discussion Body Contrast In Relationships

[fmlsalmon]

My girlfriend recently found this on Facebook and shared this with me. It definitely gave me pause so I wanted to ask the community what they thought. 

I can relate to this because I’m the slim “conventionally attractive” male while my girlfriend is plus size weighing over 300 pounds. I have received comments about us, although so far they’ve only come from my family. 

My sister has said I can clearly do better, and think that we should break up. Since she’s my sister I can’t exactly tell her to fuck off without pissing off the rest of my family, but I do make it clear to her that my girlfriend is exactly who I want to be with. She is the best. 

My mom saw a new picture of my girlfriend recently and couldn’t stop herself from commenting “Oh, she’s big!” to my face. 

Have you or anyone you know experienced something similar? How does it compare if the genders are reversed?

[Guest high]

Yes, quite a bit. I'm 6' tall and have been told quite handsome. My SO is 5'6" and over 465 lbs. and I used to get the same type of comments from family. She's wonderful and HOT and there's absolutely nothing that can persuade me otherwise. I stopped caring what others think when I got into my thirties. I'm all about me and mine.

[extra_m13]

well size difference is something for society to deal with. i am happy with my chubby wife and would love to see her gain weight. really do not care about that. if someone asks yes i am a chubbychaser so what. get on with your business mate. not really much to talk about that i think. a lot of ladies are money chasing, or fame chasing, we all hace our kinks

[Joliat]

Sort of the same boat here. I've always been reasonably slim (although because I don't work out, I'm no Daniel Craig with my shirt off) and have been regarded as decently attractive. My wife was about 170 lbs (on a 5'1 frame) when we met and is now over 300 lbs. I never had anyone come out and say "you can do better," although I have had some "concern trolling" about her weight from my parents over the years. My response to that was to tell them in no uncertain terms that I never wanted to discuss it again. They could see I was not kidding around and stopped doing it.

More often are these weird indirect signals. Years ago we moved into a new building and I was chatting with a woman down the hall. I had the distinct impression that she thought I was some sort of domineering male whose relationship with his wife was a power relationship based on the physical imbalance: "you're lucky to have me, so do what I say." She never came out and said as much, it was just sort of hinted at. When she got to know us better, that went away, since my marriage is emphatically NOT based on that sort of degrading dynamic.

Then there was the time an older person down the street referred to my wife as my 'sister? or mother?' - because obviously she couldn't be my wife, LOL. You could really see the wheels working there.

We can also get looks from time to time. One time I remember a BBW looking at us with a certain intensity that I believe was jealousy. "How come SHE can get a guy like that as a fat chick and I can't?"

Speaking of assumptions about power imbalances, I am always surprised at how many people seem to think it is a BF or husband's responsibility to "help" their partner lose weight. I agree that this may be true if their partner really wants to lose weight. But if they don't, the idea that you are supposed to be badgering or "nudging" them seems like a recipe for destroying a relationship to me. It also feels decidedly patriarchal - like I am supposed to be the "boss" of my lady and that her being overweight is some sort of authority failure on my part. Anyway.

 

[Chevalier]

People are shallow and envious when it comes to relationships. Weight can be a shocking first impression, especially if the person is oblivious, cannot shift well and risks breaking stuff by sitting on it.

Family is the first prison (quote from the creeper), and I'm really too old to bother when they're too incompetent to detect/intervene for important things like financial abuse, disrespectful/uninhibited behavior, or drug addiction. Nobody wants to passively get together and exercise, which would be very polite and encourage good habits.

Internet helps normalize and give a sense of privacy, though to expect double standards to cease to exist is a pipe dream. 

At the same point, the fat women who need to remind daily about their weight aren't exactly pursuing Homer Simpson or Mike in Mike and Molly. But they get a free pass similarly for being shallow or needing to feel beautiful at the cost of belittling people's preferences/commitment with their overcompensating narcissism.

I also tire of people needing to give me unsolicited information about their lovelives, but I accept it won't stop.

[PhatCat]

My girlfriend is smaller than me by about 15-20 pounds, and she said that she would feel unattractive if she weighed what I weighed or me. So this even bothers some women if their man is smaller than them.

People say to both men and women that they can do better if one of them is much fatter than the other.

I have a friend who is really skinny and scrawny, about 130 pounds, and his fiancee is almost twice his size. She's looks like she gained about 80 pounds since they met, but even 80 pounds less she was still really chubby. She looked amazing in a bikini with her belly bulging out, but sadly I haven't seen her in one in a few years. When they first met I'd say she was conventionally cute, even though she had a decent belly on her. Now she's a proper fatty but still cute, and I don't think I've known anyone else who better carries their fat. She's also a really nice, a really fun and a really confident person. Her weight gain hasn't changed any of it. I don't know if anyone tells him he can do better, but I don't think anyone who knows her would say that.

[Guest You're getting fat]

When my girlfriend and I met we were both fit. Maybe she wasn't as hard and tight as the current standard but she was tall and thin and definitely conventionally attractive. Since then I've stayed the same or even got fitter while she got out of shape, athough not fat yet. I love the lack of self-control that indicates, since we started at the same level of "conventional hotness", but she's slowly "squandering that capital".

Even my mom has told me "X is getting fat", with that offensive bluntness so typical of mothers. I felt offended since I love her and she isn't even fat, and I have to say my pride took a dent that my own mother called my "hot" girlfriend fat, but at the same time what that implied was hot. She said in a tone like "She's getting too fat for you", or even "You better get her to shape up before she becomes a landwhale". I have to add no one in my family is fat and my mum is quite fat-phobic.

I've also seen other girls giving her dirty looks and scanning her from her to toe. I love the fact that strangers might think she's getting too "fat" for me, as it's another official marker of her "fatness".

I also like the little subversive changes. I'm 6'4" and 205 lbs, and to me it would be a huge landmark if she ever surpassed me. Obviously the man is "supposed" to weigh more, especially since I'm tall and she's (or was) thin. But some fun subversions have already taken place, and she's quite self-deprecating about them. For instance, she's very flat-chested (she has very unlucky genetics in that not an ounce of weight she puts on goes to her breasts) and she has  told me "It's not fair. You have more chest than me", which is true by some distance. She's also told me "you have a firmer butt than me", which to be fair is also true. Another one is the fact that she has a belly, which is supposed to be a male thing, and I don't, or the fact that even when she was thinner she had poor stamina and got out of breaht jsut walking and talking at the same time. She seems to have an amiguous reaction to those changes. On one hand she's embarrassed and she wants to change her habits (or at least so she claims, she doesn't really do much about it) but on the other hand she seems to be somehow turned on by those little changes. She loves it when I make fun of her and she's the first to make fun of her drop in standards, giving herself monickers like "Miss Piggy". 

An example of recent conversation, when she was hoping to get into a two-small party dress for an event.

Me: "Congratulations, you finally made it. Now you only have to suck it in for the whole night"

Her: "My belly isn't the problem. It's my love handles"

Or we'd be at the beach and she'd be sucking her belly in, and I'd tell her "It's OK, you can breath. Nobody knows you here". I often persuade her to go topless and wear her thongs, highlighting two of her problem areas. She doesn't need that much persuation, to be fair.

We're having  casual conversations about her body all the time.

I'm happy with the current tate of affairs as I can have the best of both worlds - a resemblance of conventional hotness, even if it's a lazy version of it, and the whole theme of fatness already in both her own and other people's heads. If she gets fatter I might miss what I lost, but on the other hand I think there would be a certain feeling of liberation and I'd be hoping for her to overtake my weight.

[gggg]

This is certainly a less extreme example, as she isn't fat per se, but long story short, when my very "conventionally attractive" fiancée gained a decent amount of weight in college and ended up weighing more than me, the number of people that asked me if I was thinking of dumping her was very troubling.

 

When we met just before college we were both in shape and "traditionally good looking", I was around 155 and she was 110 and rail-thin.  I had no problem staying in shape during college, but my fiancée, after quitting sports and becoming rather fond of junk food and beer, started developing a noticeable belly.

At this point I was told by a few of my male friends to "watch out" because she was starting to "pork up" and "you know what happens" if I let her keep eating like this, and even ask if I'd dump her if she kept gaining.  Her mother, I found out later, also tried to shame her by saying things like "He's kept himself in shape, why can't you? You're going to lose him." All in all she gained around 50 lbs. For the first time, with me around 150 and her around 160, she weighs more than me, another thing that people (often guys) like to leap on as "wrong" or "embarrassing", and a sign that I should either "get her in shape" or find someone better.

Before this, I never realized the whole "girl can't be fatter than the guy" thing was so deeply ingrained in society that even reasonable people will bring it up as a sign that something's wrong.  Obviously, as you can tell by the fact that I'm on this site, I love her new body more than ever, but it's continually disappointing to see how many of our "friends" look down on it.

[BilledMeUp]

Love the discussion in this thread.

[LikesThemLarge]

I love the body contrast against my SO. She's 1ft shorter than me and about twice the weight, personally I find the contrast of a large girl next to a thin guy kinda hot. We've also discussed the possibility of going to fancy dress parties as C3PO and R2D2, so at least she's self aware! 😂

[Luna Hellborn CLIPS]

People should learn to just mind their own business..
My boyfriend has always been very thin (despite eating more than me) and I know for a fact that more than a few people (even my own family, wow) have made similar comments to him about me. Even If I am not even that big.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Luna Hellborn

[You have a gut]

16 hours ago, Luna Hellborn said:

People should learn to just mind their own business..
My boyfriend has always been very thin (despite eating more than me) and I know for a fact that more than a few people (even my own family, wow) have made similar comments to him about me. Even If I am not even that big.

I can't believe your own family implied you "don't deserve him". That's nasty.

[Luna Hellborn CLIPS]

7 hours ago, You have a gut said:

I can't believe your own family implied you "don't deserve him". That's nasty.

Yep.. unfortunately, in my family the relationship with food has always been very difficult (there has always been LOTS of food but at the same time if you ate you were scolded and humiliated), so much so that both my sisters and I all manifested eating disorders growing up. But in spite of this, their fatphobia is stronger and they still have to say certain things to him (often while I am also present). -__-

[Wendy CLIPS]

There is also a significant weight difference between me and my partner and I like it, I admit. I've always found the difference in bodies exciting, one soft and the other muscular. People have always told him that I'm a beautiful curvy girl and that he's lucky to be with me, I think I am the lucky one. Anyway if I heard those comments I would probably pretend I didn't hear them. People are sometimes just envious or very narrow minded, that's why I think the body positive movement should be carried on as much as possible because every body is beautiful in its own way and these conversations shouldn't even exist.

[LikesThemLarge]

41 minutes ago, Wendy said:

There is also a significant weight difference between me and my partner and I like it, I admit. I've always found the difference in bodies exciting, one soft and the other muscular. People have always told him that I'm a beautiful curvy girl and that he's lucky to be with me, I think I am the lucky one. Anyway if I heard those comments I would probably pretend I didn't hear them. People are sometimes just envious or very narrow minded, that's why I think the body positive movement should be carried on as much as possible because every body is beautiful in its own way and these conversations shouldn't even exist.

Great that you've had good experiences ❤️ I find the contrast hot too, and thankfully we've only had positive support from others

[You have a gut]

1 hour ago, Luna Hellborn said:

Yep.. unfortunately, in my family the relationship with food has always been very difficult (there has always been LOTS of food but at the same time if you ate you were scolded and humiliated), so much so that both my sisters and I all manifested eating disorders growing up. But in spite of this, their fatphobia is stronger and they still have to say certain things to him (often while I am also present). -__-

One girl told me that after she started to put on weight her grandmother told her "You need to lose weight or no man will want you".

[rested]

I’m 182lbs, play sport and do the weekly park run in around 23 minutes.

 My wife is close to 300lbs, 5ft 2, and a chain smoker.

 She’ll often come to the park run start / finish (it’s a loop) and wait and chain smoke while I run. Needless to say there is no one near her size at these events.

 She has overheard organisers and finished runners discussing how I must have to walk slow with her, or that contrasting that She’s twice the size of me. I can see all of these fit people open mounted as they see her, they proper stare.

 Also I’ve had comments from friends and both our families asking does she not struggle when we go for a walk, or do I feel I’m missing out as her size/ smoking limits what we can do / holds me back from doing nice long walks or bike etc.

 

 And the truth is yes it does prevent us doing a lot of things I like. As she’s gasping for air, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Guess that’s love