I know the formula for complaints is to say, "It bothers me", but "Your weight bothers me" still sounds disrespectful for such a sensitive topic.

We have discussed his weight before and he is on board with losing some, but he hasn't actually done anything about it since our last discussion (about 2 months ago). I know they say to keep complaints on the front burner until they are resolved, but I don't know how to do that in a respectful way, so I've been saying nothing, but I feel like my love bank is taking hits in the meantime. Do I tell him daily his weight bothers me? Tonight on a date I was bothered by the quantity of food he ate. I ended up saying "it bothers me to see you eat so much" which sounds like an awful thing to say! I apologised after. Thinking about this afterwards, I realised it wouldn't bother me to see him eat that much if his weight wasn't any issue, so it's not actually the individual meals that are my concern.

So what do I do? I am committed to not lovebusting him. And I understand that he is not a flawed human person for being overweight, there is nothing wrong with him. It's just that my PA need is not being well met.

We have been married for 3 years and he does a good job of meeting my needs, and we do get at least 15 hours of UA time a week. I think one of the reasons I have been complacent about this for so long is that he does do such a good job meeting my other needs. And I don't want to hurt him. And yet it does bother me. What do I do?

Budgie, does he know how to lose weight? [most people have no earthly idea unless they are voracious reseachers] Has he tried in the past?

But it did bother you to see him eat so much. Maybe you wouldn't mind after he loses the weight but you mind now. I think you are trying to talk yourself out of constant and daily conflicts because that would be such a drag for you.

Rather than sitting back and letting him take control of how he handles his weight - which is the same as waiting for him to do it wrong and needing to correct him, why don't you both sit down and organise an eating and exercise plan proactively in advance?

It will need to be PoJA'd - so he shouldn't just agree to it unless it looks doable and appealing. You could include date type meals as well - lots of restaurants include the calorie counts on their websites or you could work it out/PoJA in advance.

There are two possible reasons he hasn't acted on your request. One was that you told him the result you wanted - but not how to achieve it. He may have had no idea what was an acceptable amount to eat in your eyes (which makes sense - if he did there would be no problem). The other was that losing weight may have been a reluctant agreement and not properly PoJA'd. He may despise both the idea of exercising and of diet food and have no ideas whatsoever as to how it can be done happily.

As this is your need which needs meeting, the onus may be on you to step up to the plate with some brain storming. You may need to be the person who is researching different types of diets and techniques until you find something appealing to him. In order for you to successfully do this he might need to be blunt with you when something sounds like a dreadful idea - rather just than giving a meaningless agreement. That way you know the idea is not going to work and can keep looking.

He has made some progress in the past by making an effort to eat a bit less, and a few months ago we had some success when we did a low carb diet together. But before long he goes back to old eating habits and regains again.

So he's willing to try but the method isn't working for him...

Oh I definitely think Melody Lane can help you - her nutritional research is phenomenal and she has given me such good diet advice. I'm lots slimmer and more energetic for taking it and I loathe losing weight...

I had tried low carb and it failed to satisfy me long term. ML's advice was that I wasn't eating enough fat. I added some and lost lots of weight.

Gotcha. What didn't he like about the low carb diet? If he can eat less fattening foods and substitute non fattening foods, he won't be hungry and he could maintain the weight loss. Can you suggest going back on the low carb diet?

I think the problem with the low carb diet is that he simply likes a lot of carby foods, and so he goes back to them sooner or later. I think the greater issue though is that he eats out of boredom, and eats for recreation etc, when he's not actually hungry. He is also not great at stopping when he's full, for example if something has massive portion sizes he will eat all of it even though he's past the point of satiety. Melody I have done quite a lot of nutrition research myself, but if you want to point out any resources I'll check it out.

Indie I think your idea of how to approach it is great, and that is more or less the strategy I tried when we did a low carb diet together previously. My question is, what do I do when he goes back to his old habits, and then gives up/forgets about the idea of losing weight? If anyone has any suggestions for exact wording, that would be awesome. My fear is that he is taking my PA need for granted.

The bad eating habits are tough to break. Intermittent fasting and working on eating more slowly might help with his portion sizing and boredom snacking, but he's going to have to want to try these.

A lot of times we eat for the taste of something rather than because we are actually hungry, and if your appestat has been trained into eating like a teenager (many guys are like this) it usually takes some experience with not overeating and actually spending some time being hungry before you realize what a healthy full and actually being hungry feel like.

And once you spend some time practicing good eating habits you'll realize that you feel better using good eating habits than you do using bad ones. My $.02.

Budgie if you've PoJAd a solution be hasn't stuck to, you need to go back and ask why. Did he reluctantly agree or did it simply not work for him as expected? As long as he continues to feedback to you and is willing to keep brainstorming options you will feel reassured.

Rather than keeping it on the table with 'you eat too much' (A DJ , your perspective only and suggests only one pretty grim solution) keep it on the table with 'why didn't our PoJA agreement last and what can we try next?'

I like India's suggestion to approach it as a POJA that didn't work.

In the Other Topics forum, there is a great nutrition thread started by Kilted thrower. Would your H be will to read it?

Thanks everyone.

Last time this happened I did try to approach him in a POJA way and ask, What do you think went wrong? And tried to open up a discussion of brainstorming ideas we could try next. Unfortunately the conversation was lovebusting for him.

Then two days ago after simmering on all this, I ask him if he was ready to hear a complaint (we have talked before and he agrees about the importance of complaining and addressing complaints). He said he was and then in the kindest words I could muster I tried to express what I need (which is to have a BMI in the normal range, if anyone was wondering! This amounts to him losing 7 or 8 kg). He clearly got badly lovebusted again, and for the entire next day was emotionally withdrawn, showing me no affection, avoiding conversation, no flirting etc.Arg!

I don't think he'd be willing to read the forum thread on weight loss because he definitely doesn't like it when he perceives I'm educating him on the topic. I think he experiences it as disrespectful. I'll definitely have a look at it myself though.

See I think that's useful to know. You know not to educate him on the topic, it's a DJ to him.

But I don't see where you lovebusted him in the conversation you describe. Your complaint was clear and kind and cheerful. You
might start with asking him where you went wrong with your complaint.

The only thing I can think is it was maybe too specific (maybe instead asking him to lose a pound a week and see how far he gets, or ask how he feels about how much weight he should lose) but equally it's important for clarity for you to just spell it out. That's not a love buster. He might have found the word normal to be disrespectful - but he's the expert and should be able to tell you what the love buster was.

It's important to realize that being unhappy with some news is not the same as being lovebusted. If it wasn't angry, disrespectful, carrying the threat of punishment, annoying or independent it wasn't a love buster.

In fact it sounds like (unless he can clarify) that his reaction contained more punishment than the delivery of your complaint.

There's two things possibly going on here: 1) he isn't happy with the way you make your complaints and therefore cannot safely discuss ideas with you or 2) he doesn't want to do this at all and is punishing you for bringing it up until you get the non verbal message.

Complaints, even nice ones, do hurt and they simply may not seem worth it to him.

If he cant describe the lovebusters or a better way of complaining to you then maybe tell him you don't think you are doing a good job of communicating your complaints effectively. Then possibily suggest marriage coaching here or talking to Steve Harley? People say Steve is good with husbands.

If it were someone else delivering the goals to him it wouldn't be as personal as it is coming from you. Also he wouldn't be able to to withdraw from that person emotionally if he didn't like it.

Thank you Indie, you always lay out the issues so well!

To be honest, the withdrawal did feel like a punishment. In fact it hurt me a lot and the day ended with me in tears and complaining to him again, this time about his withdrawal. Gaaaaaah! At that point he started being nice to me again.

So now the question of whether his problem is a) the nature of my complaining, or b) he doesn't want to lose weight at all, I think the answer may be a little of both. For the first part: I suspect he maybe has the unconditional love ideal of marriage (this is certainly the way his parents raised him), and views my complaining as a betrayal of that. For the second part: He does want to lose weight, but it is not a high priority in his life so he doesn't spend much time thinking or working on it (he literally said this to me).

So there are two conversations that need to happen. One in which I ask him how to make complaints and one where we make a weight loss plan.

Frankly I feel maxed out on the relationship talk for now because it's been so unpleasant.

Since I brought all this up the other day, he has been making a concerted effort with his eating in a way that I am happy with. We are also about to go on a one month trip of a lifetime that we have been planning and looking forward to for a long time. Once we are home if I am feeling unsatisfied with his progress, I will suggest hiring a professional weight loss accountability coach. I think this will be a good solution since I won't be the one educating and monitoring him. And at some point during our holiday when both the lovebanks feel good and full, I'll ask him how he would like me to make complaints in the future.

Ok. So since this forum is not for blogging but for asking questions Does my plan sound ok?

I think that's an awesome idea but he would have to be totally comfortable and on board with the coaches philosophy and way of doing things.





I know I have responded to complaints like this, lots of people have and maybe you have too. When I got complaints about my temper I looked at how easy it was to change something I had no earthly idea of how to change and the little energy efficiency monitor in the brain decided it was much easier to test how serious my spouse was about the complaint. If I did nothing and he dropped the complaint surely it was much less of a big deal to him than change would be for me. I actually remember thinking I had coached him to accept me. Not so!





Well that's his half of the PoJA and there is wisdom in this priority. If the diet plan is difficult or time consuming it won't be realistic or sustainable.

I think it's great he's making a current effort but keep an eye on how genuinely enthusiastic and suited to him it seems. If he has been making reluctant agreements in the past such efforts are designed to be short term. Sacrifices are supposed to show you how much he loves you, and when that message is broadcast he can go back to taking his turn in doing things his way.

Whoa indiegirl, thank you so much for posting this. I don't mean to take this thread off topic, but this answers a question that has been plaguing me forever, and that is: Why do some people claim to love you and care about you, yet persistently ignore your complaints? They say they'll do something when you make the complaint, but they just never do. (Unfortunately it doesn't explain how to get your complaints addressed, but I think you just solved a major mystery for me.)

If your complaint was respectful it is not considered a love buster.
A love buster would be a disrespectful comment such as: :"Move your fat [censored] out of my way," as you pass him in the hallway.

Do you see the difference?

Sex and appearance issues are really difficult to complain about because they hurt people's egos.

Could you possibly POJA this as: I'd like to try some different menu plans (that you'd do too) and activities together (fun sports or workouts or hikes or whatever that you'd do). Then say, "it would really make me feel loved if you tried these things with me." This is a phrase that Dr. H recommends to turn a complaint around and communicate the positive of considering what would make you happy.

This may do two things--first, you'd be doing stuff you liked together and secondly, he may lose weight and/or change his body through doing it (and you might too). He already knows you want him to lose weight. If you make a process more pleasurable-- that is by definition not pleasurable-- you may have success.

Before my WH had an affair, we would meal plan and try different diets together (whole 30, paleo) and workout all the time. It was fun. Even if you aren't gym folks, I am sure you can find one activity that is calorie burning and fun for the both of you.