF is saying what he is...

It could be hes "heard that story before" and would rather money go to something he thinks you'd "use all the time" *not saying you wouldnt, but he might think that*

It very well could be that he is results driven too... like the previous poster said. My man was that way too, after about 10 lbs hes been on board all the way!

It can be very easy to harshly judge others (and ourselves) by the person's past weight loss failures (and to judge all but perfection as failures). I think it's incredibly important though, to distinguish "easy" from "justified."

We judge weight loss by standards that we don't use for anything else. Incredible success (if we were to compare it to how most people in similar situation are doing) looks like incredible failure, because we've been taught (and that's men and women) to use unrealistic and inaccurate measures of success.

We set people up to fail, by declaring most efforts failures, and by setting a long list of "should be able to" criteria, to judge the success by...

Should be able to do it without help

Should be able to "just" eat less and move more without any fancy plans

Should be able to avoid all tempting foods in all situations

Should be able to use moderation

Should never revert to old habits



All these "shoulds" get in the way of actual success - and when they're imposed not only by ourselves, but by others (who are supposed to love us) it becomes an unbearable burden.



Men AND women need to be educated on the realities of weight loss. Weight loss success statistics are dismal - and it's not because overweight folks are lazy, good-for-nothing, unmotivated, whiny babies, who never follow through on their promises to themselves and others.

Weight loss fails so often because it's hard, though we treat it as if it's easy - so that anyone who doesn't accomplish it rapidly and without difficulty must be lazy, crazy, or stupid.

If we all acknowledged how damned difficult weight loss was, we'd be piling on praise and encouragement for even the smallest of successes, instead of dismissing everything but perfect failure as success.

It's perfectly understandable that many men (and women) don't realize this - but it's inexcuseable that we're not educating people.


My husband didn't understand my issues with my weight loss, my fibromyalgia, my IBS, or sugar addiction (he had some health and eating issues of his own, but they were different than mine). To be honest, I didn't understand a lot of his either.

We both educated ourselves and now we're a lot more sympathetic to the other persons issues.

It's hard to educate yourself on weight loss, because the cultural myths and sterotypes (that fat people are lazy, crazy, or stupid) interfere with the realities. It's also taboo, so the "failures" don't get as much attention as the successes (and the incredibly success stories of rapid weight loss are used as "proof" that everyone can accomplish that "if they really want to."


I didn't start succeeding with my own weight loss until I realized that I wasn't lazy, crazy or stupid. I had to understand the enemy to fight it (even though I've been studying the enemy for 40 years, since my first doctor-supervised diet in kindergarten).