Prudence,

I have to admit, you have often taken controversial stances on letters that I have agreed with and then confused when people thought you were wrong. Well, I now understand those that thought you wrong.

Significant weight gain in a short period is never a good thing and should be explored but I don't feel that is the core of the question here.

Eight long year ago when I met my husband, I was a lovely size 8 and he was rather chunky, but I didn't care. Since then I have gained significant weight and he doesn't care. If he ever dared to tell me to lose weight in order to enjoy sex, divorce papers would appear faster than you believe. I love him more than anything, but my weight should not be a significant factor just like I don't consider his.

The problem here is we have an egocentric older man who likes dating a younger gal and though she was large to begin with, apparently he only wants his ladies so large to enjoy. This girl is young and has a lot of life and dating ahead of her and doesn't need to be tied down with a man who can only appreciate her to such a level.

This sadly reminds me of my sister who dated a man over a decade older than her through college. When she told me sheepishly that her boyfriend was upset at her recent weight gain and less attracted to her, I was outraged. It is not a boyfriend's job to dictate how much a woman should weigh. That's a job for a prenuptial for a trophy wife.

Of course men want their women to be skinny, part of it it biological and part of it is sociological. But is a scummy thing to do to not be physically interested in someone you claim to love because of a weight gain and tell them so. That is not true love but a bit of lust and ego thrown in the mix.

Yes, maybe this gal should seek a healthier regimen of food and excercise but the easiest weight she can drop here is her boyfriend. I'd say evaluate your living condition and see how soon you can drop the fat of this guy and find someone who cares a bit more about you and not where you are packing it.

so you think men are not allowed to have any opinion about their significant others' looks? that they should feel guilty if they're less attracted to a woman than they used to be? Why is a man fully responsible for his biological preferences but a woman is not responsible for her biological appearance?

I know, don't judge a book by its cover. I guess the world would be a nicer place if everyone only saw inner beauty--but isn't that just a bit unrealistic?

Also, regarding the age difference--I'm the same age as the bf in this letter and would not want to date a college student, but the women isn't a child so the relationship isn't inherently wrong, and many happy marriages have resulted from such pairings. I just don't think we should draw conclusions here from the age difference alone.

Call me a romantic but I always thought the wonderful thing about love was that it is illogical. Love is illogical in the sense that we look beyond petty things like bad breath, hairy bodies, wide thighs and high weight because what we truly love is the person themselves.

My husband is allowed to have an opinion but I am proud of my big beautiful body and if he fails to share that, we have a problem. In the same way that if I suddenly decided I didn't want to have kids, he would have a problem because he wants that. We have to both *want* to enjoy each other's physical body regardless of what direction it goes in.

I have high expectations of my partner and I should hope all women can feel the same way. Just in the same way some people would never date a person who was significantly overweight, I would have never dated a person who was significantly lower intelligence than me. You have to both want the same thing. If she is fine with being a bit chubby and he is not, they do not both want the same thing.

Once again, I guess I'm a romantic but I've seen plenty of couples married very long time where the physical differences one person gained never came between them and I like to think that's because of love.

I would never let any man dictate to me how I should look, women get enough that in the media as it is. True, men get that pressure too but it is applied quite sharply to women. Women who are overweight are taken less seriously in the business world and are preceived as not caring about their appearance. It is not our job to cater our appearance to anyone but ourselves. If she has accepted her weight gain, maybe he should learn to as well if he truly does love her.

My point I didn't make so well about age difference is that he is at an age where settling down is more of reality and he wants her to be perfect for that. She still has lots of time and opportunities and shouldn't feel like she has to change for him.

OK, I'm probably going to get clobbered here, but is it possible that LW maintained a certain weight for the sole purpose of finding a man? Single men and women have both been known to diet, work out with a personal trainer and go to tanning salons for the purpose of looking good so they can land a mate. When they do find someone, they stop. That person has essentially misrepresented themselves as someone who normally eats well and works out. It's like speaking with a British accent during the courtship, and then whipping out your real voice on the honeymoon.

By the way, I realize that most people's bodies change over the course of time (including mine). But I'm not sure it's reasonable for someone to go through a dramatic weight gain, and then demand that their partner remain silent on the subject, and on top of that insist that they find them as attractive as ever. If a couple can't address these things openly and sensitively, then how healthy can that relationship be?

Jonthom, thanks for posting a polite and well-thought out response.

So let's say that LW did eat a bit better and took better care, but isn't it possible she did that for herself and not just to land a man? Women don't look good just to grab men. They do it for themselve. I do sincerely believe that women are not around just to look good for men.

So if having a slightly skinnier person is a priority for the boyfriend, and it is not for the gal, their priorities are out of skew. It's like I mentioned before, having a well-toned body is not a requirement for me but having reasonable intelligence is. I have a husband who share those same priorities of being intelligent and enjoying the same activities. Neither one of us thinks being as skinny as possible is a big priority.

So if having an awesome body is not this gal's priority in a relationship, maybe she should find someone who feels the same way.

Obviously I wasn't there but it doesn't sound like there wa much discussion on the matter. And if there was, it was not enough to satisfy the girl as he is obviously still worried and sought out advice.

For centuries women have been judged on how they look instead of who they are. I don't think it's a good idea to perpetuate this. Yes, being overweight is unhealthy but it doesn't change who and what a woman is.

I would just hope that Prudence would have commented a bit on being proud of yourself and not letting a man dictate how you should be.

I understand what you're saying. And there are many, many women who do take care of themselves for their own benefit. Neither my partner or I are gym rats, and we're both OK with that. But after watching the video again, I think Prudence's point was valid. I don't know anything about dress sizes, so I have to take Prudie at her word that going from a 16 to a 20 is a big leap.

The thing that struck me is that the LW mentioned that she isn't asking her boyfriend to change for her, but the fact is she's changed dramatically over the course of only a year. That's not an easy thing for anyone to overlook. Also, it wasn't addressed specifically, but if the weight gain has happened since the relationship started, then that's another good reason to address the issue. The guy may be a source of stress for her, which comes back to Prudie's advice to examine her relationship with food. If he's the reason she's eating more, then maybe she needs to find someone new.

"Why is a man fully responsible for his biological preferences but a woman is not responsible for her biological appearance?"

You're joking, right? Lots of people are short, or have lop-sided faces, or facial scars, and you think people have control over these things? Or do you think it's OK for a man to be unattractive, it's just not OK for a woman to be? As for there being a biologically programmed "need" for one's partner to be attractive, somehow, guys who are themselves unattractive (and don't have lots of money to compensate for it) manage to feel attracted to their equally unbeautiful partners.

If this were a woman who wanted to dump her boyfriend who had put on weight, would you feel she were justified? Or, is it only men who are entitled to demand good looks from their partners, and only women who are morally obligated to look good?

jonthom11702:

.....

OK, I'm probably going to get clobbered here, but is it possible that LW maintained a certain weight for the sole purpose of finding a man? Single men and women have both been known to diet, work out with a personal trainer and go to tanning salons for the purpose of looking good so they can land a mate. When they do find someone, they stop. That person has essentially misrepresented themselves as someone who normally eats well and works out....

Lots of women (and a few men) desperately diet and exercise, not for the sole purpose of finding a partner, but because our society is extremely harsh on fat people. The problem is, many people are just naturally fat, and the longer they keep their body below its natural weight, the harder their body tries to get back to where it thinks it should be. Virtually no one is able to keep off large amounts of weight for longer than a year or too.

Prudie suggested Weight Watchers, but Weight Watchers' own studies (which they use to trumpet how successful their program is) show that the average person on their program is only 9 pounds lighter two years after starting the program, and that doesn't count people who drop out. (And, the average person in their study was about 50 pounds overweight, so it's not like they only needed to lose 10 pounds.)

If this woman used to be a size 20, and her body has just gone back to its natural size, then I don't think she has any realistic chance of getting back to a size 16 and staying there. If she were always a size 16 up to this point, and is suddenly a size 20, she should see a doctor and get her thyroid checked out, because it's rare to suddenly gain so much weight for no reason. Either way, Prudie's advice is useless.

Thanks JudithS for your words.

Looking at replies to this video in general I see a lot of trolling and also a lot of guys who just really don't get it. Being fat doesn't make you a monster, ask thousands of men who are happily married with a great sex life to a chubby gal.

My husband had an interesting perspective also on this. His thought, the guy is 35, maybe he is starting to have sexual problems of his own and is blaming it on the weight to cover his embarassment. Not saying it is true, many men don't have problems that early but it's a possibility that maybe he just doesn't have the stamina to keep with with a young gal.

I just hope Emily has at least read over all these responses, especially all the negative ones in all the threads and understands why it's important to show solidarity with other women on this matter. As soon as you start pointing to a woman and say "loose weight" you've encouraged that mentality that a woman needs to care about her appearance more than other things. I know her advice was given in concern for the weight gain, but really the woman needs to have more self-confidence about her body and her life style and less concern about what 1 boyfriend thinks about her.

And I do seriously hope the gal has dumped her boyfriend by this point or at least re-evaluated her relationship. There are plent of men out there who will love her for what she is and not what they want her to be.

I'm sorry, a size 20 is nobody's "natural size" unless she's seven feet tall. I agree that the world would be a boring place if everyone looked like the scrawny women we see on television and in magazine ads. But this woman went from "large" to "morbidly obese" in a year. That's a problem, whether her boyfriend cares about it or not.

I agree that "settling down" slows one's metabolism; when I first got married, I went from skinny to heavy in fairly short order, even though I was eating and exercising the same as always. But I realized what had happened, reduced my food intake, increased my exercise, and got the weight back off.

This has nothing to do with the boyfriend. Getting that much larger, especially that quickly, is unhealthy. The writer complains that her boyfriend is asking her to "change" when she hasn't made that demand on him. The fact of the matter is that she has already changed, and in a self-destructive and unappealing way. He is asking her to change back.

There is an old joke: every man gets married hoping his wife will never change, every woman gets married hoping her husband will. This person's boyfriend wants the woman he fell in love with; she wants a different man, one who likes obese women.

Sorry, ladies. But getting chubby AFTER you've landed your guy is on a par with a guy stopping to shower and shave after he gets married. I have nothing against heavier ladies but I think that guys are entitled to react to misrepresentation. Presumably you expect your guy to maintain or improve the earning capability that he exhibited before marriage? Same thing.

On the Weight Watchers study, I believe most of those they tracked dropped out or failed to maintain their diet. The same thing happens in most diet studies: the participants don't have the self-discipline to maintain the diet. Diets don't fail, people do.

Obesity is not just a food problem. It is a lifestyle problem. Unless obese people radically and permanently change their lifestyles, no amount of dieting will help them to pernanently lose the weight.

Have you seen the commercial on tv where a female is looking at some guy running a jackhammer?

Oh Puckie, give us a lesson on sexism in realtion to that and tell us why it is so terrible for a MAN to have a prefernce about looks.

BTW-I've added some lbs from the steroids I was given for my asthma.

I now use something else and have been taking them off.
However, I still get those "lookjs" from women who are fairly open about not liking how I look at this tme.

Of course, you might think that that is just fine since they are female and I'm a male.

???????????????????????????

Actually, Judith--I was making the opposite point, that men are not fully responsible for their biological preferences any more than women are fully responsible for their biological appearance.