Partners who "love you no matter what"

There are many other consequences besides having your boyfriend not approve of your figure.

What about your health? Looking good in clothes? Fitting in chairs, airplane seats, roller coasters, and restaurant booths? Knee pain? Foot pain? Back pain?

You need to live for yourself, not anyone else. Don't blame his unconditional love for your lack of discipline. My boyfriend loves me too, but he wasn't forcing food into my mouth.

You say everything would be the same (your spouse would still love you) if you give up and quit. That is so true. I have the same kind of spouse. He even tells me to this day - don't lose too much - I love your big thighs! Here's the difference in losing this time. I am doing this because I WANT TO. Before I have had every reason in the book to lose weight (new clothes, bathing suits, vacations, I'd be skinny, etc.). The list goes on and on. Now? I do not seriously think about those things. I have run out of clothes and I'm in the last size I own. I have a lot of NSVs each week, and? The reason I want to lose weight is for me, so I feel better. There is no prize at the end that I am looking forward to - just feeling better and being healthy. I don't reward myself with anything when I reach goals. They are just goals. So, when people ask for motivation - I always tell them, No one else can give you the motivation you need to succeed. When you are truly ready to lose weight - you will. You won't have to rely on others to motivate, support, or hold you accountable. You will just do it. I never believed this before. But it is the truth.

my current ex was the "I'd love you more if you weighed less type", constantly telling me how fine this girl was and how fine that girl was while telling me how imperfect I was. It didn't make me want to lose weight to please him, It made me want to punch him in the face. I decided to lose weight for me. If your partner loves you no matter what, that's a good thing, a great thing in fact, but I've learned that when it comes down to changing something that you want changed about yourself, it has to come from within YOU. If you want it, go for it, and know that he'll be there with you through your journey and cheering for you the whole way.

I was quite lucky, my husband had been dating someone who was a lot bigger than me previously and he left due to her cheating on him. So I knew that he would have no trouble with my size, I am a little smaller than when we first met but I wouldn't want to get bigger for my own health reasons. If someone I was with couldn't accept me due to my size, I would tell them where to go.

There are many other consequences besides having your boyfriend not approve of your figure.

What about your health? Looking good in clothes? Fitting in chairs, airplane seats, roller coasters, and restaurant booths? Knee pain? Foot pain? Back pain?

You need to live for yourself, not anyone else. Don't blame his unconditional love for your lack of discipline. My boyfriend loves me too, but he wasn't forcing food into my mouth.

This. I haven't had a boyfriend the whole time I've been on this journey... why does that mean that I should go back to eating like crap, not exercising and feeling like crap? That's not who I am anymore... No I'm doing it because I want to be the best person that I can be. i think that you need to find the intrinsic motivation for yourself, or else you aren't gonna stick with it no matter what,

I understand, my husband is exactly the same way. While I'm sure that he loves me and is attracted to me the way I am now, I know it will just get better when I'm smokin hot. So that's the motivation.

But I have figured out a way to use his unconditional love to my weight loss advantage. :laugh: I just explained to him how important it was to me, and that I really needed his help to get healthy for me, for us and for the babies we are planning for. So now I have my very own out-of-body conscience that helps me stick to my goals when I feel temptations getting the better of me. He is there as a reminder, a back up of last resort if my own self control fails to say "Sweetie, you told me to tell you if you want that cookie you have to get on the treadmill for 15 minutes." And then I will either put the cookie down, or NOM the cookie. If I choose to NOM the cookie, he will just laugh, set up the treadmill and put on a Lost episode for me, then playfully push me on it. It's fun, and I really think it's brought us closer together.

I do very similar things for him, he can't drink soda after 6pm or he stays up really late (and has to get up really early) and feels sick in the morning. So last night, he was on the couch, about to pop open a soda can and tackled him ("saving" him from the mt dew), put it back in the fridge and brought him a different drink.

You can help each other in very loving ways, it doesn't have to be negative. Doing things for each other and helping each other reach your goals is one of the most wonderful perks of romantic relationships. So if you're comfortable, let him take an active role to help you (it will make him feel good) and if he has a habit he's trying to improve, offer to help him too. :smooched:

It didn't make me want to lose weight to please him, It made me want to punch him in the face.

I know it wasn't funny when it was said, but this made me laugh out loud! Glad he is your ex and that you have found motivation from within. Do it for you!

I can relate to this.

I think I can relate. I have a wonderful fiancé, he's loved me through thick and thin, through depression and mood swings... everything. He's amazing. But, at a certain point I'd stop believing him when he said I looked pretty. Because I thought I didn't any more, so it felt like he was trying to make be feel better or whatever. Now, I've lost the weight and he still says I look pretty, just as often.. But I believe him again.

Point being: it's great that he supports you any way you are. But ultimately if you want to lose weight, you should do it for you, not for someone else. You could ask him to support you on your weightloss journey as he does every day anyways, but this will mean he'll have to admire your new bulging muscles (puny at first, but still!) and he'll have to not complain when you don't want to eat out because you can't trust yourself around all that temptation. And instead of chocolate, maybe he can bring you protein bars (the yummy kind)...

My husband is the "love you no matter what" partner, and I am really quite thankful for that. I know his love for me isn't contingent on my weight
BUT
because I love myself, my life with him, and I want to be healthy I decided to start losing the weight/be fit for me
And I just told him that I needed him support me and help me do it, not make excuses for me

Now we're being healthy together :]

Yes, loving someone unconditionally means exactly that, but it doesn't mean that the partner needs to stick around and be comfortable watching the person they love be self destructive. Sometimes leaving is also an act of love.

Having a partner that loves me unconditionally doesn't give me a hall pass to fail to take care of myself. And allowing me to live in an unhealthy manner isn't necessarily loving unconditionally, but it is complacency and it is enabling. My husband loved me when I smoked, he loved me so much that he told me that I had to make a decision to quit or he would leave because he loved me too much to watch me suffer through the smoking related ailments that we watch my grandparents suffer with. My husband has loved me at my highest unhealthy weight and my lowest unhealthy weight and we had discussions at both ends about his concerns that my eating disorders were returning and that I was taking proper care of myself. Because he loves me so much that he wants to see the best for me, I have come to appreciate myself and find myself deserving of that love and want to take care of myself.
In the same light, I love him so much that while I appreciate the need to mourn loss, when his brother passed I let him sit on the couch eating junk and putting on weight for a month being the crutch holding him up. After a month I told him that if he didn't get his *kitten* back in the gym at least 3 days a week to get his seratonin and dopamine back in balance I was going to drag him to the doctor to have it chemically done. Is he still struggling? Yes. Will he for a long time? Defintely. But we're going into this battle together and I'd rather that we're both well armed. Would I still love him if he said no? Yes. Would I be able to raise family with a man who went completely off his rocker? No.

Be thankful you have a loving and supportive boyfriend no matter what you look like. My fiance is always telling me how beautiful I am and he did this before I lost weight, he is very supportive and he motivates me to want to be healthier so I can spend more of my lifetime with him. We lost weight together and we both are more active now than ever before. Don't be upset because he loves you as you are that is an unconditional love that you can not get from just everybody. That is true love, he does not want you for what you are on the outside, he wants you for what you are on the inside.

I was quite lucky, my husband had been dating someone who was a lot bigger than me previously and he left due to her cheating on him. So I knew that he would have no trouble with my size, I am a little smaller than when we first met but I wouldn't want to get bigger for my own health reasons. If someone I was with couldn't accept me due to my size, I would tell them where to go.

My boyfriend's ex-wife was also extremely heavy, and she is also a cheater. So when he and I met, we appreciated each other for so much more than appearance: trust, loyalty, and friendship, for starters.

My boyfriend has been with me at my heaviest weight and near my goal weight, and he has loved me unconditionally through it all. I know what you mean about feeling like there are no consequences for gaining weight, since he will still love you. I have felt that way for a long time. I want to lose the weight, though, and I need to find motivation within myself, not base it upon other people. I am grateful I have found someone so supportive and loving. Now I want to be sure we are together a long time, healthy, and able to fully enjoy our lives together, and we can't do that when I am overweight. That is my new motivation.