Ask Gynomite!
Gynomite is a real live couples and family therapist licensed in 2 1/2 states (seriously!) and she would love to take a crack at your emotional dilemmas. Write her at askgynomite@gmail.com- all emails stay confidential. You can also check her out on her weekly column over at Lemondrop. Today, Gynomite takes on what happens when you change your look and it doesn’t change your life.
I recently lost around 30 lbs that I needed to lose. My boyfriend didn’t pressure me to do it at all but was encouraging and he says he likes the way I look now, but I’m way more self conscious than ever about how I look naked. I feel like I have loose skin and still need to lose some weight, and he will kid me about it by saying stuff like “Where’s the rest of my girlfriend?!” when we’re about to get busy. I thought I would be really excited about losing weight, but I just feel worse than ever.
Well, first off, congratulations for making efforts to make yourself healthier. That is no small feat, and I’m sure it required discipline, so you should be proud. But I have a couple of comments for you, and a question: why did you decide to lose weight? You said it wasn’t at your boyfriend’s behest, and yet you seemed most concerned with how your weight loss has affected him. How is it affecting you? Do you feel physically healthier? Do you like how you look in clothes more now? Are you able to wear things you didn’t think you could pull off before? If you need to, make an actual list of things you love about your weight loss, and refer to it often. Because you need to readjust more than just your wardrobe.
If you have ever ended up at a party with me, you would know that I firmly believe that there should be a branch of therapy specifically created to help people cope with making positive changes to their appearance. People who lose weight, people who get plastic surgery, people who dye their hair- often they expect these changes to change everything in their lives, and they are disappointed when this is not the case. Losing weight will not make you feel more capable as a human being, it will not turn your boyfriend into a better person, it won’t make your problems go away. Sure, it can help, but you’ve just changed your physical attributes and nothing more. You’re like a…. man in a dress, if you will. A man who puts on a dress is very different than a drag queen, even though both are men wearing women’s clothing, because the drag queen has the mentality as well as the appearance of a man who wants to look like a woman. You’ve changed your outside, but you need to let those changes seep into every corner of your mind and settle in. Look at yourself in the mirror and appreciate what you’ve done for your body. Take it all in, the parts you like and the parts you don’t like, and own yourself as you look now. Your life may not change from losing weight, but at the very least, parts of your emotional temperment will.
As far as your boyfriend goes, my guess is that he wants to acknowledge and perhaps appreciate the changes you’ve made to yourself, but he doesn’t know how because he is a man. Let him know, not right after he’s done it but at some random, calm moment in your relationship, that you feel a little uncomfortable with him constantly mentioning your weight loss in bed. Tell him you appreciate his compliment (because it does sound like a compliment to him, probably), and ask if has any questions or concerns about your weight loss. Tell him that it’s a sensitive topic for you, and remember, this is the guy that was with you before you lost the weight. He knows how awesome you are, no matter how much you weigh.
