“Heavy” Conversations
Dear Maxwells: My intimate partner has gained weight since we have gotten together. It’s significant enough that it’s quite noticeable and to be honest, it has made me lose attraction to them. I can’t help but feel like I’m being superficial, but also can’t help the way I feel. I know love is supposed to be unconditional, but this has impacted my desire for physical intimacy as well as my respect for them. How do I navigate this?
Dear Reader, thank you so much for your question and for the vulnerability within it. This is actually not the first time we have gotten this question or dealt with this exact situation with our clients over the years. Over the course of a long term relationship, it’s not uncommon for one or both members of the relationship to struggle with something, or many things for that matter that affect the intimacy, both emotionally and physically. Things like weight gain, depression, job loss, lack of motivation etc., are all land mines that we most likely will come face to face with at some point in our relationships. How to navigate these issues and communicate about them with compassion while still advocating for your needs and being honest with how you truly feel is the name of the game here.
To start off, let's deal with this idea of being “superficial.”. Let’s say you have a favorite restaurant in town. You frequent there often and are happy to spend money there because it’s great and it’s your favorite. Now, let's say that all of a sudden, the food starts to go downhill. Like, noticeably downhill. How quickly will you stop eating there? Maybe you’ll give it a few more tries but if it consistently stays bad, you will inevitably take your business somewhere else. Perhaps you’ll be disappointed but you won’t feel superficial or obligated to continue to eat there right? That’s because there is nothing superficial about your choice to no longer eat there, just like there is nothing superficial about the impact your partner's weight gain has on you and your relationship.
Obviously, your intimate partner is not a restaurant, and there are more nuances to how and why somebody gains a significant amount of weight, or goes through any difficult time in their life. And while you are not being superficial for feeling the way you do, you do need to have some compassion for them and what they are dealing with. You wouldn’t just “take your business” elsewhere the way you would with a restaurant when somebody you love is struggling. Well, at least not at first. However, the line of compassion vs. enabling can get quite muddy when dealing with something like this. Compassion does need to have an expiration date in terms of how long you are willing to tolerate your partner not dealing with an issue like this in a committed way. Otherwise, it becomes enabling and you become a martyr. At some point, they need to deal with it and make a commitment to change it within a certain period of time and in a specific and measurable way, agreed upon by both of you.
This brings us to the idea of “unconditional love” that you mentioned. Here is the best way to think about this concept as it relates to intimacy and long term relationships. Love is unconditional, yes. But your relationship is absolutely conditional. You both chose to be in a committed relationship with each other because of a certain set of conditions that you mutually agreed were desirable enough to enter into that relationship in the first place. Now, those conditions have changed and you are not supposed to just tolerate it or suffer through it, you are supposed to deal with it proactively and with compassion but also within a certain time frame.
We see this all the time unfortunately. People get into a relationship and then they succumb to mediocrity. They take their partner, the relationship and themselves for granted. They were on their best behavior in the beginning and then once they get to a “stable” place, they stop putting in the effort. They gain weight, or get mean or impatient with their partner. They stop dressing nicely or grooming themselves. They make fun of their partner to their friends. They stop doing nice things or making romantic gestures. The “stability” of the relationship becomes a handicap versus a benefit. In other words, the conditions that made the relationship worth having in the first place get thrown out the window and a “you should love me unconditionally” attitude sets it. Yes, you can love somebody unconditionally and still not want to be with them anymore because they no longer meet the conditions that are up to your standards.
Now, we’ll end this article in the same fashion that we have in so many others: by telling you to lovingly and honestly communicate your truth to your partner. Do so with compassion but also with a mandate for a change and a time frame that you both can agree is a reasonable one for that change to take place.
