When my husband and I first met, I weighed about 140 pounds. I was in my early twenties at the time and dealing with a lot—depression, anxiety, and drinking too much trying to fill a void. I had just gotten out of a really unhealthy relationship that had drained me.
Since then, life has happened. We got married, had a baby, and I was diagnosed with postpartum anxiety, hypothyroidism, and depression. Around the same time, I was put on birth control, antidepressants, and thyroid medication.
Between the pregnancy, the mental health struggles, and the hypothyroidism, my weight settled around 175 pounds and has stayed there for about four years. I’ve tried exercising and eating healthier, but I haven’t had much luck losing the weight.
Over the last month my weight has gone up to 182 pounds. During that time my husband has become more vocal about how unhappy he is with my body. Recently he told me I don’t deserve love until I get back to 140 pounds because I clearly don’t love myself enough to control my weight.
He also told me he can’t feel anything during sex anymore and that when I’m on top I “squish him.” I’m 5’8” and actually carry my weight pretty evenly, so the comment didn’t even make sense—it just felt cruel.
I’m honestly at a loss. I always believed that if you truly loved someone, you would never talk to them like that.
Your husband is a jackass and the way he is talking to you is completely unacceptable.
You had his child. Your body went through pregnancy, postpartum anxiety, depression, and a thyroid disorder — all things that are medically known to affect weight and metabolism. Instead of supporting you through that, he chose to insult you.
Telling your wife she “doesn’t deserve love” until she weighs a certain number isn’t honesty. It’s cruelty. It’s the kind of thing someone says when they want to tear the other person down, not build them up.
Marriage isn’t a contract where a woman’s body has to stay frozen at the exact weight it was in her early twenties or she loses the right to be loved. Bodies change. Pregnancy changes them. Illness changes them. Life changes them. Anyone who expects otherwise is living in a fantasy.
And the comment about sex — saying he “can’t feel anything” and that you “squish him” — wasn’t constructive or helpful. It was humiliating. A husband who respects his wife doesn’t talk to her that way. Period.
The hard truth here is that your husband is acting like a bully, not a partner.
A decent man would be asking how he can support you. He would be learning about hypothyroidism. He would be helping with the baby so you have time to take care of your health. He would be encouraging you, not telling you that you’re unworthy of love.
Right now he’s doing the exact opposite.
You are not failing as a wife because your body changed after pregnancy and medical issues. If anything, he is failing as a husband by choosing cruelty over compassion.
You deserve to be treated with respect, especially by the person who vowed to stand beside you. And if he wants this marriage to survive, he needs to take a long, hard look at how he’s behaving