People hear the number first.
Four hundred and sixty pounds.
They don’t hear seven years.
They don’t hear PCOS.
They don’t hear we were kids when we met.
They don’t hear this didn’t happen overnight.
They don’t hear I still recognize her laugh before I recognize her body.
They hear a weight and decide that means they understand our whole relationship.
They don’t.
We’ve been together since we were seventeen. When I met her she was about 180 pounds. She was already curvy. Already soft in the ways I liked. Already the girl who laughed too loud and cried at dog commercials and made my life feel like it had a home inside it. Over the years, the weight crept up — slow enough that you barely notice it while you’re living it. Until one day you realize you’ve crossed a line you never thought you’d cross and you don’t remember exactly when it happened.
Now she’s around 460.
People assume I must be lying when I say I still love her. Or that I’m enabling her. Or that I’m some kind of fetishist. None of that is true. I’m not attracted to the number on the scale. I’m attracted to her. I’m attracted to the way she curls into me on the couch. The way she talks about wanting kids someday. The way she still believes she can change — even when she hasn’t yet.
And yes, I’m less physically attracted than I was before. I won’t pretend that isn’t real. But attraction is not a switch. It doesn’t disappear all at once. It fades slowly, painfully, in pieces — while love stays. And that’s the part people don’t understand.
They think love should vanish when bodies change.
It doesn’t.
It just gets heavier to carry.
She has PCOS. She’s been on different birth controls. She’s had doctors shrug and tell her to “try harder” while refusing medication that could actually help her. She has anxiety. She has a complicated relationship with food that started long before I ever knew her.
Some days she eats nothing. Some days she eats thousands of calories. She sits at a desk all day. She gets maybe 2,000 steps. She’s sedentary, but she isn’t lazy. She’s intelligent. She works. She showers. She shows up.
She just… hurts inside in ways that don’t show on blood tests.
People say, “Why don’t you force her to change?”
Because she’s not a child.
Because love isn’t coercion.
Because you don’t save someone by ripping their autonomy away.
Because if she changes, it has to be hers — or it won’t last.
So I cook healthy dinners.
I invite her on walks.
I ask her to move with me.
I keep the door open.
And then I wait.
And I worry.
And I love her anyway.
I know the risks. Pre-diabetes. Blood pressure. Heart disease. Joints. Mobility. I know there is a future where I might be planning a life that ends too early. I know there is a future where I might be standing at a hospital bed holding a hand that used to fit in mine more easily.
And I still choose her.
Not because I’m blind — but because love doesn’t run when life gets scary.
It just stands there, shaking, and stays.
People think staying is weakness.
It isn’t.
Staying is what you do when you’re hoping — quietly, stubbornly — that someone you love will eventually decide they deserve to live longer.
And I’m still hoping.