Wife Lost Weight and Divorced Me

[Gary7293]

I’m just trying to make sense of what the heck happened here!

How did you deal with the discard/rejection?

Married just shy of 5 years and together with my STBXW for 10 years. I am 37 and she is 34. This all came on so sudden. Long story short, she lost a lot of weight quickly on Zepbound and many red flag comments ensued. “A guy bought me coffee at Starbucks and called me beautiful, I have a fantasy of you watching me have sex with another man, my male co-worker says he masturbates to the thought of me, you deserve a “hall pass” to have sex with women as you please”. This all came on within the span of about 2 months as her weight shed rapidly. I went on a motorcycle vacation with some friends and she left the house late and came home late and deleted the footage. Called her out on it and she filed for divorce in early June. Our court day is next week. I hired a lawyer.

Been a rough road since, co-living in my home as she dresses up almost every night, posted a “post-breakup glow up” Instagram post with MY home in the background that my neighbors alerted me about. We decided not to have children (thankfully) years ago. She told me “with the right man I would have children”. “Marriage is just a piece of paper”. Talking on the phone giggling (loudly) clearly talking to men in my presence. Really cruel stuff.

I pet my dogs for the last time tomorrow. I am in the military so as a soon to be single man I can't properly care for them alone. She packed all her stuff up and is leaving this weekend. Court is next week.

The feeling of betrayal, most likely infidelity, lack of communication from her up to this point has been emotionally draining for me. Worst I have ever felt.
 

I feel like I wasn't given a proper chance to fix things. My faults: I let the marriage get stale this past year I'd say.... fell into routine. She did suffer from low self esteem and definitely had some body image issues and not many friends but I LOVED HER! She did have some childhood trauma (she witnessed her mom bounce around from man to man after her divorce, her mother would tell her “get on the treadmill you are getting fat!”. 

I just feel her rapid weight loss led to “grass is greener” effect and she straight up discarded me. I feel I wasn't good enough for her new image. With that rapid weight loss however, she became CRUEL! She is moving along quickly. 

Edited July 20 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
remove product name

[Lotsgoingon]

Hard to tell what happened. Her comments after losing weight surely reveal an annoying and downright mean side. Why do you want to be with a woman who tells you that other men are masturbating to her? 

Look, there was a lot going on before she lost the weight. You skip over all of that. And I'm not saying you are at fault. Your ex may have been shallow and you just didn't notice it. 

[MsJayne]

Sounds like she's got some long-repressed anger bubbling to the surface, she obviously resents you going by the level of spite involved. Wanting a divorce is one thing, but being so childish and spiteful is someone with a big axe to grind, she's acting like a spouse who's been feeling neglected for a long time. Was there never any indication of dissatisfaction or resentment prior to this? Any hint that she wasn't happy? Sometimes a positive change in appearance, (weight loss, cosmetic surgery, a makeover, etc), can inflate confidence to the point that the person loses touch with reality, especially if they're getting a lot of attention, it just goes to their head big time and they turn into a jerk, but demanding a divorce out of the blue is weird and I think it's more likely something she's been thinking about for a long time. If you're away from home a  lot because you're in the military, and then you go off for vacations with your buddies when you're on leave, therein might lie part of the problem. 

[ShySoul]

On 7/19/2025 at 7:34 PM, Gary7293 said:

She did suffer from low self esteem and definitely had some body image issues and not many friends but I LOVED HER! She did have some childhood trauma (she witnessed her mom bounce around from man to man after her divorce, her mother would tell her “get on the treadmill you are getting fat!”. 

There's your answer. What we witness when young can shape our views of ourself and others. It stays with us.

Our parents are supposed to be our role models. For many they model their life after what they learn and see, even if they don't want to admit it. Her mother filled her with ideas of how she is supposed to look, that her value comes from that. So when she lost weight she finally felt worthy. It made her an easy target for the attention of others, because that gave her validation that she was finally good enough.

Her mother also taught that staying in a relationship or working things out wasn't essential. It's was thus okay to see someone else or find another relationship. 

Important thing to realize is that it isn't your fault. Yes, you could have done things differently. We all can in a relationship. No one is perfect. But you didn't cause her to act this way. This was her decision.

It may not feel like it now, but you will be okay. You know what is important in a relationship and you put in the effort. You wanted to try, You will find someone else when the time is right and that person will work with you. Meanwhile, she will still be stuck in this cycle of hurt and pettiness. She is putting on a facade of being happy, but there are still issues there that will hurt her in the long term. Wish her well and hope she can see her errors, then focus on building your own life and finding your own sense of happiness on your own.

Hang in there. 

[Els]

So let me get this straight.

Your one and only post in this forum is about your wife "losing weight rapidly in 2 months" with a prominent product name, the ensuing male attention, and repeated mentions of how "rapid" the weight loss was.

Umm... yeah, cool beans, dude.  

[Gary7293]

35 minutes ago, Els said:

So let me get this straight.

Your one and only post in this forum is about your wife "losing weight rapidly in 2 months" with a prominent product name, the ensuing male attention, and repeated mentions of how "rapid" the weight loss was.

Umm... yeah, cool beans, dude.  

I am not promoting this product…. I am trying to gain other’s perspectives on this situation.

[Gary7293]

8 hours ago, MsJayne said:

Wanting a divorce is one thing, but being so childish and spiteful is someone with a big axe to grind, she's acting like a spouse who's been feeling neglected for a long time. Was there never any indication of dissatisfaction or resentment prior to this? Any hint that she wasn't happy?

If anything things seemed to be getting better (minus her bizarre comments I mentioned in the initial post). 
 

Intimacy skyrocketed. That’s what hurts too because I thought things were OK. For a while I had a higher sex drive. Hers in the span of a few months increased. She had a trip planned for us in June (which she cancelled after filing). We went shopping for a new pellet stove so she had reliable heat when I sometimes deploy in the winter. This was only a few weeks before all this happened. If she was checked out she could have said “hold off on this pellet stove purchase and let’s have a conversation”.
 

She filed as soon as I called her out on the deleted camera footage. Things seemed fine overall before this.

I recognize my faults:

1. Letting the marriage fall into routine

2. Some anger outbursts. To be fair, she did mention maybe once or twice I should seek anger counseling. It seemed to be a passive request in her delivery. I didn’t act on it unfortunately

Outside of that I honestly can’t recognize where I failed in this marriage as she won’t tell me.

 

She has just been super difficult through this entire process. She moved out the other day. I simply asked her to leave her key behind when she left. She didn’t. I texted her about it…. No response.

 

Edited July 21 by Gary7293

[MsJayne]

9 hours ago, Gary7293 said:

2. Some anger outbursts. To be fair, she did mention maybe once or twice I should seek anger counseling. It seemed to be a passive request in her delivery. I didn’t act on it unfortunately

Hmm, I can give you a first-hand point of view on this issue. What you see as anger outbursts, from the woman's standpoint, can be, a) very frightening, and b), a huge, HUGE turn off. It's frightening because usually the man is physically stronger than the woman, and, even if you'd never hit her, the aggression is still very menacing and stops the victim from having a voice. Living with someone who uses aggression and intimidation to silence you makes you regard them with disgust and contempt because it's bullying behaviour, and bullying is not on, ever, there is absolutely no excuse for it. Using aggression and intimidation to control a partner is a huge sexual turn-off because, in effect, you're acting like a parent, telling her off as if she's eight years old and you're her father. No one wants to f**k their dad, it's not rocket science. You kill the intimacy by belittling her and making her "less" in the relationship, and also the bullying behaviour makes a man appear weak in character which is a turn-off in itself.  

People who use aggression to control others usually have limited self-awareness, they're unable to see how their excessive reactions alienate others, they downplay their behaviour and tend to blame their victim, accusing others of causing the inappropriate expression of their emotions. They lose their temper and mouth off at the target of their anger and then expect everyone to just forget about it and move on, but most victims of verbal abuse don't forget. When someone refuses to let you have your say, refuses to acknowledge that they've said or done the wrong thing and apologise, (sincerely), the victim of the abuse doesn't move on, the resentment starts to fester, each episode of abuse adds to the bubbling pot of resentment and eventually the lid blows off.  Your wife's lid has blown off. You say she "passively" suggested you seek counselling for your anger, but what you see as a passive suggestion is actually someone who has a thing called self-control telling you they've had enough of your crap. Most angry men I know would rather die than admit they're at fault, acknowledging that they're in the wrong is akin to being castrated, they fear admitting liability because it takes away the power they've established through their bullying behaviour. The problem with this is that the power is only in their head, their anger comes from fear, fear of abandonment or fear of losing control over another person or a situation, and ultimately the behaviour that they were using to avoid that which they fear is the very behaviour that causes the situation that they feared. Your wife's behaviour is a very normal response to being invalidated and dismissed over a period of time, my guess is that she's found the strength to leave by finding someone to lean on while she goes through the separation, (monkey-branching), and that person was probably on that footage she deleted. You could perhaps save your marriage, but it would mean admitting you've been wrong and begging for forgiveness, possibly on your knees, and going for that anger counselling immediately, and having the guts to stick with it and learn new ways of expressing anger. Cognitive behavioural therapy could help you to establish new neural pathways, and it could be life-changing. 

Sorry for the long-winded answer