Thentram

This can mean 1 of 2 things:

1) He's telling the truth, has lied to you for years even tough he knows he shouldn't have, all because it was easier for him. If you want a chance at the problems being solved you do all the work and then he'll re-assess.

2) He's being manipulative, has issues he's unwilling to face, and finds it easier to blame you.

I know which of the 2 I believe to be true, but is there a winning option?

TakingCharge999

Sorry Missus I am also speaking from my own experiences and hurts here.

A relationship is not 50-50, its 100-100 (phrase from Dr Phil!!) and I just do not see HIS 100 anywhere....

Tally

Nope, there's no winning option.

I see what you mean now, he says he never said nothing to spare my feelings but belies that by saying he should have been braver but wanted an easy life. Totally contradictive statements.

Tally

Well he did end his email by saying "I hope you say we'll work at it." But to me that means I'll do as he says and take on all the responsibility and he'll carry on exactly how he pleases until he finds a new reason why he can't make some sort of effort.

TakingCharge999

Also this weight thing is a "moving target", exactly WHEN are YOU going to "look good" for him? sheeesh....

Honestly, honestly Missus? I can't think of anything great to say, that would be IT for me.

Granted I have been a doormat but TODAY JUNE 29th 2009 I feel more like a human being and not an object or doll (applause, standing ovation!) to be judged & criticized, playing the game

"I MAY accept you... for a WHILE... IF YOU..."
Those are crumbs, I deserve the loaf. The gourmet loaf.

I am tired of that game. You just never win, I find it both demeaning and disrespectful.

Can you work out a boundary?

We have this problem: _____

To tackle it:

I will _______
You will ________
By this date ______ we will see the results.

And this is the part you keep to yourself:

IF there are results from BOTH partners, great.

IF I see no actions from him, I am done.

... or something similar, right now it feels as if everything is floating and there is no direction? although honestly after so many years and his hurtful comments I wouldn't give him another chance, he can go criticize someone else.

Of course its all easier from the outside.

But I hope you keep taking care of yourself!

Tally

Thank you for all the advise, you've all backed up and repeated what others who I've spoken about this with have said. No I'm not happy, haven't been for a long time and am done with rastionalisation.
Am not gonna do anything hasty, I think I still have a few thinking days in me but I know I will do what's best for me and my daughter this time. x x

TakingCharge999

Remember your credit is: 1454 days

Don't let him pressure you into anything, I know you will take the best option good luck!!

Ago

Find someone who loves you just how you are then shag him like a deranged mink is my opinion.

However:

First: how he approached this was absolutely unskilled at best

Second: There IS no right way to approach this from a males point of view.

I'm not saying what he did was right in any way shape or form but I have been on the other side of the equation and you absolutely don't dare say anything as a man. You just don't dare. There is absolutely nothing you can say without absolutely destroying that persons self esteem. They are aware of their weight gain and in many instances are suffering acutely because of it (in my experience*)

So if it does in fact bother you, you suffer in silence and eventually withdraw from the bedroom. I have done this.

Example:

"Unless you quit drinking I won't have sex with you any more"

or:

Unless you lose weight I won't have sex with you any more.

One is considered here to be a healthy setting of a boundary, the other is considered to be hurtful and hateful abuse and manipulation. I have seen example one here and they have gotten nothing but accolades. I have seen weight gain addressed here once and the response was overwhelming and vehement.

As a man we aren't allowed to bring up your weight gain under ANY circumstance.

You can say, "yeah but yeah but it's different and and and" ....but is it?

Is it really that much different?

well one is fair and one is unfair but that's kinda......unfair isn't it

seriously

Budweisers are like chocolate for men, some over-indulge. (yes alcoholism is harmful it's just an analogy)

It's perfectly acceptable to ask a man to say quit drinking and use any methods and manipulations necessary and possible to bring about said desired result but let a man MENTION weight gain and he is a dead man walking.

Men and women generally speaking have a different approach to sexuality.

Women tend to like to have sex when they feel intimate and would like to grow closer and their sex drive is frequently linked to their emotional lives.

Men tend to like to have sex when they want to be intimate, and are extremely driven by the visual, and their sex drive is driven by their sex drive.

I'm not saying it's fair, but it's there.

Now that I have hit my mid 40's my thinking and feelings are different about this issue and I have more empathy and understanding with gaining weight, since I did so, and I realize how hard it is to lose weight, kinda like quitting drinking actually.

Anyway, I just thought I would mention I don't agree with how he handled this but wanted to point out there is no "right" way TO handle this from a male perspective.


*when I was young(er), in the early part of a relationship, my favorite thing to do was stay up all night and during ummm.... lulls eat a pint of Haagen Daaz or Ben and Jerry's. So much so that my uncle finally remarked after 10 years / 2-3 girlfriends, "Jesus Andrew, what is with you, every time you date a new girl 3 months later she's gained 60 pounds...every time, what the hell do you do to them!!!" **































**So I gave up ice cream

PSS edit The actual truth of the matter is I "fixed" this by my girlfriend calling me a fat b@stard and started bringing me fruit and fat free candy to bed. That and I started climbing trees. That's God's honest truth

Kimmieh

If a man came to me and told me my weight gain is a turn-off, then I would tell him that I cannot be with him because the pressure is detrimental to me feeling safe and therefore detrimental to being good to myself (part of which is being active and all that jazz). It would be tough and I would be crushed, but at least I am given the opportunity to deal with it in a way that is best for me.

What nobody wants is someone who agrees to finding one solution first, and then turns the tables and acts as if he is the hero by admitting something that supposedly has bothered him for years and which he could not communicate because he was oh-so-noble. Who wants to look BACK at all this time wondering what he has been thinking?

And frankly, of someone called me fat b*st*rd/b*tch, whatever, I would tell him/her to eat the fat-free candy with someone else.

Ago

So, a real question, I mean this seriously

If you went to a man you were dating and asked him to quit drinking and that was his response, would that be a fair one, or would you consider that him choosing "his addiction" over you?

Seriously, I am not being incendiary

oh, just a note Fat B@stard is a character from a movie with a scottish accent that I have joked frequently about, it's humor

isurvived

Been thinking about this post.

I recall my XAH calling me a FAT ASS at one point. He was deep in denial then, and in a "keep the drinking up at all costs", deflect mode, wanting to lash out and hurt others to protect his king baby ego.

I weigh all of 120 lbs soaking wet.

OK, so a few pounds have sagged, and I'm not as firm as I once was... granted, I'm no longer 25! But...

All it was - a deflection. A way to hurt me, blame me, demean me. To puff himself up, and support his "king baby ego".

I'd go out and buy him a mirror. If he's so in love with himself, he can spend his nights gazing into it.

hotamale

I know he should love me anyway

ok love. love is love. 15 lbs means nothing to a man that loves you and wants you. a man that does not want to have sex with you does not want to be with you.

you are hot. get the ****out of this waiting game and find a good, loving man. if he had mentioned your weight because it bothered you and was giving you low self esteem in a---"what is going on, how can i support/help you?" way--then possibly acceptable.

i have been in your spot before. and, have asked many many men about this. he has lost interest. it hurts. it should hurt. but, as yourself, why are you wasting your time waiting for him to become interested in you? how long can you say...well, when this happens, he will be interested..." get out. live your life and don;t waste another second on this jerk.

as for the hurt, exercise and doing something new everyday for 30 days saved me. you are worth it. believe it.

Tally

Good idea at that!


This is the kinda post I was looking for. I totally agree with likening it to asking an alcoholic to give up drinking, this is one of the reasons I posted about it here, so thank you for being honest.

Also agree there is no good way to say it, whatever way he would have tried it I would have been hurt, as it turns out he didn't do too well with explaining and making himself out to be some sort of martyr having put up with my fat ass all these years, lol.

This is mainly why I am confused. I said some awful things to him when he was drinking, although I never refused him sex or put down his appearance, but maybe some things I said were just as hurtful, I don't know.

If I asked an alcoholic to lose me or the drink and he chose the drink, then yes, I probably would consider him to be choosing the drink over me, even though realistically now, I know that not literally to be the case.

The thing is he's not saying lose weight or lose me. I'm losing weight anyway, before all this kicked off. He's saying I don't want to be with you physically because I don't fancy you, so you can do all the work and I won't bother helping myself until I've decided whether I fancy you at the end of it. Not only that, but he's lied to me for years.

The attraction, the finding it difficult to tell me I get, I understand. What I don't understand is how I'm supposed to react.

covington

I'll say he wants an easy life!


I'd be flabbergasted if I asked someone to please take the cable box back to the cable store last October, and here it is June, and I remind them, and they say "well, if you had a better looking car I bet I'd have done it by now. How about you save up $10,000 and buy me a new car in a few months, then I'll see if I feel like taking the cable box back. I think a new car might motivate me."

It may seem too obvious but, you know, maybe just once in a lifetime, buying a sexy new shirt can lead to meeting a guy ten years younger than you and result in a totally mind blowing shift in perception. That's all I'm saying. Guess who suggested the sexy low cut shirt purchase & guess what effect it had on his being attracted to me? Sometimes buying new sexy underwear leads to meeting a guy on a business trip and a very flirtatious dinner. Guess who said I looked like a hobo at night & guess what effect the Fredericks of Hollywood purchases had on his sex drive?

It's really anguishing to be rejected sexually and have the other person dismiss your needs.

What this comes down to is that your needs matter. How or if you decide to tell him (again) that they matter is your call.

Ago

Me giving up drinking in some ways was easier then losing weight, same as dealing with codependency.

Until you walk a mile in someone else's shoes there is literally no way to understand what that is like. I have now walked a mile in "why won't this belly go away" When I was younger it took 30 days or less to weight if I put my mind to it. Now I go three days not eating right it looks like I swallowed a basketball.

It is a tough one, because you have to eat. and like with codependency you have to love and care for others.

With codependency and eating, you still have to possess some of these behaviors, you just to learn how to do them in a healthy way.

With quitting drinking, you hit bottom, give up, go to meetings, do what they tell you, and don't worry about getting in touch with your feelings, they will be getting in touch with you, and if you don't find a healthy way to deal with them you end up wanting to put a gun in your mouth.

That's why it's so easy to spot a "dry drunk" they are P1SSED OFF all the time.

well we learned about "being a martyr" here, he can take that, fold it in four corners and shove it up his (expletive deleted)

However, there really is no way to tell someone we love this. we know it will destroy them. All we can do is offer to go to the gym with them I guess. or love them for being exactly who they are and how they are, but if it were that easy, sites like this wouldn't exist.

Truthfully I have no answers, I know how I behaved....poorly.

Because I didn't say anything.....I just...........left.

I would love to say I behaved differently, but at the end of the day I didn't. It was a long drawn out process, with me leaving emotionally first, then ultimately, physically.

I would do it differently now, but that aint cause I'm altruistic or a better person, I would do it differently because now I know what it feels like.

Probably, men get hurt by things that seem insignificant to you. That's my experience any way. Hold on, let me see if I can find this passage from a book, brb

Back

Couldn't find it, but the protagonist is talking about being hurt by women, and he says something along the lines of "it's not the big things, it's the day to day little emasculations"

That's not it exactly, but that's whats always really hurt me, those little comments disguised as humor that really cut away at you as a human being and as a man.

(off topic but the same book has a passage how he spent his entire teen years trying to touch breasts etc and do foreplay, now he's in his 30's and written all over Cosmo and such magazines are articles about how to get your man to do foreplay and why won't men do foreplay etc. He says thats because we spent our entire formulative years being told "No" to foreplay by women, so now we just skip it.

So he sums up he figures the perfect union is between the demographic of women that read Cosmo (30 something) and 14 year old boys, they seem to want the same things, pretty funny)

I can't even say how reading that makes me feel. We respond as a species to "pushing" with 'resistance". I never left a woman while I was drinking for drinking. I left her because she wouldn't shut up about my drinking and wouldn't stop trying to change me and remake me over in her own image. Does that make sense?

The thing is it always confused me, because I always more or less completely hammered, I was a bartender so I was always even drunk at work (I was good at functioning drunk for many years, little old ladies loved me and compared me to William Powell etc because I made it a point to always look good, dress well, and comport myself in a dignified, if drunk, fashion)

But here these women would meet me, take me home, move in with me, what have you then the campaign of "realizing your potential" would begin. The campaign of time to quit drinking, quit smoking, get a better job etc.

I can't even begin to convey the depths of my anger after a few times, but I had such low self esteem by that time I thought it was OK for these women to boss me around, to tell me what to do, to punish me for my transgressions, to manipulate me and abuse me.

I was a mess.

I didn't figure out the dynamic until after years of sobriety, years of therapy, I had quit drinking, quit smoking, gone to College and gotten a good career, was an anal neat freak, and she was still trying. to. change. me.

I realized at that moment with blinding clarity, I had done and become everything she had ever wanted me to be and she had never been unhappier.

I had spent years and years of my life, jumping through hoops, going to college, going to meetings, going to therapy, quitting smoking, starting a new career, jumping through hoops to feed a beast with an insatiable maw, with an insatiable hunger that would never be satisfied. she. just. wanted. more.

It was all about getting me to change, I was "her problem" I was the "designated patient" even after my friends didn't even recognize me any more, I had a great career, did volunteer work for the community, I was like a perfect little "pet man" and she just. wanted. more.

I finally said fugget and went out and got drunk and eventually left her.

Turned out poorly for everyone involved.

No

oh HELL no

F**k him and F**k that

"we grow together or we grow apart."

You want me to change, OK, meet me halfway, get your @ss to a Dr, get some Viagra and we take it for a spin or I will go find someone who WILL meet me halfway.

We will also ____(you fill in the blank here, have one date night a week, or go to therapy, something that's fair)

You say, That is my boundary, here is my line in the sand, meet me there or I will find someone who will.

period.

I've been to Merseyside.

Not the cutting edge for men communication skills and metrosexual men.

He didn't know HOW to talk to you about it and he was backed in this stupidity by an entrenched culture.

You saw an earlier post "man says to me lose weight I'm GONE"

Those are our "options"

Destroy who she is and her self esteem.

or

She leaves me

We are not ALLOWED to ask women to lose weight, we just aren't.

But I will say for GOTDAM sure he don't get to say "you lose the weight while I sit on my ass then I will see if you are "worth it" " refer to the "fold it in four corners" part of this.

That's up to you

I personally would look up ToughChoices posts and try to look at how she approaches her life difficulties and format "the problem" and "The Solution" that way. I would look around for someone here who "had what I want" and ask for their help.

Givelove has given some great ideas for boundaries for example, ToughChoices has displayed a virtuosity in laying out her "problems" in a gentle format that seem to suggest the answer before the question is even completed, and LaTeeDa has displayed the most thorough display of her own behaviors and laying out "what her part was", and Freya seems to have the best analytical mind in laying out situations and going to the heart of the matter.

So for me.....hmmm....what you have seems to be a quandary, I would ask them for help in order to break it down to manageable bite size pieces and go from there.

Now you know what it's like to have been a male alcoholic that got sober in a codependent relationship. Thank you for reading, I am prouder beyond measure you stepped up to hear what I had to say for what amounts to an incredibly delicate and difficult situation, and I am sorry for getting carried away in your thread.

Kimmieh

I said I would leave because it's complicated. It's not because I think he is mean or unreasonable, but because I couldn't live with this sort of resentment towards me. There are no "our options," it is about how it makes ME feels. What good is it to say "it is reasonable to be told that he does not find me attractive" when at the same time it hurts your feelings and self-esteem?

I did not ask my boyfriend to stop drinking because it is "the option" of a "reasonable person," but because it stressed me out that he came home drunk all the time. I don't like your analogies, Ago, because you turn these personal things into something that is to be looked at from a sort of "come-on-this-is-how-men/women-are" and I think that is a dangerous thing to do because it's is so easy to push personal hurt aside and be understanding (especially for codies, eh??!), especially when one is told by a third party that one's reaction is "unreasonable."

Don't get me wrong, I am not attacking you and the most important thing is what the OP gets out of this thread and she reacted differently to it than I did. I just want to explain why I said I would leave. Not because that is the thing to do, but because it is what would be best for me and my well-being.
For others that might not be the case.

I maintain that in the end it is less about what a person does than about how it makes us feel.

PS: Besides, I don't buy the weight argument - his lack of libido seems to have been an issue before the weight gain.

covington

TheMissus--I'm glad you are doing what is best for your daughter and for you--I hopes when she sees you smiling and laughing that it makes her smile and laugh too.

I'm starting to really question if anyone is responsible for how anyone else feels--outside a parent making a child feel safe and warm and well fed--or a prison guard for the pain of a tortured person in a locked cell.

Then again it's late at night and my brain feels like scrambled eggs, given a recent breakup.

Tally

That's what I'm trying to do. I also eat less when I'm happy. I suppose that's why they call it comfort eating eh.

I think I did this quite often. More out of frustration and trying to control I guess. I can quite easily do the digs disguised as humour and then if he has a problem I can say it was only a joke. Why do it? He makes me feel bad and he should know it or in the very least feel the same. He actually does the same thing to me though, maybe we're both frustrated with each other.
I think in an ideal world for him I would have accepted the situation by now, forgot I had a sex drive and revelled in feeling invisible.

The digs at him came because I resented giving up a part of me and I resented anything else that got more attention that I did, such as his camera or his mother.

I wanted him to change, yes. I think most people, whether it be man or woman, who are someway involved with an alcoholic, want change.

I never saw him as my problem to fix, certainly not after coming here. I've been rather detached for a number of years now. He stopped drinking for himself but has not lost the addictive behaviour. He's now addicted to cameras and spends most of the day talking about them, playing with them and reading about them.

I thought once he stopped drinking I would get a look in, obviously now I know why he acts as though I am invisible, that is of course unless he wants something, a cuddle, a kiss...then I'm supposed to respond how he would like me too. It's all about his needs.

He changed me too. Or I let myself be changed. I used to be outgoing, flirty, sexually confident. Now I'm not at all. I don't much like the way alcoholism and codependancy has changed me either and maybe I shouldn't say it but I still blame him for it just as much as I blame myself for staying.


This wouldn't work. He wants an easy life. He lied to me for years to have an easy life, and now I believe he still wants an easy life by passing the buck to me. I don't think he would do anything that required any effort on his half to make us work.


You've been to Liverpool? You're right anyway, what's metrosexual when it's at home!

Lol, forgiven :p

Tally

I can relate the eating and the drinking because although me as a fatty isn't gonna terrorize my family, rant and rave angrily because I have no chocolate left etc. they both, when there's no moderation, lead to "undesirable" consequences. I wouldn't fancy my bloke piddled off his head, slobbering all over me, stinking off booze, and obviously now, he doesn't appreciate my flab.

If you think about it in general terms as behaviours that lead to being undesirable, then likening the two does make sense in a way.

Don't get me wrong, my knee jerk reaction is "f*** you, cheeky git, we're fininshed." Ultimately it might still be that as I personally am not seeing a way forward that would work for us both, but I wanted to hear the other side of the coin, probably because I'm finding it impossible to talk to the bf without screaming and shouting.

I know it's been said a hundred times we own our own feelings, no one can "make" us feel anything we don't want to feel. I know this works with detachment, but your everyday person maybe wouldn't even know what detachment was. I do think people affect how others feel, someone tells us something and we have a feeling towards that, whether it be negative or positive.
Someone tells me I'm beautiful and they love me, well that's gonna make me feel good ain't it?
Someone tells me I'm too fat and they don't fancy me, well that's gonna make me feel bad. There's no magic potion you can take to switch off your feelings unfortunately, detachment works when it needs to but theres always that initial reaction to deal with before the detachment kicks in.

Bur heh, I'm a codie, what do I know

Tally

Yeah, I know what you mean about green lights. If EVER I have a problem with something he's done, whether it be drinking related, parenting related...anything. It's always twisted so it suddenly becomes about me.

eg.
Me - I don't like the way you handled Z with daughter.
Him - well you do X when it suits you
Me - No I don't, how do I?
Him - Yeah well see when you do this and that, it's the same...

Conversation is no longer about what he did. Mission accomplished.

If you have a problem with me, then bring it up, speak to me about it, but don't twist my problem with you into your problem with me. That's how nothing ever gets solved eh.