Half a lifetime ago, I proposed to a woman a few years younger than myself. She owned a personality which reminded me a great deal of Roseann Barr - the comedienne. I found her to be quite fetching from a visual/physical viewpoint as well.
I'm not a handsome catch (and wasn't then either), and Melissa was not the equivalent of Heather Locklear herself, but at 5'8" and 135 pounds, she was curvaceous, vivacious and playful as hell (in the beginning).
After four months of dating, I asked her to move in with me (she was about to lose her rental - and thinking of moving to her native state, some four hours distant) - this may have been my 1st mistake...a poor reason to cohabitate. She agreed to my proposal to shack up and live in sin.
After another seven months of living in carnal sin, I proposed marriage to her. She blinked her eyes and accepted the engagement ring on the spot, in our living room. We decided to set a marriage date of just over 14 months down the road. That seemed a bit long to me, however having never been engaged before...I just rolled with her suggestion.
Over the course of the next year, Melissa proceeded to gain 100 pounds of flesh, while not growing any taller in height. By the following February she not only sounded a lot like Roseann Barr, she looked like her younger twin sister!
This was not what I had bargained for...I had lost my desire to practice procreation/recreation with her about the time she tipped the 155 pound barrier...so, we had not been enjoying what I considered a large and beneficial aspect of living with another person...for nearly 8 months.
I had learned, in the summer after we'd gotten engaged, that she was a closeted anorexic. Melissa was the last woman I have met, who could whip up a five course meal and figure out how to help me clean the dishes and remove them from the dishwasher and stack them in the proper locations. I gained roughly 10 pounds on my frame, while we lived together too. So, yes...I too got a bit plump.
I felt that once she quit vomiting to stay slender and fuckworthy - that I had been sold a bill of false goods.
So, after a few mild confrontations where I had subtly brought up her rapid weight gain to her...when she'd ask why I was no longer interested in eating her pussy or throwing yogurt down her throat...and after experiencing a flood of tears from her or a verbal tongue lashing for my insensitive comments, I merely resigned myself to the fact that I would be marrying a floundering whale, when I thought I was going to marry a graceful porpoise.
I came upon an idea one afternoon at my office, in January of that year.
I had a male friend of some duration who had been divorced a few years and he was not getting laid. I don't know what his deal was, I think it was because of his caustic attitude towards backstabbing bitches and vicious cunts (his terms for the women he'd known), and his verbal talk was being transmitted loud n clear. Most women found him to be repulsive.
Melissa rather enjoyed his company and had felt sorry for him. She knew he was not getting sex and they had that in common too.
During the Super Bowl game of that year, Mel and I decided to host a small party of our friends. Mike and Bruce, Sheila and Tonya were invited. The women and men were meeting for the 2nd or third time and were not attached couples, but we all got along and we all enjoyed watching NFL on TV. SuperBowl parties were just coming into vogue back then.
A few minutes before the half-time gala show...I pretended to fall asleep in my recliner (after consuming 3/4's of a case of beer over the preceding 90 minutes). It was not a difficult ruse to pull off.
Melissa, who'd been sitting next to Michael on our sofa, stood up and loudly announced that she and Mike were going to slide out early and make a booze run.
Sheila and Tonya paired off and were going to go visit other friends (I think they had other plans, but that's a different story).
Bruce was destroyed (he'd drank the rest of my beer and a huge bottle of gin) and not faking it...and snoring drunkenly in the other recliner across the room.
The halftime show was a fucking snoozefest, but as the 2nd half kickoff approached...I suspected Mike and Melissa were doing more than driving through snow to make the 5 minute trip to the booze store and back, so...I took some comfort. The Buffalo Bills were getting murdered again, this time by the Washington Redskins...and the only thing that held my interest was whether the Redskins would hang 60 points on the fucktards from upstate New York.
At the end of the game, I looked over at my friend Bruce. He'd awakened once to keep from pissing himself and then settled back down into a fetal position within the leather confines of the recliner. He was out and there was no sense in trying to awaken him to keep me company.
Mel and I did not own a cell phone at that time, so I could not call her and ask, "Are you guys stuck in a fucking ditch or what?"
I went to bed and covered up.
At some point Melissa came back home, Mike got in his car and went to his house...
I woke up and surveyed the carnage of my living room and discovered Melissa sleeping and snoring on the couch. Bruce had slid off the chair and was flopped on the carpeting in front of the chair.
I cleaned up the refuse in the room and noticed another full case of beer, unopened...on the dining room table. It was icy cold so I opened one for breakfast. By 11 am that morning, Melissa had woken up and climbed into our bed alone. Bruce had woken up and was assisting me in destroying the case of brews which Mike and Melissa had purchased at some point, the night before.
Bruce stayed for dinner and he and I and Melissa all sat around that evening, toking fat joints and getting comfortably numb.
Three days later, I received a phone call from Mike. I'd asked him a few months earlier, if he'd consider being my best man at my wedding. He had agreed to then and I wondered if he was going to back out...now.
"Dude, I gotta come clean with you."
"Hey, what's up man...didn't see you the other night after you boogied off for brews."
"Well, that's the deal, Dude. Melissa and I went to the Motel 6 and fucked like rabbits til 2 am."
"Awww, hey...don't worry about it. Thanks for telling me. You are my best man indeed!"
I used this information when I broke up with Melissa that evening after I arrived home from work.
Was I a shallow, manipulative, insensitive fucking asshole, Olivia?
The same GQP demanding we move on from January 6th, 2021 is still doing audits of the November 3rd, 2020 election.
Well thank you to the first brave soul to share their tale of angst!
Let’s break this one down, shall we?
Nobody likes it when our mate goes through a physical change. And in your case, you had a get-out-jail free card because you were not legally married, which may have led to some ‘shallow farking bastard’ behavior regarding how you handled her weight gain or at the very least things could have been handled more wisely. But we’ll get into that later.
At first glance, I am on your side, Wellmademale. Physical attraction is part of any healthy relationship and when someone alters their physical appearance in a significant way, we may lose our desire for them. In this case, you might have seen the physical changes as something that was within her control (weight gain). But what if she had lost a leg in a motor vehicle accident? Or had suffered third degree burns in a mishap. Would these changes in her physical appearance also have given you pause in the bedroom? One could make a case that her anorexia was a legitimate disease and not just a matter of will-power.
The concept of “unconditional love” is something that we all want to believe in. In this case, as you wisely deduced, it appears that your rushed cohabitation and engagement was ill-timed and that ‘unconditional love’ was not going to be in the cards for the two of you anyway. This was not the girl for you, and part of you knew that all along. The weight gain was merely the most glaring example of it.
But let’s talk about the subject in a little more depth, because I hear a lot about it from couples in distress.
Bringing up the Weight Gain:
Wellmademale said that he ‘subtly' brought up her weight gain’ to her. Sounds good so far, and in this case, he might have well been subtle and gentle about it.
In broader terms, sometimes men think they are being subtle, but really they are not. Like if the guy is calling you cheetoh-lips and following behind you making oompah-loompah sounds when you walk, or poking you in the belly and doing the Pillsbury doughboy giggle… these are not subtle ways of telling your mate that you think they have gained too much weight.
In fact, anytime you bring up a woman’s weight, she’s probably going to end up either in tears or swearing at you under her breath. Women are sensitive about their weight, especially the one in this case who had an existing eating disorder.
The key is to not wait until the attraction is completely gone before you bring up this subject. Telling a woman that you are can’t get a boner because of what she looks like is a plank you don’t want to walk down, as there is often very little recovery potential for a couple after a blow like this. The key is to bring up weight gain when it’s 15-20 lbs in, instead of waiting until it’s 100lbs later. The pressure of losing that much weight (roughly equivalent to a female gymnast or a Brazilian supermodel) is daunting. If the woman has an existing eating disorder, she will be back to the binge and purge in no time at all. She might drop the weight but you still end up with a very unhealthy individual on your arm.
Some suggestions to curb the weight-gain pitfall is to become more active together as a couple. Go to the gym together, go on bike-rides, or hiking or suggest training to run a short marathon or charity-walk. You might even want to consider an eco-adventure trip together instead of a lazy beach vacation. Clear the house of unhealthy food options. Some men can eat twinkies and chips and never gain a pound, but if your woman can’t handle these temptations, then remove them from your cupboards and don’t eat them in front of her. Make healthier food options when you are together, and enjoy your carb and sugar indulgences when she is not around.
And Now Some Tough Love for the Weight-Challenged
This is not just directed to the women. Men can get those beer bellies and let their muscle turn soft when they get too comfortable in a relationship and decide to stop trying.
I know keeping up your appearances is sometimes not easy, especially when life, kids, and work get in the way as we get older. But please heed my advice! Getting married or obtaining that commitment from someone is NOT free license to morph into the ‘real self’ you were hiding all those years when you were eating salad with a lemon wedge on the side and pretending that you enjoyed going to the gym. Do not try to artificially achieve a physicality that you know you will never be able to keep up in the long-term. If you have an eating disorder, get help!
If your remarkable willpower was merely a result of staying competitive in the singles-race which allowed you to remain trim and svelte but now feel that you can ‘relax’ since you finally bagged your perfect mate, you have set yourself up for disaster. You cannot whine about ‘unconditional love’ if you purposely made the choice to let yourself go. We all fluctuate weight to a certain degree and we are certainly not going to look the same as we get older, but if you change drastically in a short period of time and seem unconcerned about it, it will raise a major red flag in your relationship.
We are built differently. Ladies, please remember that you cannot subsist on 800 calories for the rest of your life. If skinny is not your natural weight and you are walking around light-headed and popping diet pills to achieve it, then stop the madness now. It’s better that you meet someone that loves the real curvaceous you early-on then end up with the guy that is only attracted to a size 2. You are just creating problems for yourself later.
Likewise for the men, if you are shooting steroids and living in the gym and your diet mainly consists of protein shakes and raw eggs because you want to attract an uber-hot girl but your ‘real self’ would rather be drinking beers at the pub and relaxing in front of the TV, then consider that you are setting yourself up for failure. You may have that tight body-conscious party-girl on your arm now, but can you keep her for the long run? Probably not.
The key, as Wellmademale said, is to not sell a bill of false goods to your prospective partner. If you cannot maintain the image you sold, your relationship may end in misery.
Back to WellMadeMale’s Saga of Ditching his Bride
It appears that you and Melissa were not meant to be, even without the issues of her weight gain, but you knew that already. By withholding sex from her, one can make an argument that you shouldn’t have been surprised that she fucked your best friend and practically threw it in your face at a public party. But this is just another example of Melissa’s inability to achieve self-control. She should have broken up with you before the Motel-6 romp with your buddy.
I am deeply concerned about your choice of friends, however. While Mike got you out of a failing relationship this time, what if you had embraced Melissa’s weight gain and were genuinely in love with her? Does this not break the Guy Code of not having sex with their friend’s fiancee’? Only you can answer this. He was supposed to be the best man at your wedding. Clearly he has no moral scruples. I would exercise caution before bringing him around the woman you love in the future. This all worked out well in this case, but it could have had a rather ugly conclusion.
And finally, it makes Olivia cringe in her red-patent stilettos when she hears people say things like "I resolved myself" to marrying a person anyway, despite all the glaring flaws in the relationship. We all make errors in judgement. If you recognize the error before the day you are supposed to pledge eternal vows to each other, then please, please, please... find a way to sweetly call things off.
Nobody wants to marry someone that had to talk themselves into committing to you. That dazed look in your eyes and the profuse sweat on your brow as you say "I do" is never attractive. If you know it's doomed or you're not bursting with joy at the prospect of calling this person your spouse, then Don't Do it!
Olivia xxx
