obsessive about it: how do I know?

I am sorry. I feel I have to apologize right away. This is an ongoing theme for me in other threads as well.

My question is if someone else have in a relationship, any type of relationship, been the target of unfair criticism, and then been able to move on from that with that someone?

my husband and i have had a stormy past. we took to counseling. this after i had before asked him for a split as i could not take it no more, i was afraid of my mental health and thought me being a mom and everything else had to come first. that i could not afford wasting any more energy on this relationship that was clearly not working for us. He did not want to part.

Then briefly after the counseling when we were suppose to start over and be happy he managed to spoil that by suddenly without any provocation tell me i had gained too much weight and needed to take it seriously. When he said that i became shocked and hurt (and later on furious to the point that my fury even scared myself) he hurried to apologize.

In the past he had been on my case as well but then in a more respectful manner. he once got me on a diet when i was not even over weight and i was back then also sad and felt very different from before. no other man i had ever been in a relationship prior to him had ever commented on my weight or wanted us to go on no diet. it was people at work that began to question why i was even on one and told me i did not need to and that they thought my husband was wrong. i went off it to never again go on one again.

During the split he would tell me that he had changed his type now and that he found my new body type attractive. i told him i think he needed help and let me be. he got help.

he too would tell me that he had never unlike me seen a correlation between his view of my body and our intimate life together, that he had always found me attractive. that it had always been him to take the initiative, but that that had been OK, he had understood.

I took him back as I could tell he had changed and because he got me on the sentence where he had never not been turned on by me during intimacy.

Still I feel myself obsessing about it now. Like how is it possible to change body type that you feel attracted to?

From what I can tell looking at his parents one of them is clearly under weight, been this way, tons of photos of it, and not normal weight and from the comments of the other parent this is the normal, but it is not. the other parent (the bully) will always comment on the females bodies of the family, it is sick, it really is, but the other parent accepts it without objections when it comments.

to me it is very simple: If you are under weight you are under weight, you are simply not normal weight. There are easy ways to look this up. When I met my husband I was under weight. That do not mean that he was guaranteed that was the weight I was going to keep for the rest of my life. I am in no way jeopardizing my health, I am not over weight but even if I was and I have been too now and then slightly so during my life span, I still think it is fundamental that you treat every human being with respect and integrity. he did not treat me with that.

He comes from this obsessive diet, workoutish, afraid of sickness sort of family so I understand that his normal was actually not normal out in the real world but in this isolated family life style that had clearly gone to his head.

I think there was this part of him wanting to be perfect by his bully parents norms and was afraid to stand up to this parent and there for too wanted me to be perfect, and i was not perfect by their sick measurements.

thing is i have no intention of wanting to loose my curves, i am happy to have them, i look at the women on my side of the family and i am like them and they are like me and i am proud to be the way i am now. i have taught children we have different body types and different looks and appearances and that everyone deserves to be treated the same way, with respect. I was teaching that from very early on in all kinds of ways, way before he said what he did.

however i can not combine the way he chose to express himself (believe me the above was the child version of it) when insulting me, and how he is today. i am somehow hoping time and him proving he has changed will do it but how long?

it is moving towards Christmas and i know i am going to spend some time of it with his side of the family and frankly anything to do with diets, workouts make me wanna puke. i have always moved, worked out in my own way that i like to do but that is nobody's business including my husbands, it is my body, my life, my time, my interest on how i wish to do it, and not his. he wanted always to be in charge, and/or that we would do this together.

I have tried reiki and overall i am good with my own body, it is the relationship that still has its yesterdays ghosts, that has worked itself under my skin.

I can see he has changed but how do i know if he has really?

If he would not prefer to have me underweight again?

he was emotional during the split up as he would say he felt it real bad knowing he was not allowed to touch me no more and he just missed holding me, and that he found me "so pretty", that he was jealous now knowing i was to be single and enjoy the night life and dating life, and him somehow - despite lord behold my terrible weight - fearing i would have no trouble getting interest from the opposite sex. he would even confess later on that he had followed me on few occasions, I know of one but pretended I didn't.

every now and then he will still go on a diet and he is on one right now but is more calm than he usually was before and not irritated like before. before it was like living with someone who was to stop smoking.

I have been at other forums and from what i can tell the relationships are doomed. They are so doomed after one of the partners has told the other they think the partner is over weight and often followed by the sentence they have thought or expressed to them that they feel no attraction to them no more. Often written is that they think their partner is kind and everything and they love them, but they just don't love their bodies. I read of a woman who was at her husband making fun of his over weight til he told her how it made him feel and from then on she had felt sorry and said she would try to not comment no more.

What these people have in common is that They often feel very entitled to express themselves this way to their partners, and look at their own bodies as being superior to their partners.

There are also ridiculous measurements, demands. for instance some men who verbally attacked their women and wives after they had given birth not at all long time ago as if they expected their bodies to just jump back in a heart beat and devastated and i mean devastated women, new mothers, who now found themselves in a complete nightmare with the man they loved who talked and looked at their bodies this way. Never mind the women had given birth to their children without the men at all having anything changed with their own bodies or taken any risks of their own. never mind that.

on the most read i had made it was more women who were the target of this kind of bully and entitlement by their own partners, but there were also some women going on the same way with the men. It can be the culture that fewer men will hit a forum writing about this so statistically i can not say naturally if it is equal this complaining or not.

Many wrote about not wanting to show themselves semi nude or more so the thought of just sharing a bed with their partners who had complained on them was now overwhelming to them. I have felt the same way. I felt this animal kind of rage though, not sadness but pure rage when he one time tried to sneak back into our bed when it was his turn to sleep on the sofa, we had split but still lived under the same roof. another time he walked in on me semi dressed and apologized right away. I was having the attitude that i was not ashamed but that he was not entitled no more to see my body semi naked or naked, as that was something preserved for my lover only, and he was that no more, on paper still husband, but in reality not. The kind of rage I felt - i can't remember having felt it like that before in my life.

What joined the complainers was that they seemed to have no fear of actual consequences that did not at all result in any weight loss in their partners, but that their partners would in fact stand up and walk out on them, despite their own views of their own superior perfect bodies and therefor value?

[astralsuzy]

It would be hurtful when someone says for you to loose weight. I do not think that was bad for him to say that if you were gaining a lot of weight. He cares about you and having too much weight can cause health problems. I want my husband to loose weight. He has sleep apnea and I think it would be better for him if he lost weight. He is trying but he is putting weight back on again. I do not believe in diets as diets do not work. What works for me is I eat in moderation and not over eat. I eat cakes on special occasions. I eat one biscuit a day. Eating two biscuits a day is fine so long as you do not eat any more than two biscuits. I just wanted to say that because diets are too hard. People go on diets and loose weight. When they are not dieting anymore they put the weight back on or they gain more weight.

If you are not over weight then your husband needs help. Being underweight is not healthy. If you are normal weight your husband needs help if he is complaining about you.
I always eat more when it is Christmas or parties. I do not try to eat more but I like to enjoy myself. If you can try not to worry about it if your husband will let you. It is that time of year and you do not need that stress.
Time will tell if your husband has changed. If a long time has past then it is likely he has changed.
When hurtful things happen it is hard to get passed it. It would be harder for you as you live with your husband. It will take time to get passed it. If you keep thinking about it, it will take longer to get passed it. I do not think about my brother and sister in law much any more. I am finding it a lot easier now not to think about hurtful things. It has taken me a very long time to get like this.

Good luck and I hope it will go well for you.

[FallingLeaves]

I've wanted to say this to you before but kept my tongue.

I got a lot of mileage out of just internalizing things like getting bad criticism, deciding I deserved it and I was an awful person and I was just getting what I dished out and what not. The feelings surrounding that seem awful and of course the place you are putting yourself socially if you do such things isn't very desirable. But still, it gave me some perspective I wouldn't have gotten if I'd just faithfully kept assuming my position that I shouldn't have such things happening to me was somehow the 'right' one.

[lostsoul13]

Wow I understand both points- I’m also conscious about weight, since Depo injections started I gone up two dress sizes from my modest 28” it’s on 32-34” but I’m looking to loss weight next year.. cry…

I understand how one should accept flaws and all but there’s sometimes you feel like you can be your self and if you hold a regime totalling weight loss, doing it with your partner is a good thing…

I wouldn’t like my partner to be past 36” that’s size 14-16

I know my twin flame will come in all shapes and sizes and I except that about her and still love her for it.. after all my ego wants to explore every possible combination and that’s including a larger self..

It just feels contentment and right with longing for the experience…

So I suppose I sit on the fence.. but can understand that being overweight doesn’t mean you’re unhealthy!!!

It’s health and diagnosis…

Some people are naturally home made and others the key is responsible for the pound.. it spends it like nothing it’s just hard luck staying a 6-10 because you even gain weight eating healthy..

Most fruits sugar.. most veg store away..

You can’t beat homely but the figure dwindles away with every meal and before you know it you can’t fit into your jeans..

It’s important to express self love and practice health body image….

Loving your self all shapes and sizes {there will be a time in reincarnation where you become what you were fixed you wouldn’t.}

So having a attitude towards the overweight just means you will have to fix those rigid thoughts..

It’s great to have muscles but it’s just ripped muscle and it can’t heal affectively…

It doesn’t mean you’re healthy. A size 10-12 is perfect with out muscles definition but milk musculature from store aways.. without tearing the muscle…

So what in fact we view as health is in fact hurting our bodies…

At least you have a conscious awareness of the situation your in.. it seems this relationship isn’t as good as it seems.. there’s lots of exceptions your making…

It could be unhealthy for children…

Better to call it a day??

Thank you very much for sharing your experiences, perspective.

When it happened with him now a pretty long time ago it was as if I saw his parent work through him. I saw evil.

Even with women in the family he belongs to are close to under weight or are under weight the bully parent will still say things as if it is not good enough. It gets away with everything. Never consequences. It is as if you have entered this game, this play pretend. Having the insight into a narcissist's family has been a terrible experience. Realizing my husband stood with one foot in and one foot out but was simply not strong enough to break free back then was another nightmare.

link: please read 13 ways narcissistic parents sabotage their children by psychology
today


back before we had gone through our issues and it had taken so much energy from me that i really didn't have.


i t was not really about the weight i had at the current time he said what he did to me. it was about him loosing control and wanted to gain it by shaming me and make me his inferior.

he had been trained to think that only one female body was perfect, only one was presentable.

he was also afraid of not just the physical appearance his parent had taught him meant so much, but his fear of diseases he thought came with over weight and that once it was on it was going to be more and more difficult to loose.

at the end of the day, deep down it was fear.


he had not always been like that but i understand it was in the background and when under enough pressure it got worse.


i have often felt as if i was pulling him one way and his bully parent another.

his other parent takes it when the bully say degrading things, making fun of its body to display. the bully wants control. it has found an acceptable way in by using weight. it can't very well go me too as that would have been too obvious. but it is the women that are the targets. strong women. normal women. strong girls. normal girls.

i was not raised by weak women. i was not raised by weak men. i never came from a family culture where it was OK to put down how other people looked, where they came from and so on.

i could not have said if i was pretty or a tomboyish one growing up as the people around me treated me the same. I was allowed to be just what i was, how I was. mom would buy these nice shoes she said, 2 pairs so I could change if I wanted to but she said she saw me running barefoot outside the kitchen window. My guess is I had never asked for those shoes and she thought she was doing a good thing, even giving me 2 options, but it didn't help.

I think if one's partner tells you to loose weight it is as if they are thinking they are smart and you are stupid and they are ashamed of you and think they own you and have a right to tell you how you should look to please them. I have been thrown between the states of my self who feels only free and truly loved if allowed to just be me, and that should be enough. And the other wanting to please, vulnerable .

There was one time I remember, a period, when my husband thought i was under weight by his measurement and he was trying to make me eat then.

if and when i was hospitalized he would be there more than i thought anyone could or would. he said he did not want to be no where else.

i cant keep going back if we are to move forward and i can't move on til i know for sure he has changed and i think it's right, only time will tell, and maybe for me to have faith that this time he truly has it. That we will be balanced all the way. Just gotta stop tripping over myself with the bad memories.

it has felt as if nothing worked til the autism diagnose, when everything was put back to place.

one of the things he back in the day said he loved about me was that he felt as if he could always be himself and be relaxed. that was why i did not recognize him when he was masking.


the counseling before was difficult as i felt this or that situation were the same thing but to him they were different and i could not understand if he got one situation why he could not get another, now i know it was his autism, and he was trying but to him they truly were different.


to me back then when he said what he did about my weight it was the same thing as something else we had before talked about, but to him still it was not. I thought he had then got me through all that for nothing, he had learned nothing.

so far so good with his "diet", he is not irritated like before.

all i can do around Christmas is to stand up to what i believe by simply being me. I have thought about pretending like one gave advice on youtube that it is as if you just watch traffic pass you by, that I will just tune out then.

he would after what happened talk as a dad and explain what he had said to me was wrong and that he had apologized.

when i was going through pregnancy he did not once give me a compliment, just silence. i realized back then behind his controlled self he was worried about my health and again saw it as in me getting bigger as a risk. Still I feel grief when looking back and realize how little it would have taken, just a sentence from him, just a compliment, and he couldn't even give me that. I think every woman pregnant should feel beautiful and should have a supportive partner. There was only silence from him. He was good at following everything and taking photos and being involved that way instead.


it is so sick where he comes from: His bully-parent has bullied pregnant women of the family of their physical appearance, weight and also afterwards, and nobody questioning this from his first family, as if it is the right this bully-parent has.

Before, further back he would never say good things but only bad things. I think he was under a great deal of pressure and I think he had sunk into a light depression or something but he did not himself react on it as in him having changed. I would ask him but he did not think so. He could not read his own signals. Today he is very good at reading his own signals. Using language to a feeling and he is not negative no more.


Before his bully (narc-parent) would not let him or the other family members as their feelings was something to make fun of and only the narc's feelings were to be important and true. He grew up with emotional neglect. That and adding autism where some signals can be different he did not know how to put words to it. He had never been taught. Maybe the male-culture too, at it's worst, entrapping the men from vocalizing. I for one have thought it must be more difficult to be a guy, I would have at least - me with all my talk about emotions, ha ha.

I realize the long and bumpy journey he has made, and i am grateful for the changes he has finally made.

there are lots of areas where we have always functioned well with surprisingly few conflicts where maybe other couples struggle more.

I enjoy being with him these days, we make each other laugh, smile etc. I guess me holding on to what he said is my fear because i do not want to be hurt again like i was back then.

he is often these days saying nice things to me, complimenting my looks and/or showing signs, token of physical tenderness.

i am thinking as a mom too - i want any child to understand, respect and love their own bodies and treat others with respect and not accept anyone putting them down. I don't want no child around that sickness and get sick themselves.

I am aware that we have to be healthy role models both as a couple, as parents from a loving view, not just about pure health. We weren't that before when we were unhappy and I finally gave up on us before.

I have spoken truthfully about what I think about all this and I'm thinking that is all I can do. Words are my weapon too, the bully-parent does not get to have monopoly on that. My words weight something too. The way it has worked before in his family is after insults delivered as jokes or something else by the bully parent there was only silence or ignoring or pretending as if you didn't care. I could not do that very well. I think also it gave the bully parent the message it could say anything and not be contradicted.

I truly, truly hate the memory of when my husband was trying to shame me as he was such a copy then by his bully parent, just went right through him. I can only hope that is gone for good.


I agree that being worried and so on for your partner's health but there has to always be a balance and healthy boundaries how one then chose to express one self.


Before all this I just saw weight as weight. I did not see it as something that could be used in a sick fashion like that with people that close to me but I guess anything goes if you are not in a right place yourself on the inside.

Hi Astrasuzy!

I am sorry your husband has apnea. The way you express yourself show you have an emotional intelligence to not hurt your husband if, when wishing him the best from a health perspective.

Yes, I agree. I don't think any diets are good for you. I think mainly having, striving for a balanced way of eating, exercising is the way to go, but to also respect someone else's boundaries and what they are up to at the time.

There are so much information out there, easy access to it these days with the Internet, and if one is in doubt one can always ask a doctor or dietist. There are quite many diets out there that do not agree with what is recommended. There are healthy options to make sure your body is given all the nutrition it needs.

I was always waiting for him to by himself want to give me compliments and/or want to look at the bright side.He was then leaning towards the perfectionism and always looking for faults. So lets say a dinner was good up to 95% of it, then he would point out the 5% that wasn't. I would be the type to forget about the 5%, be happy someone else offered me dinner, say my thanks. I would never point out the 5%. In fact I could not care less about the 5%.

I suppose I look the same way about my body, that I got some 5% somewhere that he just could not let go instead of just enjoying, seeing the rest of the 95%, and me then thinking you know what? Then he's not gonna have the 95% either. If I ain't good enough for him me being normal weight or slightly over weight then so be it. Someone I am not good enough for is not good enough for me either. But it still hurts. I still feel her, the old me that was so eager to please and to try to get everything just how he wanted it so he would just love me, so I would just be enough, as he was always back the more than enough for me, I loved him. It was too bad he could not look at me, my body, or our home the same way I looked at him and it had nothing to do with perfection, nothing to do with his looks or work out or what he worked with or what he didn't. I was giving him emotional support and defending him when his parent thought was it not time he got even more advanced at work. I never gave him criticism as it just was not in me back in the day but he had no trouble giving it to me and it would then to me be over these non important things that I could not care less for and not understand how it could be worth even bringing up and worth destroying what I thought we had that I valued but he didn't. He was to me reckless. If and when I did give him criticism he could not take it, was on the defense, not how he was with others. He would later say it drove him crazy. That me who never said anything, if and when I did, he thought it hit him hard, spun him out of control. But to me it felt nothing short but a punishment, as if I was worth less than anyone else that he treated with more respect.

From his first family the only way I have seen his parent deal with such things is first of all to take defense. He was doing what he had been taught to do, and then he had no idea how to get to the bottom of things so he would take to cleaning instead or work out to get rid off that energy. It was scary I think for him. Unfamiliar waters. Something he had been taught not to do, not to go. He didn't know how. I knew how. But I couldn't get him to walk with me.

It has been years of this perfectionism getting the best of him, but periods where it was less so, but still overall it was having a negative effect on me.

He has now quit his diet, now not once during has he ever said something to me about my own body, except for compliments. I refuse to weight myself so I actually do not know if I am slightly overweight or normal weight at this present moment. I've just decided to keep to my own schedule.

Perhaps he could tell it put me off ease this time as he was on his diet as I simply can not go through yet another of one of those nightmare-diets with him ever again, that it brings everything back and I do not want to hold my breath.

There are these triggers, whispers of yesterday and I guess I feel I have not gotten out of the environment where I got to suffer mentally before: We still live in the same home where all the bad memories were made before. But I also have to think of all the good memories. I am thinking of changing something around here though to make it different. Before it just felt like his home. That I had to make sure I had not forgotten something. I could not relax. Stil at work I do it, if someone has left to me a bit of a mess I fix it right away as if I am afraid he will turn up behind me or something. I have to now train myself to not fix someone else's mess.

Over Christmas, another trigger, we are about to meet with some of his family that are fixated and around us will be no sensitivity and kids who call each other "fat" when they are not. I do not want any younger generation that I am responsible for to be around that. I do not want any younger generation around that, in fact. All I can then do is to speak my mind, but without anger, if to adress a child about it but to explain.

It is always surprising to me how some parents can take such distance from when their kids end up with some problem, drinking for instance, or for instance calling one another words such as fat as insults as if they had nothing to do with it. It is as if the parents wants to declare their own innocence.
I know when I went through what I did with my first love who had developed a drinking problem, and I suspected or knew it existed in his family, among relatives, that somehow I got to be looked at as the bad guy for telling the truth and knowing he needed help and he needed help now. This had already gone too far. I was not concerned with what others might think as I knew he was this great guy and he was loved and those who had the maturity in them, his true friends etc, they would stand by him, they would stand by me. The rest - the rest I did not care about. If using this vulnerability (him drinking and going to rehab to get free of it) against him, us, it would only reveal the ugly truth about who they really were, not who he was and those who listened to those kind of people would reveal something about them too that was not too flattering. He was so much more than his drinking, but I knew if he kept this up it would get more and more of him and finally take over, has happened to some of the best people of this world.

When my husband was not doing well at all during our split I wondered to myself but where is his now perfect family? His perfect parents? Is he not perfect to them anymore? In times of trouble where are they? If anything they ought to be relieved. I was now out of the game. I had before taken steps back. Had not exactly felt welcomed and part of the family by his narcissistic parent anyhow. It was as if he stood alone.

When I have later asked my husband about it it comes across to me as if he said only very little, if anything, and that it was he that wanted that distance, and could not really cope with anyone else's feelings on top of his own. It was one of the first time I could tell he made his own choice to separate himself from his parents, but I know too that when I could see this was truly bad on him, and I was now his ex, that I thought to myself are they going to leave him al alone in this?

It frankly reminded me of my ex where his parent told him not to drink in their home. As if he would not then still drink in his own home. As if as long as you do not see it the problem don't exist. In the meanwhile, and he was my ex by then, he was on the phone with me and I was worried he might drop his cigarette and there would be a fire, that something would happen. That is like saying he's not our problem, we did not do this, we are the perfect parents. Never mind the genes, the history, the environment or I don't know - simply because that is our boy. Some parents need to get over themselves. I have heard so much about the whole attitude of "think of the neighbors". Does it never come across their minds that the neighbors might be thinking the same thing about us? They can go and stuff the neighbors-attitude somewhere for all they are worth, I do not care. Everyone has their problems, nobody is perfect. But shame you know - shame is a strong, strong component, enemy. That and fear. We gotta fight our way through those walls so we can finally breath.

Perhaps I should just lay off the expectations that now we are going to be so very happy but start out relaxing first of all and trust that with time everything will fall into place and try to be patient and not stress myself. This diet of his was a trigger again and it reminded me of everything before. i was hoping he was not to say anything bad again about my body and he didn't but then of course I just had to go there thinking - does he think it instead? I can still hear him. Then i felt bad about that. Hopeless, ha ha. They say that after one bad thing said it takes up to 5 positive things to say before it ounces up. Think too I was with him for years and used to him hardly ever saying something positive to me, about me, only negative, so for him these days go around and saying positive things about me has then made me wonder Who is this guy? And is he for real? Can I count on him? Will he change back? Or is he here to stay?

I wish you all the best as well :)