My husband likes me fat (what I call fat)

Let's just say that my husband is very happy lately.  Me - not so much.

I've gained from 104 about a year ago to 135 today.  I am recovering from ED (5'8" - sorry).

When I was my lowest my husband was really not interested in me.  He loved me, don't get me wrong, but he was pretty repulsed by my ribcage.  I didn't like that either but I still thought I was just - well, not quite low enough yet.  I got over that, I almost died.

I do know that I needed to gain weight, although I now feel WAY WAY WAY WAY fat.  Like blubber city.  I'm not, I know that too.

When I met my husband it was right when I was beginning to lose weight.  I was around 168 - he was very interested in me or it was the newness of the relationship, whatever.  I am scared $%^#less that I will get back there again.

I've been eating cereal for about all my meals, I know that is ED - it's my go-to-behavior right before cutting meals.  He is giving me crap about it.  He tells me "you look so sexy now" but I think that he's just a chubby chaser.

Ugh!  What is wrong with me?!?!  I JUST got my period back too - first time without being on birth control in god knows when.  That is like a victory to me because we want to start a family but my 4's are too damn small and that is a failure.

BTW: I'm not in treatment, I can't afford it.  I have a support system but I think they're all in cahoots - all waiting for me to tank up so they can feel better about themselves.

5'8" and 135 is at the low end of the healthy weight range. Not "blubber city" at all. 

When you know that your vision of yourself is skewed, sometimes the most difficult, but the most freeing thing to do, is to consciously choose to trust those who love and who see you more clearly.  It requires a constant choosing to trust, which is the main issue in ED--control.

If you actually believe that your husband loves you and you know that you don't see yourself from a healthy perspective, then his view of you is going to be more true than your own, even though you might feel otherwise. Choose to believe him.

You're right.  I trust him implicitly, he is my everything.  Letting go of the control is hard but keeping it is exhausting.

It's funny, he loves to see me eat - I used to yell at him about watching me or even glancing.  But now it's like I don't really care as much.  It's cute, I like to see him smile.

I guess that's what it's all about . . .

I feel for you rgliptak, my bf treated me the same way. I am 5'7 and when he first met me I was my heaviest. Then the ed set in and it was all over with. I then realized that the reason we weren't intimate that much was because I looked skeletal and he just was loosing attraction all together.

He loves to see me eat now that I am in recovery...and when I don't eat he gives me "that look" to get me back on track. Luckily, he is my best friend and without him as a support system I doubt I would have gotten this far.

Since he is happy with me...I trust him...and I believe that he knows best!

rgliptak and positivelinny.... the exact situation happened to me! i met my boyfriend around my heaviest, and we were apart for a couple months after the school semester was over. when i came back, i had lost quite a bit of weight, and that just continued. he was worried sick about me! now that i eat normally, he makes sure to tell me that he loves my new figure. he's even told me that he was not at all physically attracted to me at my lowest weight.

he really has been my main motivation for getting better. i love him with all my heart, and i know that when i was suffering, he was suffering too. i still think it's so cute that he offers me bites of all of his meals (along with my own meals), just to make sure that i'm still eating enough.

he's also promised me that he'll be 100 percent honest with me all the time. because of my skewed body image, i end up asking him about my weight about ten times a day. rather than getting annoyed, he answers my questions honestly and tells me that he loves me.

i can't say where i'd be without him!

Ugh, you girls are SO LUCKY! I had exactly the opposite issue with my ex (which is probably why he IS my ex). When I first started losing weight, I made a comment to him about how I thought my stomach might be getting flatter and he was like "yeah, you look so much better now, keep up the good work!" Um, I was on the low end of healthy BEFORE I started losing, and naturally wanting to please him just made me want to lose more. And then when I got closer and closer to my lowest, he dumped me because he "couldn't be happy with someone who isn't happy with herself." Okay, I can appreciate that. But he certainly wasn't helping. End rant. Whew. Not bitter, I swear. :P

i recently gained 30 lbs in recovery and while i hate the way i look and feel, my husband loves it. the other day he told me to please stay where i am, despite my desire to get down to a lower weight after recovery...

so i was honest with him. i told him i am not happy with my body as it is. if i can replace some of the new fat with muscle and tone up more, i will be happy. so he agreed to help me slowly get back into shape (slowly because i am still recovering).

my advice would be to sit down and have a true heart-to-heart. tell him how you feel and ALSO that being attractive to him and healthy is very important to you as well. so ask him to help you find a happy middle ground-where youre happy with yourself and hes happy and of course youre healthy.

i wish you the best!

oh my gosh ...

rgliptak, I don't have an ED or recovering from any of that, but,I feel and hear everything you say you live ~  I live it !

I was never as "little" as I am now, and for many years I was at 160 - 170 pounds.  I didn't see how nasty I looked (rolls of fat).  I thought I was simply "curvy" and sexy because I had big breasts and my husband seemed "into" me.  On occasion he'd make an off comment about my weight and I just shrugged it off.

Now that I have lost weight, my breasts, or lack thereof, I feel more fabulous than ever.  However now my husband is on me all the time to gain 15 pounds; I should've stopped at 120; just eat. 

Well, I do eat.  Up to 8 times during the day! I just do not eat the way I used to at 160 pounds. 

I'm sorry got off track here. I was only trying to let you know how you feel.

On the 135 @ 5'8", you can't be heavy or "blubber".  As disease_of_ease said, you are at the lower end of the healthy BMI scale.  I like that you do notice your eating patterns and acklowledge that you know that you're not "fat".  As for your support system, I doubt very much they are in cahoots to get you to blubber city.  Much like jmroddy said ... "consciously choose to trust those who love and who see you more clearly.  It requires a constant choosing to trust, which is the main issue in ED--control".

Trust in yourself and others.

Wow - you guys are awesome!

You know what?  $#*% this ED, it takes up too much of my time.

Recovering since 121507, getting easier every day thanks to people like you.

Rgliptak: trust your husband. It is the ED speaking when you say "he's just a chubby chaser" or that your support system wants you to be fat "so they can feel better about themselves". If your husband tells you that you're sexy now: take him at his word. Men like curves on a woman! It's healthier _and_ it looks better! I don't think my girlfriend has an ED, but maybe she is borderline, because she's extremely careful about what she eats and gets really cranky anytime she puts on a pound or two. At last check, she was ~115 lbs (and 5'6"), despite the fact that she acknowledges that she should gain weight and despite the fact that I've been encouraging her to feel comfortable with being in the 125-135 lbs range. You have to understand how frustrating it is for a guy to watch someone he really cares about starve herself and/or feel so guilty about eating normally. It's even worse when she would look way sexier with a bit more weight! So please, believe me ... your husband is no "chubby chaser" ... he's just being a good, selfish man and wants you to look hot ... which you now apparently do! I'm sure he also cares about you and the family the two of you can have together; but that doesn't mean he's lying to you about how sexy you look ... guys usually don't lie about that sort of thing (unless they're backed into a corner by direct "interrogation style" questioning and they want to avoid a fight) ... and besides, there are very obvious physiological signals that men give off ... and those can't be faked! So maintain that weight, don't feel bad, and love your body! Seriously: congratulations on your recovery. The hardest part is over. Now you just need to conquer these little panic attacks, put them aside, and feel good about yourself.

rgliptak:

 

YESS!! thats what this is about :)

i met my boyfriend when i was a few pounds heavier as well and he'd love for me to get them back. thinner and heck even "more toned/muscled" is not always more sexy.  some of my flabbiest, most embaressing parts are my boyfriend's favorite because they are soft, squishy, and makes creases.
a recent conversation went something like this:

"your butt looks nice, what have you been doing?"
"nothing. sitting on my a$$ all day"
"good keep doing it!"

and you are more than just an body to be objectified.  if you've been in a relationships this long, through weight ups and downs, it's the whole person, inside and outside that is attractive.  there is probably nothing he'd find sexier in the world than you in a happy mood!

do not worry. 135 is almost underweight so he is not a chubby chaser.

you are healthy weight now.

 

I know the position you're in.  I've had to learn this the hard way.  ED doesn't want you to know it's true (it's ED's biggest secret) but it is.

Guys like boobs.

Anorexia = no boobs.

I went from a large C, almost a D, to not even an A, with this horrible disease.  My boyfriend would not touch my... "chest"... or whatever that was... for months.  It made me cry so many times to feel like I was repulsive to him and he didn't want me, whereas back when I was at a normal weight, he couldn't keep his hands off me.

Well, I'm several pounds into recovery, and just this morning in bed... (HAAAA-LE-LU-JAH!  HAAAA-LE-LU-JAH!) he grabbed my (returning) boobs again!  Haha, I know that's probably TMI, but you can't imagine how happy this made me and how it reaffirmed to me that I'm doing the right thing, even though it's scary.  Before long there will be even more of me for him to love.  That's why my motto for recovery is "Boobs, not bones!"  Maybe you can come up with a similar mantra!

I'm 5'5" (almost) and 150ish pounds. I have in shape guys (marathon runners, yoga guys, personal trainers, etc.) chasing after me and they are looking for someone who is in shape, not chubby. I assure you that 135 at your height is not even beginning to approach chubby.

Leave your husband, and find a guy who appreciates you for being extremely skinny.

Wow, bradlupis, rgliptak is dealing with something that is significant to her--an issue that lots of people deal with when recovering from being underweight--and you go and say something mocking and totally unhelpful.  Way to go.  The world needs more people like you.

*eye roll*

Original Post by positivelinny:

I feel for you rgliptak, my bf treated me the same way. I am 5'7 and when he first met me I was my heaviest. Then the ed set in and it was all over with. I then realized that the reason we weren't intimate that much was because I looked skeletal and he just was loosing attraction all together.

He loves to see me eat now that I am in recovery...and when I don't eat he gives me "that look" to get me back on track. Luckily, he is my best friend and without him as a support system I doubt I would have gotten this far.

Since he is happy with me...I trust him...and I believe that he knows best!

 It was the same situation (as with most of the other posters!) with me and my boyfriend.. First, my boobs went [and I had a small chest to begin with!], and then his attraction in me, not only because of the way I looked, but because I was always so irritable and difficult all the time and wasn't myself at all. Those combined basically made him lose interest in me, and we ended up breaking up because of it. That was in early October, and us breaking up was the slap in the face I needed to start getting better. It's regrettable that he wasn't there for me at my lowest point, but I think he knew he was doing me a favor. In fact, our breaking up was the best thing that happened to me! Hah. After a few weeks he saw that I was doing better and I promised him I'd really try if he gave me his support, and we got back together.

As for before I started losing weight.. We met when I was around 125-130 or so [I'm 5'4"] and he always references that time as the time when he found me the most attractive. Unfortunately, I went from having a blossoming woman's body into taking on the form of an 11-year-old girl! When I was getting better and looking for a goal weight, he'd always suggest something higher than what I was comfortable with, and still wants me to gain weight even today although he's never scrimped on calling me beautiful :D These days he knows what to do to keep me on track when I'm not eating very well or exercising too much [he wishes I'd just give up running all together].

I also agree with the comment that your perception of yourself is skewed.. and it's true that you shouldn't have to base your looks on what others think and should manage your weight how you want, but honestly, if you lived in a cave all by yourself, would your weight be all that important? ;)