A weighty matter

Dear Miss Manners,
I have been married to the girl next door for 22 years and when we married we were both in very good shape. We have three wonderful children and a marriage that lacks for romance.

I have maintained my size and shape after all these years because of my workout habits. My wife, even after the three births, was able to maintain a very sexy figure for years because of her workout habits.

Over the last six years, she has lost most of the joy and a majority of her discipline to work out and has gained weight. She went from a slim 120 pounds to 145 pounds and grew from a size small (6) to a large (10). Over the last year I have mentioned her weight many times. Too many times, to the point that I have hurt her feelings with several of these comments.

This is my question. How can I tell her the truth of how I feel toward her without hurting her? I still love her and would never divorce her but I have lived for the last six years with a women that I did not marry and would not have dated 22 years ago at her current size. She is only 40 years old!


Gentle Reader,
Honesty in marriage is vastly over-rated, Miss Manners has always thought. She can hardly think of a worse topic to be truthful about to your wife than that you feel aggrieved that her looks have changed after 22 years, and now consider her someone you would not date, let alone marry.

Even if you succeeded in upsetting her to the point where she wasted away -- although you would be taking the risk of driving her in the other direction, toward the refrigerator -- what good would it do you? She would only feel aggrieved that she married someone whose feelings had shrunken so unattractively.

The only acceptable way to go about encouraging her to lose weight is with flattery, not criticism. Tell her you are worried about her health because you love her so dearly. Tell her that the greatest present she could give you would be to let you see her once again in her wedding dress. Tell her that you hope she still finds you attractive. Just don¹t tell her that your having maintained your weight makes you entitled to a more attractive wife than you consider her to be.



Ya know - this is the kind of attitude that sends women into anoreixa. FOUR sizes over 22 YEARS and THREE children??? FOUR sizes. And he wouldn't have dated her at a 10? Oh god lord man! Did her marry her for her waistline or for love and compassion and trust and all that other good stuff?

Worried about her health!? *sighs* Since when does a size TEN put in the the 'unhelathily fat' stage? Even if she WAS say - 4'9....145 isn't super fat. Gee Whiz.

And the wife would be wrong if she complained that he couldn't get it up like the 18 y/o she married did.

Ugh.

jasmyn