I just don't know what to make of this.
My BF has what strikes me as ****ed-up attitudes about weight. His mom is extremely thin, his sister was hopsitalized with an eating disorder while in college, and he himself thinks he is "fat" when he has the tiniest suggestion of extra flesh around his waist.
He has made various comments about weight issues that I find weird and a little disturbing: for example, that he likes my cat because he is "thin and elegant" and that he doesn't like fat cats, and one time he pissed me off by referring to an acquaintance of mine as "oh, the heavy one?" when he I mentioned her in conversation shortly aftre they met and he could not remember her name.
As if this weren't bad enough, he also seemed to have gotten it into his head to worry that I am going to get fat later in life. He seems to be basing this fear on the following things: my mother is pretty overweight (probably a size 16), my weight has fluctuated since we've been together (I first lost about 10 pounds [becoming
extremely thin--actually medically underweight] and then gained about 15 pounds) since we met almost 2 years ago), and I have stated at various times that I don't think it's healthy to obsess about one's weight too much, beyond exercising regularly and eating well. I am about 8 pounds heavier than I was when we first met (I went from about 118 to about 108 to about 125 now).
I can see how some of those things would be a little worrisome, but my own habits are very good: I eat well (fruits and veggies and little fats/sweets), and since I gained some weight I've been going to the gym almost every day.
He is the only person who has ever made me feel fat in whole life. It's not like he is nasty to me or has said anything hurtful, but his attitude sucks, in my opinion.
This bothers me a lot. No one wants a partner to just let themselves go, but his tolerance levels seems extremely low, and this whole thing seems to have a tremendous importance in his mind that I don't quite understand.
The thing that's so hard is that he is a sweet, normal, thoughtful man in every other regard...he and his family just seem to have these really hard core attitudes about fat, and it really bothers me. I have every desire to remian healthy and not to get fat, but I don't want to grow old with someone who is going to feel that anything other than perfect sleekness is unattractiove and unacceptable.
I am mystified and I don't know what to do. I'm sure that some of you will say "he's an ******* and you should dump him," but the fact is he is really not...he just has this one bizarro atitude, and I don't want to break up a really good relationship over this, especially since he has never been unpleasant to me about this in any direct way. Also, it's not like I plan to get fat...it's just that his attitude really seems unhealthy, and I don't want to spend my life feeling unattractive and inadequate if I'm not built like a 25 year old athlete.
How can I assure him that I care about my weight and appearance except by doing what I'm already doing (working out and eating sensibly)??? When I bring this up he says that he worries more about the future, but for the life of me I don't understand why he worries about that. I am half seriously thinking that this could really be a deal breaker for me (I would not want to run the risk of a life of being made to feel physically unappealing by my own husband!), which is tragic because every other aspect of our relationship is either excellent or improving all the time, and because I don't think we fundamentally disagree with each other...being thin and attractive is important to me AND to him...I just think he may define "thin" differently and, in my opinion, too extremely. However, yesterday I asked him flat out if his attitudes about my current weight were anywhere near mine..I said I thought looked reasonably good right now as I am, that I would look my absolute best at about 10 pounds lighter, but I that I'd be happy with losing 5 pounds...and he said that seemed reasonable to him, and that he felt the same way about himself (meaning he wanted to lose weight too...at least he doesn't have a double standard!)
Does anyone have any insight into this? I can't quite understand why this became such an issue for me to the point of considering breaking up with him over it. I feel very anxious to try to resolve this somehow.
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