Has anyone issued the 'marry me or leave me' ultimatum?

I know everyone is different, but I can't see how that is a small issue. He is effectively saying he doesn't love you as much when you're carrying an extra 21lbs! Marriage should not be a reward for weightloss, and indeed, what happens when you have children and it is very likely that you will put on weight, and very likely that your body will change not be as "media attractive" as it is now. Does he then withdraw his commitment?

I know if I found myself in your shoes I would desperately want to make it all ok, but as an outsider it's upsetting to see someone settle for a relationship that is not truly supportive ?

That is a very hurtful thing to say to somebody, never mind the fact that you're his partner for a not inconsiderable number of years and he's meant to love and respect you. I'd be putting the brakes firmly on any plans for life changing events if I were you and step back to have a good hard look at exactly what kind of a future you would have with this guy?

The other thing, HB, is that it's possible the weight issue is a red herring and he is using it as an excuse for not taking your relationship seriously enough to commit to marriage.

I'm sorry, but whichever way you look at it, it sounds like he doesn't feel the same way about you and your relationship as you do about him.

?

In the beginning he was supportive of the weight issues but no he isn't now. We did start running together but I couldn't keep it up because of an old injury. He says he isn't supportive as he finds it frustrating that I can't do anything about it. I must admit I will be all guns blazing for the latest diet or fitness thing and then I don't loose anything, I loose interest and I'm back to normal despite me reassuring him that I am definately going to loose weight this time. Love life could be more frequent ? but thats only because I know he doesn't find me attractive how I look so its hard for me get past that? Like a viscious circle I suppose.

I agree with this. It could just be a convenient excuse, and one that shifts the onus back upon you.

?

Is it possible it was just something he said in the heat of the argument and that he didn't really mean it? I find it very hard to square the idea of him being a nice chap with what he said to you- not because it's horrible to hear that he doesn't like your weight gain but because he's effectively saying that your entire future together is contingent on your physical appearance. Does he even understand what marriage is?

I think someone can be a nice person and still shallow, they are not mutually exclusive, imo. It is very naive to have the attitude that if you wanted to lose weight, you just would.

It really is down to what you want out of life. You say you don't wnat to start again, and I get that. But actually, it may not be your choice, because if he has an issue with looks, well, they do fade, don't they? That's actually not a small issue, because how WILL he feel when your breasts sag and you have crow's feet?

Are you happy to never get married?

L
xx

Diets don't work in the long term for the majority of people. I think the figure is something like 95% of people put all of the weight back on, usually more, within 2 years of finishing the diet. If diets worked, we'd do them and then get on with our lives, but no, the majority of women are doing them continuously. Have a look at "Beyond Chocolate" on Amazon for a different approach to weight loss.

And then, stop beating yourself up about your weight! It'll be making it worse. Beating myself up about my size makes me miserable, and feeling miserable makes me want to eat. And the love life thing is NOT your fault. Of course you don't feel comfortable being naked with someone who tells you explicitly he doesn't like the way you look. I wouldn't even get naked in front of someone who told me that, let alone let them touch me!

I didn't issue the ultimatum but a large part of the reason I left my ex (only other boyfriend) was he didn't believe marriage and absolutely didn't want kids. I loved him but I wasn't prepared to live with him without marriage and live to resent him for not having children. He was 15 years older than me so it wasn't as if he was 21 and not knowing what he wanted from life. I felt I couldn't insist that he marry me so it was up to me to leave. There were other reasons, such as him working so much I rarely saw him.

He went completely loopy after that and I nearly had to go to the police. He started arriving at my house with flowers (which he never bought me when we were together) and my favourite ice cream. He proposed to me by letter, saying he had changed his mind. He also read "Men are from Mars" and would send me the work he had completed from the various chapters.? He kept phoning too, for months and even after meeting someone else. Not good!

I agree that I think it was a rather harsh thing to say to you

Imagine you do lose the weight (which from my POV isn't excessive) and get married.

What happens when you have children, and obviously become bigger. And then after baby arrives, not many mums get back to how they were before. What is he going to do then? I know these are unanswerable questions really, but they do need some thought.

In a weird way, I think it is admirable that he has told you how he feels about people being overweight, even though it is an immature, insensitive opinion.

My other thought, is a bit meaner. A lot of men seem to be stick thin until they hit 35 (I know, not all) and what is he going to do if and when he puts on weight himself. ?

You know your boyfriend better than us, but I would be very cautious of marrying a man who would only get married to thin people. It puts a lot of pressure on yourself, which you don't have to have.

Also, what would happen if you did lose the weight? One of the following:

1. He still wouldn't want to marry you
2. He would ask you to marry him and then you spend the rest of your life worrying about gaining weight again (and what happens when you're pregnant? Is you being overweight then grounds for divorce/an affair?)

I'm finding it very hard ot see a positive way out of this one.

WSS.

Six years is a long time to be together without even starting to think about marriage - if you were suddenly size 8 tomorrow would he be proposing or would he still be saying not ready to get married yet?

And how much weight do you have to lose before you're acceptable for marriage? If you become a size 10 will he be looking for an extra half stone to fit into 8s?

You obviously love him very much if you can be told that and still carry on as normal but in the long-term it's not going to do your self-esteem much good if you're always wondering what changes to your appearance might do to your relationship.

It could be an excuse I suppose, I have never thought of that.

It wasn't said in the heat of the moment. As I say I know its an issue we have, and have had for the past 3 or 4 years. I didn't realise it was such a deal-breaker and the main reason why he wouldn't marry me.

Looks will fade, boobs will sag, etc etc. I know all that, I don't know how he feels about that, its always the weight he hates.

I'm happy to never get married again but only if the person I was with never wanted to married iyswim. It's knowing he does want to get married (at some point) that is the killer.

I just don't know what else I can do. If I ask him again I will just feel like I'm deliberately trying to push him away by bringing it up or that's how I'd feel anyway. I don't want to hear him issue an ultimatum but that's what I think I might get if I back him into a corner? If I keep making an issue of it then maybe he will tell me something I don't want to hear.

Sorry for being so flippant, I hadn't read the whole thread as I thought there was only one page.

Big hugs to you HB. ?

TBH, if it were me, I'd have to sit him down again and lay all our cards on the table.

If marriage is important to you, you need to tell him how important. If he is happy to get married at some point too (although it doesn't really sound as though he's committed to an eventual marriage from what you've said), then he needs to tell you what it is he's waiting for (whether it be losing weight, more travel, whatever). The you both know exactly where you stand, and you can start making some decisions about the future.

Currently, you're now in limbo - if you lose weight, will he marry you? Would he eventually marry you when he's a bit older? At the moment, you don't know where you stand, and he's holding all the information. And he may not be fully aware of how important being married is to you.

Can you look objectively at your future together and see yourselves having a happy, fulfilling, loving relationship with a good sex life? Is that important to either of you? And will it be in the future?

Is it even possible to feel like having sex with someone if they have told you they don't find you attractive?

L
xx

OK, but

1. you have a right to know, now, the extent of his issues with looks/how deep that goes
2. would it really be better to fin this out 5/10 years down the line? If you're worried about 'starting again' now, how will you feel then?
3. should you ever be afraid of honest conversation with your partner? Someone you want to marry?

sorry, am haranguing, will stop now.

L
xx

So that's exactly the situation my brother's g/f found herself in; being with someone she loved dearly and who believes 100% in marriage - but not to her. Terribly hurtful. If it's any consolation I don't think my brother was ready then - or even now- to marry anyone and he's 35 this year. Which brings me onto the second thing.

Don't marry this man, not if that's the way he thinks. Especially don't lose weight in order to "win" a wedding to him. Please. The reason my brother is such an emotional cripple is in his words because "I don't want to goof off like mum and dad" - he doesn't want a marriage like theirs, which is based on spite and a constant round of sniping. And do you know what the issue was when we were growing up? Yup, my mum's size. I grew up believing my dad that my mum was enormous and therefore unattractive, and that therefore it was OK to make her the butt of jokes, have affairs, disregard her. And you know what, she was never over a size 14. I didn't realise that until I was into my 30s.

My mum's self esteem must have been shot before she married him, in order for her to put up with that. And it didn't do either of us any good growing up with it either. You say you want children - do you want a daughter growing up with the knowledge that daddy/other men will only ever pay attention to her if she's thin enough (and trust me, if you grow up in that atmosphere there never is a "thin enough")

You know, if it comes to it maybe he doesn't want to marry you, but isn't it better to know that now than later?

What PL (and the others say) HB

You deserve to be with or married to someone who loves you for who and what you are, not someone who has an inflated opinion of himself and thinks that "he could do better and so keeps his options open.

Starting again is horrible but better to do it sooner rather than later imho

xx

Thanks again everyone. You are right Lois. It's just now everything has gone back to normal (and normal is good) I am loathed to rock the boat again. But yes I don't really know where I stand and I'm no better than before I talked to him.

PL thanks for your advice. I'm not sure where his biased views comes from other than his family are all gorgeous, his sisters are beautiful and slim as is his mum/aunties etc. They're always well dressed in the latest stuff, hair done, make up perfect etc. I wonder if that's where he gets it from but his parents have a great marriage though, are always doing stuff together, going on holiday etc.

I suppose my fear about confronting him is pushing him into making a decision when if I just left it, it may evolve into marriage anyway. As I say I'm in no rush to get married, I just want to know that we're on the same page. I always thought we were and that we had the same goals but after this weekend I don't know. He's just carrying on regardless like nothing has happened and that we're fine, which we are but it's made me feel really unsettled?

That sounds like it's the wrong way round to me... H is trying to lose weight, and of course gets to point where he gets increasingly frustrated and wants to give up, I then try to motivate him. Surely the fact that you're struggling to lose the weight that you may or may not think you need to lose, but are having to reassure him you're trying to lose it, rather than him trying to keep you motivated through reassurance, partly, rings alarm bells with me..

xxx

HB, I'd be amazed if this were the case ?

I honestly don't believe that your bf is thinking of you as the woman he wants to marry, and if that's the way he feels after you being together for X years (I think you said 4? Or longer?) why would it suddenly change?

We often hear, from the non-marrying kind, that "It's just a piece of paper"; "it wouldn't change anything"; "we don't need that to prove commitment" etc.

I think you need to turn all that on it's head and ask what difference it would make to be married, not because I'm trying to persuade you that you dn't need marriage, but because for this man there clearly is a difference between where you are as a couple and where he thinks you need to be for marriage.

Is it that he can't make a lifelong commitment for some reason? In which case you have to admit to yourself that he does not currently feel he has a lifelong commitment to you. If that's the case, after 6 years, what is REALLY likely to change? I'm not talking peripheral things like weight, but the feelings that mean that isn't the be all and end all.

You need to sit him down and talk to him, you need to know, otherwise you could easily find yourself hanging on, waiting on a knife edge til the day it all goes wrong.

It's so hard to find the right time to talk about things like this, inevitably it ends in one of other of us being pee'd off.

Regards the marriage thing I know he'd want to be married before he had kids for one thing. I can't believe someone would or wouldn not get married based on as someone else said '21 pounds'. Surely there is a whole bigger picture (no pun intended) that goes into the thought process of getting married and being with someone. I can't believe a 6 year relationship rests on a dress size? It just makes me sad.

What a cr*p situation to be in HB - but if you don't speak to him about it now aren't you going to spend every day wondering how things are going to turn out, whether there will be a proposal or marriage etc.

When i met my H at uni i was i reckon size 14-16, after uni and prob put on a bit more but H always said he loved me as i was - never ever mentioned my weight - i decided one day that I wanted to lose weight for me - and over the course of about a year got down to 9 stone and size 10 - he always always maintained he loved me whatever size i was and actually until reading this thread i'm not sure i appreciated how much that meant to me. am now 17 weeks pregnant and the belly is growing and he has nothing but positive comments bless him.

On the marriage point we did have some discussions when we had been living together about a year (together for about 4 years) - he stated he was happy as things were and i said that whilst that was fine at the time i get want to get married at some point. although no ultimatum was issued i left him with that thought saying he needed to decide whether marriage was something he wanted or not and we didn't really discuss it further - about a year later we were at a friends wedding and he said to me something along the lines of we will get married and infact we got engaged a few months later - have been married for 3 and a half years now. i think he was actualy more scared of the whole wedding thing than being married!

Anyway i think, as someone else said you need to lay your cards on the table - for your own sake you need to know where this relationship is going - how will you feel if nothing has changed in 3 or 4 years time?

I had to reply to this as I am going through the exact same thing myself. I have been with my partner for 13 years and in that time my weight has gone up and down a lot. When I 1st met him I was 11 stone and at my lightest I was 9 stone. I am currently at my heaviest which is 15st 10lbs. It is heavy I know and I do want to lose weight myself but I do struggle with it. I have an underactive thyroid which is a factor but so is my own procrastination. My partner has basically given me an ultimatum to lose weight or it's over. I have always known that he doesn't like it when I am big and he can be very critical. He has never really had a problem and can eats anything he likes although recently he has found that not to be so. We are both in our early thirties and I think that I have always been aware that the reason he has not made a commitment to me is due to my weight. Like HB my partner feels that as I have not lost the weight that I don't care about being fat and have no intention of losing weight. I can see his point of view but like you it does seem sad that 13 years can be reduced to the question of my weight. It feels hopeless to promise that I will drop the weight as I have said it so many times before without success and he says he has heard it all before and he has no faith in me anymore. Basically he wants us to seperate for 2 months and then if after that time he deems my progress suitable he will consider continuing our relationship.

I just don't know what to think, it is painful but I am angry as well. My boyfriend is not perfect either but I love him warts and all but he just doesn't feel that way about me. I am questioning if I really want to spend my life with someone who feels the way he does. Ironically I do feel more determined than ever to lose weight but not for him it has given me a wake up call but perhaps not the one he intended.

Klute - ?

I really couldn't be with someone who treated me that shabbily.

I would separate, live without him for a bit, and hopefully see him for the fool he is.

When you marry someone you agree to love them no matter what- in sickness, health, for better or worse, for richer for poorer... they can't really make that promise faithfully if they have previously said "I'll only marry you if you are a certain way".

You deserve to be loved for who you are - not what you are. ?

Do you really want to spend the rest of your life with someone who spends their time criticising you for putting on weight? Gently telling someone they have put on a bit of weight and maybe should try and lose it is one thing. But telling them that they aren't worthy of marrying or making a commitment to because of it is utterly horrible.

If my OH said that to me I'd pack his bags and tell him where to go.

Thanks for your replies. Too be honest what he has said has upset me greatly and I am questioning whether he really loves me at all in any true sense of the word. I can see that he feels that I haven't made an effort for him but it has been difficult as I have had my own health problems and been caring for both my father and brother who developed cancer in the past few years. Things are only recently back to some sort of normality and I have been planning to start a diet. I think that he has perhaps been putting off telling me how he feels about my weight until now due to all the illness in my family. I don't really know how I feel right now but I'm not going groveling to him like I have in the past. Of course 13 years is a very long time and we are very much bonded together and of course it's unnerving to think about having to be single again at my age after being with someone since I was a teenager.

Klute you have hit a nerve with me, due to the behaviour from my ex.

I was a size 8-10 when we met. Then my dad, grandad and uncle died all within the space of 18 months. Throw in a bad time with a job and also a couple of extra stone.

He told my I physically repulsed him, and he wouldn't sleep with me as I was fat. I was a size 14 at most at this point and had all the above to deal with.

I left him a year after these comments, and am now happily married to someone who loves me for me. I was with my ex for 6 years was a long time (not as long as you) and I felt like you.

Think on this as I did that made me make a decision. Can you see yourself in 5 years being happy with this person with the way he is treating you now?

If you ever need anything PM me, it's a pants place to be in and I am sending you a big hug ?

Thank you Kaz, it does help to know that someone else has been in the same position and come out the other side and found something better. I have been thinking about how I will feel if this keeps happening into the future should we stay together. His parents have a dreadful marriage mostly due to the moodiness and cruelty of his father, is mum is a lovely woman but they can hardly say a civil word to one and other and she has practically admitted she would be happier if he were dead! My boyfriend cannot stand his father and yet he seems to be becoming more and more like him as the years go on and I couldn't bare to be with someone like that. However he can be nice sometimes and when he is I am so happy but he really is very changeable in his moods and quick to dish out the blame and I don't think I can do this anymore. It is scary to walk away from 13 years but I am beginning to feel I would rather be alone than be in a relationship like this. I think that this time if we have any chance of surviving he will need to come to me but even then I'm not sure.

Good for you on being strong enough to walk away from a bad situation, I hope I can do the same and thanks for the hug I sure need it!

Klute, I know its easy for me to say but you would be better off without him, he sounds horrible. I'd give you a hug but have no idea how to do it!!