I’m married to HARD—maybe not the HARD, but a HARD. So that letter didn’t come as a shock to me.
Honestly, I know that what HARD said is true, from his perspective, but
let me give my perspective.
Honey, I’m sorry about the pudenda.
Really, I am. I hate my FUPA (Fat Upper Pussy Area) as much as you. Its
feeling upon my legs makes me retch. I’ve already lost three pounds
and I will get better; I have nowhere to go but up. (And you have yet
to go down, har har.) But how did I get into this sorry state? Well,
once upon a time, we shared parenting and chores. You valued my work as
a mother. Then you lost your job, no fault of yours, and you wanted to
go back to school. My blessing. But the fact is, the strain of
parenting alone, carrying the mortgage, and being a loving, available
GGG fucktoy can be hard on a girl. But like the enduring lady I am, I
happily read the kids one more story and assure them that you’ll see
them briefly tomorrow—after all, you’ve got hot, cute
20-year-olds to study with and plump your middle-aged ego.
Here’s the danger, though: These girls,
your classmates, may convince you that you are still the hot, cute
punk-rawk skater guy you dream of being again. I will get sick of your
absence, your obvious cheating, and divorce you. You will take joint
custody of the kids, or pay child support. The honeys who threw
themselves at you when you had a wife who supported you will blanch
when all of a sudden you must work and act like the 34-year-old man
that you are. You will get stressed, you will not be hot because you,
like I, will be forced to drop kickboxing and eat crap food on the
run.
Thanks for printing this, Dan. Reading
HARD’s letter was pretty much the equivalent of being called out on the
freakin’ Maury show, but it’s given me new motivation to shake
some weight—off my ass and off my heart.
Not Afraid Anymore
Thanks for sharing, NAA.
You give helpful and to-the-point advice
to Piss Drinkers & Co., Dan, but you have trouble with the ages-old
issue of male-female communication.
Here’s the thing: Men can speak directly
to each other. I can make fun of my guy friends for their retreating
hairlines or they can mock my emerging beer gut. Men actually want to
be told what the problem is, and how it might be solved. But women
prefer that certain things—like hard truths about bodily
imperfections—never cross their partners’ lips. I figure it has
something to do with the constant critical measuring they are subjected
to (and subject each other to). In many ways, it’s a lot harder in our
culture to be a woman.
So my two cents, having experience
striving to be a good boyfriend in the straight-couple thing, is that
HARD should dance around this with much more subtlety. I’m not
suggesting he ignore the issue or be dishonest. I just think someone in
his situation should tread lightly when so much else in the
relationship seems to be going well.
Not A Relationship Expert But I Try My
Best
Men can speak directly to each
other—just another reason I’m thrilled to be gay. I never could
dance. But gay men are subject to much the same scrutiny that straight
women are. The women’s studies crowd calls it the “male gaze,”
NAREBITMB, and it’s the reason most male anorexics and bulimics are gay
men.
And yet even as a victim—excuse me, a
survivor—of the male gaze, NAREBITMB, I can recognize
the disconnect between demanding, as so many straight women do,
complete sexual fidelity from a male partner and then declaring the
subject of my sexual attractiveness out of bounds for the little bit of
emotional blackmail that it is.
But I know enough about women that I would
never, ever advise a straight man to be honest with his wife about her
weight—not at first, anyway. So what was the actual advice I sent
to HARD? Keep reading…
I’m a fan of your column, but I have to
say I was disappointed with your response to HARD (the guy whose wife
was letting herself go), because I’ve got the same issue myself. Been
married 16 years, and I’m still waiting for my wife to lose the weight
she gained when she had our last child over a decade ago. I love my
wife, and she knows that she’s overweight, but she can’t or won’t do
anything about it. Our sex life, which used to be fantastic, is now
basically nonexistent due to the fact that I no longer find her
attractive. My wife still wants sex, and I “do my duty” from time to
time, but it’s something I dread at this point.
I’ve tried to take the lead on this by
getting and using exercise equipment, going on diets, etc. I weigh
substantially less than my wife, who is several inches shorter than I
am, and has a much smaller frame than I do. As I said before, I love my
wife, and though I’ve had opportunities to cheat, I haven’t done so,
and I don’t intend to. At this point, I’ve pretty much resigned myself
to the fact that my sex life is a thing of the past. If that’s the
case, I guess I can deal with it, but if you’ve got any bright ideas,
I’d be thrilled to hear them. As of now, I don’t know what else to say,
as she knows the situation, and it hurts her feelings if I bring it
up.
Not A Simple Problem
Well, if you were gay I could tell you to be
honest, since men can take it. But since you’re straight, you’re
fucked, I guess.
I’m sure you’re going to get a million
letters saying this, but Hawt and Royally Depressed may want to frame
his conversation with his wife more from a medical angle. The weight
gain and skin problems may be the unhappy side effects of diseases such
as polycystic ovary syndrome, or hypothyroidism. Add depression in the
mix (and who wouldn’t be depressed about gaining weight and getting
zitty?), and the bad situation gets worse and worse, until it’s
overwhelming.
And if she is just eating too much and
not taking care of herself, they can both pretend like it was concern
over a “medical condition” that led them both to the gym.
Alaska RN
That’s good advice, ARN…
I’m sure I’m adding to a maelstrom of
letters regarding HARD, the guy who is no longer physically attracted
to his wife.
While I understand the logic of your
response, don’t most couples eventually age into bodies that are not
the ideals of their partners? If you actually intend to stay with your
partner for life, shouldn’t you expect that your partner is going to
eventually get fatter, wrinklier, grayer, saggier, crotchetier? At what
point would you say it is no longer reasonable to ask your partner to
make changes in their appearance to be more attractive to you? After
all, eventually we all turn into people we never thought we’d want to
sleep with, don’t we?
Love Can Handle Love Handles
Time and gravity come for us all, LCHLH.
Anyone who expects his wife—or his husband—to refrain from
aging or changing over the years is an asshole. But we all have a
responsibility to do reasonable maintenance.
What’s that romance killer that
mainstream-relationship advice gurus are always harping away at? Ah,
yes: taking each other for granted. A partner—male or female, gay
or straight—who doesn’t make some reasonable effort to maintain
is taking his or her partner for granted. In my own case, I appreciate
my boyfriend’s efforts to remain fit, to keep himself attractive for
me, just as he appreciates my far less successful efforts to do the
same for him. He was an attractive man at 23 when we met and, 13 years
later, he’s attractive at 36. I expect he’ll be attractive at 46 and
56. And one of the reasons I’m still attracted to him—in addition
to the fact that he’s still attractive—is that I appreciate his
efforts to keep himself attractive.
No one is going to look as good at 45 as
they do at 25—except, of course, for those who look better at 40
than they did at 20—but it’s not unreasonable to expect a spouse
to bear some vague resemblance to the person you married 10 years
ago.
I’m sorry you’re getting slammed for
your advice to Hawt And Royally Depressed. You could have been more
tactful, sure, but the basic message that the guy needs to be honest
with his wife was spot-on. I’ve been with my husband for 10 years, and
after time and especially after having children I’ve gained weight. Not
long ago we had a talk where he told me my weight is a problem for
him.
Hearing that sucked. Then he told me my
weight has been a problem for him for five years and he hasn’t said
anything. Hearing that sucked much, much more. I can and will lose
weight, but now I’m doubting everything I thought was great between us.
So HARD, you need to be honest with your wife, and soon.
Signing Up With Weight Watchers
Now
Does your husband make sure you have the
time to exercise? Do you get to head off to the gym a couple of nights
a week for two or three hours of private, kid-free, stress-reducing
exercise and, hopefully, a good half hour’s worth of unwinding in the
sauna? If he wants you to maintain your appearance for him, he has to
make sure you have the time to do that.
Please, don’t ever, ever, ever recommend
that a straight man tell his straight woman partner that he doesn’t
find her attractive anymore. Leave “complete honesty” for you lithe and
lean gay boys. But more importantly than the honesty question is that
there were a few clues you missed, too, about what’s really going on
here. First, HARD mentions that he’s getting hit on by both women and
men, and also that he finds people of both genders attractive. Second,
we all know the dyke-in-denial who puts on a ton of weight to create
distance between herself and the male partner she thought she loved and
no longer wants to have sex with. Or how about the questioning man who
starts using drugs, as HARD is now doing, to dull a certain desire?
It’s not desperation, Dan. It’s homosexuality.
Happily Queer Now
So every last fat, married,
straight-identified woman in America is simply a budding—excuse
me, ballooning—lesbian. And every bisexual, married,
straight-identified man in America who smokes a little pot is a secret
faggot.
Hmm.
While that may have been the case in your
circumstance, HQN, I very much doubt that it’s always the case. But
thanks for sharing.
I’ve often thought of writing in with
the same question as HARD—the debt, the gnarly gas, it’s all
there. I did the “let’s walk together” thing, bought gym memberships,
offered to see shrinks, specialists, and nutritionists. Nothing. She
refused to engage in any of it, no matter how hard I tried. I’ve
offered, suggested, demanded, begged. Nothing. Bottom line is she
wasn’t ready to deal with it. So a couple of years have gone by and the
problems have gotten worse. Stomach issues, weight gain, general
malaise. But here’s what happened—I stopped loving her. And thus
I don’t care anymore. And I’m moving on.
See, I did worry about her feelings. And
I did want to help her. And I tried. But sometimes, shit exists that
has nothing to do with you, shit that you have no ability to fix. So
now I’ve realized that she’s just not who I want to be with anymore.
And now I face having to be honest with her.
And thus I am again prostrate at your
feet, and ask of you: How the fuck do you break up with someone over
this?
Spineless
Maybe you could tell her that she’s a
lesbian.
I love your column and have read all of
your books—you’re a great counselor. But you were completely off
on the dude telling his wife to lose weight. Please find me ONE couple
where the guy has told his wife that she needs to lose weight, she
does, he gets turned on again, and all is well. Dan, I’ve been there!
Eight years ago I told my wife that I loved her but needed to find her
attractive. A year later we were divorced. In the past seven years
she’s eaten herself to well over 250 pounds, and found a chubby-chaser
husband who loves her and whom she loves back. I’m with a thin woman
whom I love and find attractive too.
Can HARD’s marriage be saved? Does it
need to be? There’s no mention of children, so rather than make his
wife feel even worse, he needs to be the bad guy and DTMFA!
Happy Endings For All
I’m often scolded for being too quick to
tell people to end relationships and marriages, HEFA. So I’m thinking
your “just dump ’em” advice when a partner puts on a few pounds isn’t
going to be any more popular than “be honest about your partner’s
weight.” But thanks for sharing.
Your November 22 response to Hawt And
Royally Depressed was so off target. Hello? They’ve been married 10
years? Do you think that maybe husband may have a gut? Less hair? Is
not overall perfect or looking like what she married? But she’s still
there for him. She didn’t write to you and go, OMG my husband is an
ugly MF’er. Even if he is, she still loves him.
Let me ask you: Let’s say husband was in
a disfiguring accident. Would you tell his wife to be honest? “Sorry
honey, you look like a pile of puke, I’m out of here.” Or would you
tell them that they married each other for what they are, not what they
look like. What if the wife had breast cancer and had to have a
mastectomy and the guy was a total boob guy. Would you tell him to
leave her?
When people are married and they love
each other, they have to learn to look past the changes that the years
bring on. That’s what marriage is all about.
You Missed It On This One
There’s a difference between eating yourself
into unattractiveness—or dieting yourself into unattractiveness
(some people are attracted to big folks, marry big folks, and want ’em
to stay big folks)—and suffering a disfiguring accident or
boob-threatening illness. It’s the difference between something that
happened to you and something you did to yourself, YMIOTO.
Again, the passage of time destroys us all.
But you can’t sit on the couch stuffing Twinkies in your mouth and
bitch about how shallow your partner is for not finding you attractive
anymore because some people get cancer. Please.
•••
I have a married friend whose husband
was getting too chunky for comfort and the subtle comments had fallen
on deaf ears. So she cut out a picture of a very large woman from a
fat-lovers’ porn magazine and left it on his pillow. When he went to
bed that night and saw the picture he asked what this was all about.
She asked him, “Does that turn you on?” to which he replied, “No,” to
which she replied, “Well, it doesn’t turn me on either.” He immediately
knew what this meant and they worked together to get his weight down.
They worked on it together because they are in a committed relationship
and enjoy a great sex life.
A Rude Shock Energizes Hubby On Loving
Exercise
Your friend only got away with that stunt,
ARSEHOLE, because her fat spouse is a man. So while I may have been
able to tell SAS to try that trick with his boyfriend, I’d be boiled
alive and served with melted butter if I told HARD to do the same.
So what did I tell HARD? I e-mailed him
privately, warned him to ignore the advice that would appear in the
column, and told him this: “Your wife—the weight gain, the hair
growth, the moodiness, the drugs—may be clinically depressed or
have some undiagnosed medical condition, both subjects you could broach
without touching on the boner-killing fatso stuff. But, yeah, at 10
years together you have a right to expect that your partner will
maintain some base level of attractiveness. That’s not about
sexism—I expect the same from my boyfriend—it’s about
respect.”
I also sent HARD my phone number and asked
him to give me a call. Because, you see, I’m not a total asshole. But
you know what HARD ultimately decided to do? Be honest.
“If I was willing to send an e-mail to you,”
HARD wrote me, “I might as well talk to the wifey. So that’s what I
did. We talked civilly and she didn’t cry. She was actually
understanding and loving about the whole thing and I told her that I
have needs that aren’t being met and that she needs to step it up in
the physical department. I also told her that she has to work a little
harder at turning me on because my eyes and mind tend to wander.
“She admitted that she needs to do some work
to feel sexier herself and that won’t happen unless she makes an
effort. And then we fucked like wild monkey-dogs on an overdose of
Ecstasy and Viagra. It turns out that we both needed to get some. So
things have been a little cheered up.”