My Husband Wants Me To Lose Weight // Body Image Week

Foreign. You know what time it is, sweetie?

It's hump day. Q and A time.

Hump day.

Q and A. Hump day Q and A.

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Well, Rachel, welcome back. We love having you on the podcast and today we're going to continue in our conversation about body image and marriage. So welcome back.

Thanks for having me back.

Well, today we're going to talk about kind of the opposite of what we talked about last time. Last time we talked about when wives maybe are critical of themselves even though their husband is very encouraging when it comes to their body. But today I want to address wives whose husbands maybe have been critical with their words and with their actions towards their wife's body and actually ask their wife to lose weight. What do you say to that, wife? Because that can be so demoralizing.

Oh, Ashley, this one hurts my heart. And I'll tell you why it hurts my heart is because I've count, I've sat with too many women in counseling and sat with them while they cried and just like you said, like hurt with them because it's so just such a deeply, deeply rooted, painful thing. And to have the person who is closest to you and you love the most be so critical. And in fact, one person comes to mind. She once, she told me that her husband's number one complaint in their marriage. Well, two complaints. First was that he wants more sex. And the second was she needs to lose weight. And she was just crushed by those two things. And the first thing I want to say is we are today speaking to the, the things I'm going to address today are considering that the relationship is not an abusive relationship. Okay, so abusive relationship. Let's set that over here. That, that needs to, that's separate from what we're talking about today. We need to get separate professional help for that. But today I want to talk to the marriage who does have a spouse, whether it's the man or the woman. But you know, in our situation, we're talking about from the, the woman's perspective of that being able to communicate with each other. And I do just want to, as a woman, as a counselor who has sat with so Many women who've been hurt by the words of their husbands just say, guys, if you're listening, please be of your words. Fear. Trying to fear somebody into change and talk negatively into change doesn't work in any area of our life, but especially in the marriage. And so just being mindful of that and then considering that this is a, like I said, a healthy relationship that even though maybe one spouse, though, is just using their words to tear down rather than build up, the biggest thing that has to happen is healthy communication. And so, wife, I know it takes courage, and I know it takes understanding even your needs, but in a graceful way, having those hard conversations with your husband and letting him know, hey, whenever you speak to me like that or whenever you tell me that I'm getting fat or that if only I lost weight, then our sex life would be better, that really, deeply hurts me. Like, you're. You're. You're making me want to actually not have sex with you right now, because now I'm even more insecure in being naked in front of you and things like that. And so just starting to have those conversations. And Ashley, as you and Dave already speak to all the time here on this podcast, is. It's that. That naked marriage, that ability to tell each other when you talk to me this way, it's tearing me down. And it's actually putting a bigger bridge between you and I in. In order to, you know, narrow that gap, we've got to start having those hard conversations. So that's thing number one is just, you know, again, once both spouses really start to be mindful, building each other up with their words, also really starting to have those conversations of this is how this. You're not helping me when you speak to me this way.

You know, I just. We cannot say that enough. I. I don't think husbands realize, and really wives, too, just how much we do have such power in our words. You know, in the Bible, it says there's a life or death in the tongue, right? And that's the words that we use. And it even comes to things like, you know, that we might consider insignificant, like, well, you know, a husband watching or listening this may think, well, she does need to lose a little weight. Like, she still kept on that weight from having babies. Or maybe there's a wife watching and listening, thinking, well, yeah, my husband, you know, he hit midlife, and, like, his. His hormones are off, and he's never really received help for that, and he's getting a belly, you know. Yeah, that might be true, but when has it ever helped for someone to criticize you and you expect that to motivate them, like, to motivate you? I don't find criticizing as motivating. Right. And I think that every human being can relate to that. Maybe there's some of you out there where it's like that, but when it's derogatory and it's like, you know, in essence, your spouse is saying, you know, you're not quite meeting the mark right now. You know, especially in the case where you were saying, rachel, this guy's saying, I want more sex. But by the way, you need to lose some weight. Like, literally, he is killing the mood. Okay? Like, that's a libido killer. And so, you know, I think. And maybe you can speak to this too, Rachel, One of the best things we can do if we want to encourage our spouse to get healthier is to start getting healthier ourselves and then walking with them. Find things that you enjoy doing together. Go on a walk, you know, take up pickleball. That's like huge these days. Go have dance lessons. Start buying healthier things. And, like, coming up with concoctions that are really tasty but also really healthy. And that way, it's not like you're using words to say, you need to be healthier. And also, don't do this in some weird hint hint kind of way, but just in a loving way to say, I personally am going to aim to get healthier, and if you want to join me, awesome. If not, I love you no matter what. I think that's the approach that we have to take. What would you say about that, Rachel?

Ashley, you took the words out of my mouth. Because that's just it. I mean, that's how we are in our whole household, even with our kids is not shoulding on somebody. You should do this, you should do that. But saying, hey, why don't we all do this together? And even knowing your spouse. So, for example, I know in my marriage, we know each other. We both know we. We function better mentally, emotionally, physically when we exercise. And if either one of us notices that the other one hasn't been exercising, I actually look for what is deeper going on with him, and he does that with me too. Because maybe they're sinking into a bit of some depression or they're going through something hard that instead of me saying, hey, should be working out, instead of, no, hey, honey, what are you going through? Like, how can I support you through this? Because this isn't your norm. Normally you love to go For a run, and you haven't done that in weeks. Is something off, like, really paying attention to your spouse and that lets them feel seen and loved because they're going, hey, you care about me.

Yeah.

Yes. There might be some extra weight coming on here, but you're. You're noticing that. That those behaviors that are happening is probably due to something deeper that's happening that as a couple, we could walk through together.

Man, I'm so glad you mentioned that. We've got to look deeper. You know, we can't just look at the surface, because it is. I mean, I feel like how we respond to our bodies and whether we're prioritizing, working out, especially if there's like a sudden change where, you know, you're accustomed to your husband running every day, and all of a sudden he just completely stops running. Or the wife usually loves going to fitness classes, and all of a sudden she just isn't doing that anymore. We do. We need to check in with each other and really get to the heart of the matter and have compassion. I mean, compassion. You know, I think sometimes we're very, very easily. We can have compassion for perfect strangers, but for some reason, we're hard on our spouse and our. And maybe our kids. And it's like, how much more compassion should we have for those that are in our home? And because we would want that ourselves, and so why would we not want to give that to them? And I love that because there usually is a deeper. A deeper issue. And I just want to say, too, I know we could go on and on about this, but when it comes to sex, specifically what we say to our spouse about our bodies or about their body and about how we feel about sex and all those kind of things, it is so important because we want, really, this part of our relationship, especially to be a safe place where we can really express how we're feeling. Likes and dislikes, insecurities and all those things. And that's how God really draws our hearts closer together, is having those naked conversations where we're just being really vulnerable. But when we're being critical, it's like you're building. It's like a brick that you're putting, like the start of building a wall in between the two of you. And we want to bust through those walls, right? We don't want to have walls between us. And that's really the best sex happens out of vulnerable, honest conversations where we feel safe, not out of. You know, it's not based on how fit our bodies are at the time. You know, that's just, that's just your body, right? I mean, sex is about so much more and so we need to keep that in perspective, too. Would you agree with that, Rachel?

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

You're hitting the nail on the head.

Well, guys, thank you all so much for joining us. Rachel, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us. Please join us next time for another body image related question and how we can keep strong marriages even if we're dealing with insecurity.

Thanks, Ashley.

Thank you all so much for listening to today's episode of Hump Day Q and A. We love getting your questions and we want to answer your question. So if you go to nakedmarriagepodcast.com you can submit your question right there or you can follow us on Instagram at Dave and Ashley Willis and you can give us your questions right there by giving us a dm. So we'll catch you next time on Hump Day Q and A.