Should I Tell My Partner I’m Worried About Her Health?

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

Hello Doc,

I apologize as this may be a rather contradictory or nonsensical wall of text, but I need advice. I’m worried about my partner’s health. We’ve been together nearly five years in January 2023, and while she was a little bigger when we first met it never bothered me. Over the years however, as she’s hit 31 and I have hit 29, her weight has gone up and up to the point she disclosed to me earlier this year that her knees hurt, and she sometimes visibly struggles with hip pain and movement. Her old clothes don’t fit anymore and she’s had to buy more, her confidence is low, and to me (I could be wrong), she’s constantly investing in cycles of questionable fitness programs with Slimming World where she weighs herself at home rather than going to groups as they make her anxious, avoids avocados as they’re high in syns, but then goes for loads of Slimming World approved snack bars and other treats she takes to work.

In 2021, when we both became heavier during the pandemic, we decided to do something about it. I took up online fitness programs and cycling to work which got me close to how I was when we first met, she went into Slimming World again. She’s lost 3 pounds in a year and I’m really proud of her, but I worry she’s still making excuses that she can skip meal planning or wait until she’s in the right frame of mind to exercise while her weight grows or she binges on chocolates at work or says that people get comfortable in relationships, and meanwhile she’s struggling with mobility and being at overall risk. I have offered to go to the gym with her or fitness classes, or any range of cardio, but her feet hurt when jogging as her calf muscles are underdeveloped from walking peculiarly as a child, she’s not a confident swimmer, and she’s so-so about cycling, in addition to being anxious about weightlifting. She likes using a hula hoop but she will do that about once a month. I’ve tried saying to her that I’m worried about the direction her health could turn as we get older, but the conversation didn’t end well and that’s probably down to me.

When I was a child, my father acquired custody of me. He wasn’t a good parent and was frequently unable to cook, so we had a lot of takeaways. The tendons in my hip split at 10 years old from morbid obesity and I became pre-diabetic, needing a Metformin prescription until I could move to University and start swimming to get into better shape. Now that I can control what I do about my health I try my best while making sure any worries I have don’t get in the way of me living my life with my partner, but she says that she’s content losing weight over years or the rest of her life as opposed to losing it quickly where she can. Her mother developed type 2 diabetes from decades of unhealthy food, sedentary living and weight gain she now has to control, and I used that example to say to her why I want us to have our healthiest life to do the things we wanted to do, but I don’t think it stuck.

More horribly on my part, as the weight has climbed through the years and plateaued more or less currently, I’m less sexually attracted to her. I love her to pieces: her wit, sense of humour, compassion, and similar political views to me, but what I haven’t told her (and I’m not going as it’s awful) is: I don’t know if I can spend the rest of my life with a woman I love but am not and possibly never will be physically attracted to her if things don’t change and her health gets worse, and sometimes I’m thinking about leaving, setting her free to find a better man who won’t be bothered about this.

What direction should I take? Am I just being an unreasonable a****** about this whole thing, or should I try a different approach to help her?

Kind Regards,
Rumthief

OK RT, let’s be honest here, just you, me and everyone reading this: are you actually worried about her health? Or is this about your attraction to her at her weight and talking about her health is your way of telling her you’d like her to lose weight?

I bring this up because, quite frankly, it’s going to be a lot easier on everyone – you and your partner included – if you’re honest about what the real issue is.

Yeah, I know that nobody wants to be The Asshole in the relationship and that admitting that the real issue is that she doesn’t get your motor humming any more. I also know that focusing on the “health” issue is the socially approved way to talk about people’s weight and pretend that the real issue isn’t whether someone finds fat people unaesthetically pleasing.

Funny thing is though? People don’t appreciate being lied to, and the “I’m worried about your health” part is almost always a glaringly transparent lie. You see it over and over again in the way folks talk about fat people who have the temerity to exist in public. And it’s not like they’re particularly subtle about it either.

This is why telling your partner that you’re worried about her health, when that’s just the stalking horse for “and also I don’t find you hot anymore,” is only going to lead to more relationship problems down the line for you and for her. This doesn’t mean that you should tell her that you don’t like her any more because she’s a fatty fat fat, but hiding your true issue behind faux concerns (or secondary concerns) is going to be insulting to her under the best of circumstances.

I’m not entirely surprised if she’s not in a hurry to hit the gym or a lot of public exercise programs. Despite the fact that people will yell about how fat people need to exercise and lose weight, those same people will immediately turn around and mock and insult fat people who are on the treadmill, on the exercise bikes or lifting weights. Hell, it wasn’t that long ago that right-wing dickbrains on Twitter were complaining about commercials featuring fat women… doing yoga. At home.

Y’know:  a commercial that encourages people to be doing the whole “exercise” thing that they scream up and down fat people need to do more of.

That’s the sort of thing that actively discourages fat people from trying to exercise in public. So I suspect that her lack of interest – in as much as she might want to lose weight – is in part because shitty people treat fat people like shit and make them miserable. Who in their right mind would want to deal with that sort of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario?

Also, if she is having joint issues or mobility problems, heading straight to the gym or trying to start jogging is likely to actually make things worse. Running when your knees, hips or ankles are banjaxed is a great way to develop even more injuries. It’d be a lot better for her to go for walks; leaving any potential weight loss aside, walking is a low-impact form of exercise that will help get her blood flowing and cardiovascular system working and help keep her joints flexible, without the added stresses and potential damage of, say, running on pavement. So, going for walks through the park or strolls through the neighborhood will do far more for her overall health and emotional well-being than pushing her to hit up 24 Hour Fitness.

I’m also wondering who’s ultimately most bothered by this, you or her. You mention how she forgets to do any meal planning or needs to be in the right mood to work out… that could be partially because treating fat people like shit just makes things worse and puts them in a worse overall mood, or it could be that she initially agreed to these things for you, but doesn’t feel the need for it for her.

If she’s ok with her weight gain or isn’t in an all-fired hurry to lose it, then I think this is going to be a “you” problem, not a “her” problem.

Now to be sure: I’m not telling you that you’re a bad person if you don’t find her attractive because of her weight. People are going to be attracted to some folks and not to others, and they’re going to have their preferences about what they do and don’t find attractive. No amount of policing that is going to change it, any more than shame and ill-treatment changes fat people into thin people. So if she isn’t doing it for you any more, then she isn’t doing it for you any more. That is neither good nor bad. It just is. Is it shallow? Sure. But you can’t force attraction, and trying to do so out of fear of the judgement of others does nobody any good.

At the very least, though, you should own that lack of interest. Trying to dress it up into something more socially approved is ultimately more harmful for everyone involved.

My first suggestion for you is to have an honest conversation with your partner. Not about your level of attraction to her, but about how she feels about things. Do not bring up your feelings about her weight, your worries about her health or your thought that you might not be able to stay in this relationship if she doesn’t lose the pounds; all that will do is put her in a frame where she’ll feel that she needs to answer a specific way in order to placate you and preserve the relationship.

Instead, you should ask her what she wants, completely independent of you and your interests. Ask her how you can best support her in her goals, rather than volunteering ideas. If she wants to lose weight and wants your assistance in this, then you and she can brainstorm some ideas together and she can decide what will work best for her. But if it’s the case that you’re putting pressure on her and she neither wants nor appreciates this kind of help? Then the best thing to do would be for you to back off and let her live. She’s a grown-ass woman and can decide how she wants to live her life.

My second suggestion would be to check out “You Just Need to Lose Weight”: And 19 Other Myths About Fat People by Aubrey Gordon. Aubrey and her co-host Michael Hobbes do an excellent job busting a lot of woo and wellness myths on the podcast Maintenance Phase, and her new book deals with a lot of accepted – but incorrect – wisdom about weight and fat people. This, I think, will at least help you get some perspective on some of the issues that your partner may be dealing with regarding her weight… especially how other people make her feel about it. With any luck, it’ll help you avoid hurting her feelings further.

My third suggestion would be, after you have that conversation with her, for you to decide whether or not you’re going to stay in this relationship. If you’re going to go, it’s better to leave sooner, rather than later. It’s not fair to either of you for you to stay if this is going to be an issue. Staying or prolonging the relationship out of worries of being accused of being shallow will only make you unhappy and the eventual realization that you stayed out of fear of social opprobrium rather than love for her will hurt your partner. If you’re gonna leave, then it’s better to rip the bandage away instead of slooooowly pulling it off. The short, sharp pain will fade faster and the clean break heals quickest and cleanest.

Good luck.

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

My fiancé and I are getting married later this year and while I am eager to sign a prenuptial agreement, she is not.

I don’t think of a prenup as selfish or pessimistic, rather I think we should both think about protecting what each of us already owns. Neither of us are particularly wealthy or anything but I did recently inherit some land from a family member and she owns a small business. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and even talked to a family law attorney who agreed that a prenup can make the division of assets less stressful in the case of divorce.

What other options do I have and how can I help her see my side on this?

The Marrying Kind

I’m a fan of prenups, TMK. Break ups and divorces can be complicated, frustrating and messy, even when they’re completely amicable. They’re painful enough under the best of circumstances, but when finances and property are involved, the pain can be prolonged or even increased as everyone tries to untangle the mess.

Prenuptial agreements help streamline the process and take a lot of the unnecessary stress out of what is an already difficult and unfortunate situation. I’ve watched friends go through divorce and have the process get bogged down in trying to sort out issues surrounding property, health insurance, benefits and the disposing of shared assets. Even though the couples were still friendly with one another and had no animosity over the divorce, the frustration of finding new obstacles and new complications made the proceedings take longer, cost more and ultimately took a toll on their post-divorce friendship. It didn’t turn love to hate or make them bitter towards each other, but it sure as hell became a bone of contention when they were hoping for a swift and smooth dissolution of their marriage.

This is why I’m an advocate for having them in place, even if you or your partner aren’t sitting on fabulous wealth or potential windfall in the future. Having a prenup in place helps ensure that it goes smoothly by ensuring that there are specific guides that say who is entitled to what, how shared assets will be divided and ultimately help ensure that you and your soon-to-be-ex have as clean and quick a break to your relationship as possible.

I also don’t think that they’re a sign that you don’t trust your partner, or that you expect your marriage to fall apart. While yes, you hear stories about the rich trying to ward off gold diggers or celebs in unhealthy relationships using prenups to try to control their partners’ behavior – the ‘infidelity clause’ in many high-profile prenups being a particularly infamous example – a prenup is ultimately about trying to keep a shitty situation from being worse than it absolutely needs to be.

Think of it like buying home or car insurance. Nobody buys insurance because they expect their house to burn down or their car to be totaled in an accident. They buy insurance with the understanding that if that unfortunate event occurs – something that you can neither predict nor control – then the damage and pain is minimized and they’re not destroyed financially in the aftermath.

My suggestion for you would be to talk to your partner about her feelings on the matter and what about the idea of signing a prenup bothers her. Let her share how it makes her feel, what she’s worried about and what you can do to help reassure her. Do your best to ensure that you understand her perspective and vice versa. Say “Ok, I want to make sure I’m hearing you correctly. If I have this right, you’re saying you feel X, Y and Z about this, is that accurate?”

Once you and she understand what you’re both saying and feeling about the matter, then you can work towards resolving things.

If it really is a case that she feels like this is you saying that you don’t trust her or that you don’t expect this relationship to last, then that’s something you two can talk about, openly and honestly. 

The way I would put it is that no, you don’t expect this relationship to fall apart. It’s the last thing you want, and you can’t see it happening. However, nobody can predict the future, and I’m sure both of you have had relationships that ended, even though you thought and hoped they would go the distance. The prenup isn’t about expecting the end is inevitable, it’s about having things in place in case it does.

Tell her that having a prenup in place is like having home insurance; it’s a hedge against unforseen and unexpected calamity. In the unlikely event that you two have to end your marriage, wouldn’t it be better for both of you and any relationship you might have in the future to have a guide that streamlines the process, ensures that everybody knows what to expect and that you’re both treated fairly? This way, if the worse happens, then you keep the pain and misery to an absolute minimum and you aren’t held up for months or even years trying to sort everything out.

And of course, part of the point of a prenup – at least if you and your fiancee aren’t controlling sociopaths – isn’t for one party to say “You get NOTHING, YOU LOSE, GOOD DAY SIR”, it’s to ensure that a split is as equitable and fair as possible. This is why – again, assuming that you and she aren’t absolute shitheads – both of you have your respective lawyers look it over and ensure that neither of you are getting screwed. You or she can ensure there are clauses in place so that one or the other or both of you aren’t ceremoniously kicked out of your shared home with no place to go, work out issues of alimony and child support in advance or ensure that there aren’t any surprises regarding property ownership or financial divisions because of the laws in your state. The fewer surprises or unexpected complications you have to deal with, the better it is for everyone.

So make it clear: not only is this insurance, but you’re not unilaterally dictating terms. This is about making sure everything is as equitable and aboveboard as possible during one of the most trying and emotionally tumultuous points in a relationship. Dealing with it now, when you’re both in love and everything is great, means that you don’t have to fight if things end down the line.

Good luck.