how can it be so different with the physical?

the other day my husband commented on an overweight presumably parent and child.he said it should not be legal to do this to your own child.

we have in the past have a serious crises after i have had enough after he made a bad comment on me gaining weight. i've been underweight, normal weight, overweight in my life and i've understood i don't view this the way he does. he made me feel very much self-aware and as if i was not enough. i could not even be thinking i would be seen semi naked around him and this when i was not even seen as if i was overweight by some others. i would check too and i was not even overweight one time when he wanted me to go on some crazy diet with him.

when we met i was no doubt underweight, i moved around alot in my every day life and i was very keen to eat food with nutrition in it and learning about it. i was no work out person. perhaps it is that i know i can go from one weight to another that has made me more humble or don't view it the same way and don't view others the same way?

i understand his point that he don't think it is 1. healthy for the body 2. does not look good to him, but he would claim (lie?) that he had always found me attractive no matter my weight.

he has always too been concerned if my body is to get sick or injured in any way, and when, if something happened he would be the most frequent visitor at the hospital to the point they had to tell him to go. i think unfortunately that he was with me one time when i suddenly got rapidly ill and he did not know what was happening, that that had an effect on him.

to me i do not notice or think it make any difference if he goes up or down on the scale and i do not see it, perhaps if i should really, really try i could see a change but it is on that sort of level. but he sees it, notice it and go all in to push himself harder.

i can not understand from what eyes he is looking through and possibly others, how it can make such a difference. i dont know if it is wrong with my eyes or his or none of us.

i understand his perspective and reasoning but it don't leave out other risk factors that you can still have if you are normal weight or under weight. i guess i am missing the integrity part when he talks. he's also been brought up with that kind of talk and to me it sounds objectifying with no room left that people have integrity but he don't seem to take that in consideration.

before him i dated some stud and he was so self conscious that it got on my nerves plus he seemed to have his own fan club of women where ever we went. he did not flirt back or anything but i could see he was aware of it. i one time felt like asking him if he should stop and take autographs.

in all the years i have known my husband he has never had that self aware look to him.

[lostsoul13]

I think at times we get lazy, eating for convenience than healthy- but majority of food is health and you still can gain weight.. like fruits have sugar..

I think if your comfortable then the relationship will be also comfortable in terms that your body confident and being naked in front of your husband..

I know my tf is beautiful what ever weight she is at and have been attracted to curvy girls —-

On the plus side in body confidant when I look I the mirror I love my weight and body figure- and my image…

But there’s people that see something different and them gaining body confidence is important- you can do this by have a 50/50 balance in eating and maybe one cheat day for the burgers (or make home made ones to lesson the fat ect..

Swimming, jogging, walking, go to settings that are beautiful - beach ect get up for the sunrise and sunset..
Eat waffles and chocolate melted instead of whole bars of chocolate like a mars lol

Get a day of rest ?

Work on different areas each day so in a whole week there’s a target that’s been reached- get plenty of protein and if your vegan nuts and alternative foods to grain , brown bread instead of white …

Pea protein as substitute and take your vitamins!!!

I’m on a schedule for next year and 4 months to lose two dress sizes (mans) down to a tidy 28-30 …

I’m keeping this routine and advise!!!

Shouldn’t body shame reincarnation does that enough!!!

LOL, yes true it ought to be enough with this reincarnation cycle! I'm pleased that you feel comfortable in your own skin and how you look and go by advice that suits you well.

The way I have understood it my husband was raised in a more disciplinarian home than I have been. To me their normal is perfection (only no one is perfect).

There is also the negativity part that when you withhold praise, compliments but only says critic that is going to lead to insecurity, to unbalance. If not straight away then surely over time. My husband thought this was normal, this is how his relations was from home, this is what he brought into the relationship. I think it had to do with him not wanting to be vulnerable, placing himself inferior in a way, but also been very strictly taught you do not do that. He was used to that lack of it, but it had a bad effect on me over space of amount of time, years. He thought he showed me how much he loved me, but he did not speak my language.

When I was dating the stud before him he had these prejudice and I couldn't stand it and I thought there's something wrong here. He had placed himself superior.

My husband has said that he was frustrated, irritated and afraid when he realized my gain weight. When there is gain weight he automatically then think something is mentally or/and physically wrong. He was too irritated about his own strict diet. He was irritated that I did not participate, was as passionate about it as he was. We were going to collide sooner or later.

We had been at opposite ends for a long time, a real power struggle, and I sort of think the answer is in the middle, we both have a point. I remember I asked him before to drop his strict diet as I thought it would effect his mood but he wouldn't and then he hurt me by those words. They still hurt. I'm still not over that 100%. I will never forget it. That moment. One of the most awful moments of my life.

This summer I feel more stable and comfortable in having him around me if we're out during hot weather and I show off more skin.
I've learned he is still strict, still wish for me to not show off too much skin in bathing suit, bikinis while I think it is just fine. I have asked him if he has seen how some other women chose to wear theirs then? It ain't too much skin showing, but he still has that old sense of "guarding". I think before it was a jealous thing, he would say he wanted to be the only man seeing (some skin on some parts of my body) and not for others. I never thought that about his body, he could show what ever he wanted. It ain't my body. It's his choice.

For sure I have placed my husband's looks as superior to mine. I have suffered because of that. That too has been something that would be taken it's toll on me.

Then again I knew him too to be jealous of me, but I could not figure out really why.

Now I have realized that men who has looked or flirted with me a particular way during my relationship with him of course then see me still as this sexual being and do not care what my husband looks like. But I used to have it in my head thinking what is wrong with these guys, why are they not flirting with someone else? Don't they know I'm inferior-kind-off.

My husband says I must assuredly know that I am attractive which was why he too thought not to say anything about it as he thought that went without saying. He says he has seen guys look at me etc so he knows he is not the only one finding me attractive.

I have been pushed down to believe a truth that is only a matter of someone's perspective, someone else may not look at it that way. It has been the cruel combination of his narc-parent and my own husband doing this to me in the past. My husband though unaware that I did look at my own looks and achievements as inferior to his. He says he thinks that is ridiculous and that I must not think that.

He has been told he had a lot off unplugged rage against his narc-parent. He used to tell me some of the nightmares, but in real life he was disciplined alone to know that his parents suffer from narcissism and can keep a distance to it.

I think now the last time we saw his narc-parent my husband took it bad because he could see how this parent tried to push me down and too our own child, innocent for sure. Then again I think it is important he sees this for himself so he will make his own judgement. He is too trained now to spot narcissism and manipulation, tactics. He sees things too in another light about his parent's relationship and what goes on there. I could tell he was struggling with it. To me it is no surprise that his narc-parent goes after me like that for no reason. I know this parent does so because I am now too strong and I am confident and authentic and so there is not even the old push down, pull up-tactics that the narc-parent use on others. It is only push-down-tactic. I know this tactic from before. My ex, the psychopath, would do that too because in a way he must have known, felt I did not love him like before and in my own way I was getting stronger.

When i began to think that I am an individual, I am a sexual being, and not place myself next to my husband, like I did before in my mind then it felt better. That I did not need to be in some useless competition with him, trying to prove to his narc parent that I was good enough because I already was. My husband had already showed me that by choosing me and insisting on us marrying for instance, something his narc parent has tried to dismiss any way possible because a wedding, a marriage stands for something and this one was going to be hard to put down. THe whole wedding and marriage thing did not matter to me, I could have stayed unmarried. I've seen enough so called marriages not being marriages. To me it is important the promise you've made to each other, how you are as a couple. You can have it official. You can not. That don't matter. Not to me.

I think once the narc-parent realized I really did not care if its son and I were married or not, and how that whole thing went, it had nothing on me. I was not vulnerable to it. The narc then tried to talk behind our backs to others to give a certain fake image but luckily we were told that. I think this was something that had been so important to my husband, that symbolized something to him, that for him to know this - it got him angry. I could tell too it was almost as if he did a physical push - like he pushed this parent far far away. Today I can tell he has those walls up. It is MY family (me and the family we have created), there is no door open.

I have told him before that there would be no need to go on those diets if he had just followed his usual program and not let me, us pay for it when he hadn't by how irritated he was when he was on them.

There has been times I've been very sad thinking he should be with someone like him, who wants to go to the extreme and is constantly on the trell mill, who is as obsessive as he has been about his diets and they could become this union instead, as he was trying to push me to become someone I wasn't, Frankenstein me like that. I had never had a problem with him being that way as long as he was not that irritated. I would even arrange for things so that he could go and do that (work out) and I would babysit etc. Then I got that in my face. Not fair.

I've told him that too his face that I think he should be with someone like that (the work out kind) and when I did he got very upset about it, saying the only woman he wants is me and he only missed me that's all, and he thought it would be more fun if I too participated.

There are foremost times now when I don't think about it as he shows me he wants to be around me and he thinks I am attractive the way I want, he says more nice things to me these days, he shows it by showing physial tendernss to me too even around others with he was very restricted with before, there was none of that before and I think or know people assumed we were not even a couple.

But there are moments when I do still think about all the stuff he has said and how it was in the past, too because it is so recent. Being semi naked in public on the beach or by the pool do not bother me with other people around, but there has been weak moments when I have thought: Is that woman over there more attractive to him because she is less of weight than I am? Such thoughts. But I see him looking at me, and trying to do everything right so there will be no more doubts in my head. That vulnerability, that insecurity is woken if I dare to be completely off guard with him, if I let my feelings for him go stronger. If I don't, if I can even pretend he is just a friend, then nothing. But I should be 100% relaxed and have no guard at all, that is how it should be in any healthy romantic relationship. Working on it.

I can tell that when something is stressful for him that he goes into his body work schedule even more and that too can isolate us but I think he does so to try to fix that regulation in him. But I don't find him easily irritated like he was before, before I would feel him "ticking" and knowing something was wrong but not always what it was and even asking him about it and he would say it was nothing and then Bam!
It would come hours or days later what it now was. It could be some little detail, which I know now is typical for those who has autism, when everything was not perfect to him, but fine by me.

I have myself suspected I have too highly functioning autism as I know I see the little things among other things but strangely I don't come off as someone on the autism spectrum. I've just been told it has been long term stress taking a natural toll.
I have some level of emotional intelligence. I am good at reading people. I am sensitive. I have this trauma/s from my relationship with my ex where I have done progress as far as where my fear is concerned but throughout even that period before I was not someone fabricating things, hallucinating, none of that. There's childhood trauma, abandonment, emotional neglect but that I knew about before. So far. I don't know where this is going to land.

My husband told me a long time ago to go and talk to someone professional about what had happened with the psychopath, as he could tell I had this fear and none of us could tell if it was legitimate and the steps to take in order to keep my ex out of my life or if it was fine now if I let go of that considering the time and no contact. Then again i knew from before my ex's pattern and that he had when given the opportunity restart everything again. That was why I had to let go of that whole life, those friends completely, as I could not afford him working through other people, if not him doing it directly when wanting direct contact with me. I had built up a new life for myself, friends and other people I loved and cared for and so of course I was afraid that he was once again going to do what he had already done to me once.

I think I have figured my own regulation about food intake and how much I move around or not. I know that if I am deeply unhappy like I was when being in and coming out of a relationship with an ex (psychopath) then I can't eat very much at all, only a minimum. It was scary how thin I was and I was not even aware of how bad it was. That is usually how it is with me, I do not notice it til much later when someone else has to point it out to me.

When I was somewhat unhappy, struggling, I got a more taste to eat but still less energy to move, that had happened, I thought in my relationship with my husband.

When there is less stress in my life, in my brain, I am in balance, I am regulated, and then I have to remind myself to eat. This usually happens if I am on a holiday or going through a normal or calm period. So I've learned that about myself that it is how my mental stress is that impacts the food and junk intake and the energy or lack of energy to move.

I agree with you with the advice you've been given, especially about that white bread :)

Hope it's Ok I wrote so much, Lostsoul13?

I know I before wrote somewhere about my husband being a perfectionist. This is what google found in an instant regarding people who has highly functioning autism

"Perfectionism may occur in individuals with autism spectrum disorder with some frequency. Perfectionist tendencies may occur due to cognitive inflexibility that is associated with executive dysfunction of the frontal lobe."
link.springer.com

Here is something revealing about his background, first family
What is perfectionism a symptom of?
Perfectionism can be caused by a fear of judgment or disapproval from others. Early childhood experiences, such as having parents with unrealistically high expectations, may also play a role. People with mental health conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) may also exhibit perfectionist tendencies.
from verywellminds.com

With that above mentioned I think my husband's autism has also some really strong points to them that we all benefit from, not just him.

I realize when my husband upgrade in his own work out schedule it triggers an insecurity in me, both that he will get how he was before, then trying to push me too far, and me not feeling good enough just the way I am.

I know by now he does this when he tries to come to terms with tough feelings that would effect anyone in his situation and that he does not do it to create distance from me, he don't want to say or do something that would upset me so this is his way of trying to get back to balance (but again I am a little afraid he will repeat how he used to be. At the same time I can't tell he is irritated at all).

When he and I met we were both grown-children from first parental homes with high expectations, demands. I know I had a somewhat selfish not sensitive parent who though later in life I think healed enough from her own issues to be a better person.

My husband would if pushed only say ordinary, nice (perfect) things about his first home, upbringing, as I think that is what he had been programmed to do.

And when I began to tell him I thought we had marital issues he again would respond to me that no we had it so good (perfect again) when it wasn't so.

It was even much later when he himself wanted to seek therapy that he would express that the only thing he wanted was his wife back and that if his wife was doing fine then he was doing fine, that he thought our issues were about me and my past, and not anything to do with him, or us. Although he did acknowledge the problems with his parent ( a narc) causing distress between us.

He had to reprogram himself. Going back to childhood, recognizing things etc. For me it was about this is what you didn't get. To acknowledge that I didn't. Neither of my parents took responsibility for what went wrong but pointed the finger at each other later in life, protecting themselves. They did not acknowledge or ask me even how all of this had been on me.

I've thought if my love life has been as problematic as it has while others hasn't is because I have been on repeat from a childhood trauma where I would be trying to connect with my mom who was not sensitive, and sort of by having two not sensitive partners (the psychopath being the worst no doubt) and later my husband, who can in one way be not sensitive, but in another sensitive (which is an autistic on the spectrum thing I have learned).

In a way my first love was not sensitive in that he would say and do what he wanted but in another way I did feel he was sensitive and did have emotional intelligence to him. I think he more or less symbolized the rebel side of me, when I was growing up. He had his own issues that he had not dealt with the right way back then, I hold no grudge against him. He too was a high achiever, worked hard.

I think when my husband said back then what he did on my weight it was that rejection, you're not good enough, look at you, that shame - everything coming to play again and being powered up from years of mental abuse, and too from my childhood.

I understand my husband sees the bodies very objectifying, how to work out, what to train, what to eat and so on and to him this was nothing personal and he could not relate to an emotional response to it. He in reality had higher demands on his own body than he had on mine. It became even more difficult as we were in fact lovers, had an intimate relationship, which he just crushed by saying what he did on my body back then.

I've been with him and previous partners and can say their weight has varied, been underweight, normal weight, slightly overweight but I did not care and no matter what would not think of saying anything about them as I wanted them to feel loved and beautiful and how much I was attracted to them. I did not think if it would ever get to that that it would be in my place to say something just because I think I already understood that it could have an impact on our intimate life together and of course I did not want that. I too understood what integrity was about. Too I honestly did not care what they looked like because I was in love and to me they were perfect because of it.

I have I suppose always connected the two the physical and the emotional, the integrity but some just see the physical as the physical I guess and my husband has been one of those.

[Izz]

This can all be difficult, and I'm glad you have strong integrity

Remember to ground yourself, self care too in an earthly way. You deserve some rest

[inavalan]

Being overweight is about being unhealthy.

But, instinctively (reproductive instincts), people are more concerned about their looks than about their health.

For a part of my life I was overweight, even obese. So I know how it feels. At the time I didn't think about the health consequences of that. I even ignored my father's comment about himself, that being overweight is like carrying around all-daylong a backpack full of stones. Actually being overweight is much more unhealthy.

Coincidentally, a couple of days ago I remembered how soon after dropping in weight to my healthy level, one day while standing in line, I noticed a quite overweight woman in front of me, and looking at what foods and drinks she was buying, I was tempted to tell her how to loose weight, but I didn't because I remembered how offended I had felt when, been overweight, anybody had made even a slight a reference to that.

Again: being overweight is unhealthy. This "pandemic" should've been an additional warning to adopt a healthy lifestyle, including a healthy weight.

[lostsoul13]

Your talking about it and destressing which is a good thing.. you must of had strength and courage to leave the relationship- comfort eating is a sign of depression—- or like you say that amounting you & taking it’s toll!!

If you know that fruit and veg and white meat are like 89% water..

They are comfort foods for me but you can still gain weight, I gained it while in hospital (eating good there healthy also: two veg and meat and mash ect) but still piled it on??

Two years later I’m doing something about it: same as when I went to prison I piled it on~ now my medicine helps gain weight.. but I’m still comfortable too comfortable—-

So I got a running pad for my room in the hostel a foldable one and do a hour everyday with a rest day off!! If I can’t run I walk and interval it out.. it’s stressful the first couple of days but a habit becomes and forms and it becomes somewhere where stress can be released not built up!!

As long as you’ve got outlets for your stress and amounting anxiety with the x —- then you know you can control the trauma ina good old fashioned way…

Do what you love, be healthy and everything else will fall into shape: even if you are overweight as long as you love your self!!

I treat my self far more now than ever! I need to be kinder and eat less chocolate!!!

Thank you all very much for sharing your views on the matter.

I think too the focus should be on what is healthy or not healthy for the body and not so much on the looks. I think your way of having been there, Inavalan, made you be able to put yourself in that woman's shoes.

Feel like you are on the right path now Lostsoul13 and found what works for you. Yes it is easy to slummer into other habits I think depending on what your life and how you feel like then in your life, we're all human.

Yes thank you Izz, I will try. Hugs back.

My husband comes from a narc-family meaning in this scenario that the narc puts much weight on (sorry did not mean that to be a punchline) looks, more so than from a health-perspective. One would think the two would go hand in hand, but they did/are not. I was the one eating more healthy than my husband when I met him and would glide over to his way of eating.

I have found on a forum for autism and Asperger's questions and resources, a woman who describes the same dilemma/situation I have been in for so long.

It is the obsession of working out, what to eat or not, and to make insensitive remarks and control what she was to eat or not. It has been as if I have read my own words when reading hers and she too would describe how it would effect her in a bad way her too thinking he was complaining on her looks and so on. It's uncanny how alike it is.

My husband tries to prove to me now every day by simply reaching out, his hand on my arm hand and so on, his eyes on me, photographing me etc, other ways, that I have to admit has always been his way when it is just the two of us (doing town or at home or where ever). He wants and plans, schedules to have time with me and we to do fun stuff too, but too exercise but he now takes exercise on my terms and this is the sort of exercise I enjoy and it ain't the gym, being locked up/away in some room with a bunch of other sweaty people and boring machines, it ain't me.

I have days, moments when I feel pretty good, and then days, moments when I plunge into insecurity especially now I realize when he has used his exercise program as a way for him to self regulate (when I think other stress factors, not our relationship, is concerned and then when he does that it is as if he partly disconnects from me but he don't mean to, and now it is as if he has come back, he's regulated now. This too I have learned is normal by people who has autism on the spectrum).

I know for a fact that the narc in my husband's family is not really about making the family members feel they are doing a good job exercising and eating right. the example I have is that an even underweight family member has been questioned by the narc with the solo purpose to put this person's down to make it think it is fat when this person is underweight, and for this person to then focus on training a specific area of the body which is just ridiculous, this person does not need that.
This has to do with envy and that the narc needs to always feel superior and not let another person feel good about itself even when this person is doing the right thing. It's just crazy.

When my husband made his remark to me (which I left him over), which was an insensitive way of delivering his opinion for sure, I swear it was as if I looked his narc parent in the eye and not him. They were one and the same. I have also thought if my husband had been manipulated by his narc parent to take that "knife" (comment) in me, he that I then dared to be vulnerable around.

I think too he has been so disciplined, through shame, and he would say later he got afraid as he saw my weight gain because he had not noticed it so before but I still think and know he was very irritated when he said what he did to me, he was in a bad mood before and it was over his own impossible diet.

Today he is not who he used to be, he is not as irritable, and lots of other things about him has changed for the better, but I think I still have one foot in the past and one in the present.

This is ironic, before I thought no matter what we do he does not get it, he does not change, and now it is as if he has done much more positive inner work change than I have, LOL. I'm still struggling.He says he is sorry for his part in that and that he is doing everything he can so he won't hurt me again.

Today he would not mention anything about my body in a non sensitive way or control what I eat or not and I don't feel his eyes on me like before (that felt terrible, I felt like crying then). It is about healthy boundaries that has to be there between a couple who share intimacy together I think that he did not detect til it was too late, way too late.

Just today we were talking about something and he said "I got stomach ache from all this". It may sound like nothing but he would never before make a connection or even acknowledge he had physical symptoms of stress. He's much more calm and steady and taking in what I say even when I am upset. He's listening and he does not take offense, make it into a personal insult, which he did before. He would take offense a lot more in the past. All of that is also common and has to do with the stress, anxiety, lots of people with high functioning autism take offense, I've learned.

He can still say things in a non sensitive way and I know now because of his autism it does not have to be meant, taken, the way I or others read it, but just like anyone else he can say cruel things out of anger and so on.

He is more on logic and following a plan and getting there and he sort of cut off the emotional part of it, where I see the emotional part.

He has told me that did I really think he wanted the result of his remark would be that I would leave him? That I would think he did not want me when he knew he did and thought he had proved that? I think in a way it needed to happen because this came just some time after our therapy and us trying again, and it was one big proof that we had not discovered the core which was autism on the spectrum that we still did not know he had. Even if he would apologize like crazy I was still hurt and had had enough of everything, as looks and weight has too been used as this cruel tool by his narc parent to especially put the women in the family down, trying to put me down, while somehow the men gets a more fair deal. These are things I do not want to go into a younger generation so for me it was panic and rage on several layers. I still think perfectionists place themselves superior when it is about their own fear and that fear is contagious and I did not want his fear to become mine no more. I was done.

Overall it's been a lot of emotional weight on me and feel I need to rest my mind and soul and hope the rest will follow, LOL. Will try to eat more healthy and exercise in my own way =)

[inavalan]

The golden law of weight-maintenance:

3,500 calories = 1 pound of fat

Exercise is for health, not for weight-loss. It doesn't burn enough calories. Some daily dumbbells / body-weight exercise (10-15 minutes), and brisk walking (20-30 minutes) are enough for health, including a good metabolism.

To loose weight, you have to focus on eating and drinking less than 1,600 calories a day (as woman, depending a little on age and on physical activity).

Surely, qualitatively-healthy eating and drinking are good for you, but healthy food by itself doesn't regulate your weight.

By the way: fruits contain a lot of sugar, which in all forms is bad for your body, being the main culprit for all degenerative diseases (fructose is worse, and high-fructose is worst). Excess protein is unhealthy. Healthy fats are a must.

You need to read food-labels, and pay attention, if you want to be healthy. (this reminds of the advice: "you need to floss only the teeth you want to keep")