Affair after Weight Loss

Honestly, if you feel like you should cheat after losing weight, then you never should have gotten married in the first place. Call me a romantic sucker, but I feel like I really need to get to know someone and be totally and completely in love with her before exchanging vows.

In today's society, we just assume that marriage is just a trifle. "Why not get married?" we ask ourselves, "I can just get divorced later."

If you're getting married because of appearance or for settling because you don't think you can do any better, then you're getting married for the wrong reasons. After all, in about 40-60 years from now, those looks will fade for both of you, so you damn sure better like the person you're married to.

Love is not love where it alters when it alterations find.
Or bends with the remover to remove.

How is this a "success story"? Just curious......

I was thinking that too. They should move the thread to chit chat. :bigsmile:

Shortly after a friend of mine lost a bunch of weight her marriage failed. She didn't have a physical affair but she had already moved on in her mind. It wasn't so much because of her attitude but because of her husbands. I think he felt like he had the upper-hand and was "superior" in some way when she was overweight. When she lost the weight, he lost his confidence because he felt like she could have anyone she wanted now that she was thin.

He was a jerk.

aggree...sometimes its not the weightlooser its their partner's insecurities that cause an affair, I believe as one loses weight, they gain better confidence and self respect which can cause an imbalance in relationships.

Basically I think it boils down to this:
We can be idealists and talk about how it's wrong all we want, and it IS wrong. Unfortunately though, it still happens, a lot. but I've seen countless situations where relationships fall apart after one partner loses weight. You have multiple situations:

-One loved the other when they were overweight and meek. They was disturbed and threatened by a new-found confidence and went looking for another partner either to hurt them back or to replace their old role.

-One partner loses weight and suddenly gets tons of attention from attractive people. They give in to temptation.

-After losing weight a person feels that they've undergone a very spiritual transformation as well as physical, and feels a need to sever themselves completely from their old lifestyle, including friendships or relationships. They can also feel like they aren't connected with their partner anymore.

-One person becomes so excited about fitness that it consumes all of their previous hobbies and interests. They now want to spend their weekends at the gym or on long hiking trips, and the partner doesn't want to tag along. They simply drift apart or gradually become interested in someone else whose hobby is fitness.

-One lost a significant amount of weight and would never admit it- but all the vanity went to their head and they suddenly found themselves "too good" for their old partner.

-One partner changed, the other didn't, and the same way the thought of eating an entire gallon of Ben and Jerry's grosses someone out after getting really fit and breaking their junk food addictions, watching someone else continue in that lifestyle with no guilt, remorse, or need to change, just simply grosses them out. I've seen this happen multiple times- even though a person used to have the exact same habits, somehow witnessing their partners continue on that road repulses them (and maybe reminds them how they used to be.)

-The relationship was never a good one and one side loses weight and gets the guts to finally get out, and uses an affair as the spring board. (As bad as it is, I've seen women use affairs to get out of a bad or controlling relationship by hurting the old partner so he wouldn't want her back.)

-One partner lost weight and there was an imbalance of sexual attraction after that. In my opinion, when this happens, the sexual relationship of the couple was doomed from the start and wasn't based in love and intimacy.

Now that I've written down those situations- I realize they're almost all valid reasons for ending the relationship. They are NOT however, excuses or acceptable reasons to cheat. There is never a reason to cheat. It's the honest truth though, that many of the above situations are accompanied by or spurred along by the budding of another relationship. (IE, a person's been wanting out the relationship for a while for one of said above reasons but hasn't found the confidence yet, but after meeting someone they're interested in they suddenly get motivated to ditch person A for person B.)

If you're feeling like you've moved on or transformed in more ways than just the physical, and you realize that your relationship is at odds with your new lifestyle, I encourage you to talk to your partner. Decide if the relationship is worth fixing. Decide if the above situation was from the shock of the weight loss, or is a lasting and serious change. Realize that many things can be worked through, but if you find yourself gravitating toward a new person or a new life, for the love of god end the old one before hurting your partner.

I think losing a considerable amount of weight - especially if you've been overweight most of your adult life - can be life-changing in every aspect. If you take a year to really focus on yourself and your goals, you might wake up one day and find that your dreams/priorities have changed. I would NEVER cheat though, I definitely think the right thing to do in that situation is to leave.

My OH and I met when I was almost at my heaviest, having only just started to lose weight. He loved me then, he loved me when I was 20lbs lighter than I am now and he loves me now that I've gained some back and am working my butt off to get to goal. Things are better between us in every way when I'm feeling better about myself and my body.

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I have a very good friend who went through this. She lost 100+ and was stunning (not that she wasn't very pretty before, but she had this ah-maz-ing figure after she lost the weight), and whenever she walked into a room, every head turned to look at her. She wasn't totally happy in her marriage to start with, but while the sex between her and her husband became much better, she also let all of the attention she was getting from other guys go to her head. She confided in me that she and her husband had "mutually agreed" to have an open marriage, but I knew from the get-go that she just wanted to be able to act on all the attention she was getting without feeling guilty about her husband or having to bother with a divorce.

Anyways, long story short, it didn't take long for it to all blow up in their faces and they're now divorced, and she's gained all or most of the weight back.

I understand how difficult it must be to get all kinds of attention from guys when it's never been there before, but I guess maybe that's how you'll know how strong your marriage and your love for each other really are; if you can resist the temptation because your loyalty to your significant other is stronger than the need for instant gratification, then it's a good relationship. If you can't, maybe you need to look at the marriage/relationship a little closer anyhow.

ETA: Like I said, she wasn't totally happy in her marriage to start with, and it probably wouldn't have lasted regardless of the infidelity, but its demise came about a lot faster because of her weight loss and the decisions she made as a result of it. I think if you're happy and fulfilled in your marriage, no amount of weight-loss can make you go looking for something else, that is a result of so many other things. Losing the weight and the attention it garners from other people can just open up opportunities to cheat that weren't there before when you were overweight. If that makes sense?

There is no excuse for cheating that will ever be "acceptable" IMO.

With that said yes I have seen this happen. I really believe a big part of it is the emotional change, those who lose the weight slower, over a longer period of time have made a lifestyle change and typically their relationships don't end they instead flourish because both partners have had time to adjust. Those that lose weight at a fast pace, either through WLS or extreme diet or exercise programs tend to zip right through the process without dealing with the emotional process of the loss creating this wall between partners.

A healthy relationship can work through this given time notice I say "healthy" because if your head is turned by another there's more going on than the size of your body.

Sure it happens.

However, if the only or main reason a person isn't cheating is simply lack of opportunity then in reality the relationship was over or dying before the weight loss ever occurred.