How does Dan know it's two guys? Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anything to indicate the LW was a man or a woman. I suppose Dan could probably see his real name/email address...so maybe that's it; and I'm not sure changing the gender would impact or alter the advice all that much.

Although, if the LW, is a bottom, IBS and Chrohns could certainly impact bottoming ability/availability. On the other hand, the LW didn't mention anything about issues with anal, so I guess we have to assume everything is kosher in that department.

Oh well, I was just curious.

@me...I'm an idiot/can't read. I didn't see "wonderful gay relationship" in the first sentence. Holster your pitchforks.

@2 too late!! GET 'EM!!!!

Just kidding. :)

If a person loves you, he loves you at 280 or at 205. "You don't turn me on anymore because you've been sick and you've lost weight," sounds like an incredibly juvenile reason for ending an adult relationship (or maybe half-witted). Rather dick-centric at any rate. Life is challenge. If he can't man up enough to work through this with you, then you don't have the kind of relationship that you think you do, You should concentrate on you now, and send your boyfriend back to Never Never Land. Get well.

It also occurred to me that "big" doesn't necessarily mean fat. Was LW more on the beefy/strong side? Feeling crappy and weak all the time is hell on the gym routine, and he could have gone from beefcake to average-ish body tone. Or, if it was a major fat loss due to disease, LW could use the opportunity to bulk up in a healthy, gym positive way, if his health issues are under control.

This advice might work if the weight loss was, say, the result of getting a more physically active job or hobby. It's the result of a painful chronic disease, to which the boyfriend seems indifferent. DTMFA.

My second paragraph got lost for some reason. I added that LW wouldn't have to bulk at the gym for his BF, but just to take advantage of a big fat loss, which would certainly make him feel better in general. If the BF likes that, and they get through their problems, then win-win.

Typing failure apparently. "...bulk at the gym for his BF per se, but to take advantage of...

@5 thru 8 - fat and over-muscled are really two different things. The textures and visuals are not interchangeable. Also, most comfortably fat men are NOT going to start spending hours every week doing heavy body modification at a gym - that requires a whole set of beliefs and compulsions that fat men don't usually have.

What turns you on is not too susceptible to conscious control. Yes, you can widen the parameters a bit with conscious work, but you can't transform something that definitely doesn't turn you on into something that does just by good intentions and willing it to be so. If these two are now sexually incompatible, and after discussion there's no way out of that, this guy needs to move on.

I don't get why Dan closed with DTMF. Why is he a 'motherfucker?' He lost his sexual interest because of a big physical change. If the guy had transitioned to female and his partner lost sexual interest would Dan call him a 'motherfucker?'

Shit happens, move on.

@10 I agree - he didn't WANT to lose his turn-on, it was an environmental change neither one of them was expecting. He's not a motherfucker, he's a fat guy fucker, which is a great thing to be but it doesn't fit now.

What do you think, if you know you only like very fat guys -- to the point where the sex will die off if your partner loses some weight -- do you have some duty to disclose that at a semi-early point? Because it seems to me like a shabby thing to spring after the fact, especially if it can't be helped them.

And how about if you only go for skinny women?

(If you have jokes centered about "but fat people never lose weight especially on purpose haha", let's pretend you went away after that.)

Is it the weight? Do we know that or are we just assuming?

Is it the frequent listening to horrible IBS/Crohn’s noises coming from the master bathroom?

What kind of meds is the LW on? Depending on his insurance he might be on steroids that do a number on his personality.

I'm a bigger guy with Crohn's disease (my max weight has been about 230) and while I've got some belly fat, I work out and have muscle. And the last time I had a serious flare up with Crohn's, I dropped to 145. It was fucked up. The thing is, you don't just lose fat, but you lose muscle, you're dehydrated and look terrible. My mother, who hadn't seen me for a year, said I looked like I'd just come out of a concentration camp.

So it might not so much be the loss of fat as the loss of overall body mass. And no, you don't have the energy to work out when you're starving and dehydrated. Nor do you feel sexy or look sexy. Shit you can't even think straight when you can't eat.

Actually, I should clarify: I lost muscle mass first. So I ended up looking weird with stick thing arms and still kind of a belly.

LW, how it is at the moment and you need to adjust and focus on your own health.Going with Dan's idea to get down to the nitty gritty of this man's emotional commitment by talking it thru, will let you know if he can stay by your side and help you stay as strong and healthy as possible.
If he can't, then best you guys part ways.

Just want to say to KISSME: Much sympathy for you, and wishing you the best of health.

KISSME, why would you want to stay with someone who says that he no longer wants to be with you? You deserve to have a partner that you know you can always count on for love and support, even when things are not quite as idyllic as you say they have been for the last two years. Think about it: what if your roles were reversed, and he was the one with a chronic illness that made him less physically attractive. Would you be getting ready to walk out on him right now? I agree with Bauhaus @4 that your BF seems to be seriously lacking in the emotional maturity and commitment departments, although he may have many other fine qualities. Of course it will be sad, but it may be best to let him go while most of your shared memories are still good ones.

@14 (tom006) and KISSMe: I hope your health improves. Chron's and IBS are awful.

Tom006, you're spot on. For me, as a female with Crohn's, it was sort of a silver lining to lose weight at first. But you lose it too quick, all over, and while I looked good in clothing sizes I could never wear before, the picture was not pretty without said clothes.

One thing KISSME could be happy about, though--if he gets his Crohn's under control, he will almost certainly gain the weight back later. (He's have to significantly change the eating patterns that made him big in the first place.) Sadly, this won't fix a partner who can't sympathize with a sick boyfriend. You're in pain all the time, you have the unpleasant bathroom issues, and you feel like crap generally (ha ha). KISSME needs someone supportive, or he needs to be his own support. He shouldn't settle for less, even if he might get those jelly rolls back some day.

I think DTMFA has been over-used and isn't appropriate here. This isn't a couple that's been together for a decade and built a life together, or a couple that's gotten married and thus made a serious long-term commitment. This isn't a "normal" creeping weight gain as a couple moves from fast-metabolism 20s into middle age. This is a couple that had been dating for some time under 2 years (people don't lose 75 pounds overnight) when one of them got an illness that dramatically changed their body type. At this point in relationships, people break up all the time for all kinds of reasons--don't like each other's friends, meet someone else, libidos are mismatched, whatever. It's unfortunate, it sucks, but losing attraction to someone who's body has changed dramatically, when you've only been dating a couple years or less, doesn't make you a MF, in my opinion.

My last GF wanted me to gain weight. She wanted a teddy bear body. I'm naturally thin, 6'1" and skinny, but I actually weigh 205 - basically NFL receiver size (although not nearly as muscular). My "natural" weight is probably closer to 175, and she actively tried to thwart my efforts to lose the weight (a decade-long spiral kickstarted by knee and ankle surgeries). I don't totally understand chubby chasers... I think it's different than those folks that want their partner to lose weight, as for 99% of us, losing weight = being healthier, living longer, higher quality of life, etc. Obviously you can be a jerk about it either way but wanting your partner to be bigger isn't the opposite side of the coin of wanting them to be smaller.

anyhow, yeah. Your partner is putting his physical preferences over your physical health. I wonder how well he treat you in the eventual moments of mental struggles. I wouldn't wait to find out.

I don't see why people are blaming the partner. He started dating a guy he was attracted to, and now he's lost his sexual interest in a guy whose body changed dramatically from something he likes to something he doesn't. Nothing surprising there.

The LW says "I thought we had something more than just his love of my jelly rolls", and maybe they do have more than that, but the physical attraction's gone, and its not necessarily something the BF can change.

So all of you who accuse the BF of being superficial or uncaring (or anything in that vein), do you really think he should fake interest just to protect his partner's ego? Where would that lead them? Pretty soon, Dan would be receiving a letter from the BF lamenting his lack of attraction for his partner and the fact that he feels he can't leave his partner just because he has health issues. We've already seen a lot of those, so they should just split like adults, without blaming each other for this incompatibility they've just discovered - as that's absolutely all there is here.

Ricardo @23, I can't speak for others but I am not blaming BF for the failure of this relationship, just telling LW that it's time to move on. The problem is in the line you quoted - "I thought we had something more than just his love of my jelly rolls." Considering that BF is no longer physically attracted AND is now on the verge of dumping his chronically ill partner, it sure looks to this outside observer like the jelly rolls were the primary gel holding this relationship together. LW thought they had a stronger, deeper connection than that, and now he's struggling with his feelings as it becomes apparent that BF's love was, in fact, superficial.