The Vine: January 16, 2003
Hi Sars —
My husband and I both struggle with our weight. I’ve
been pretty successful at keeping the pounds from
creeping up too much. It’s hard work.
My husband is completely unwilling to do any of that
hard work. Although I cook lean meals at home, he eats
out every day at work. I’ve tried packing lean
lunches, and he “forgets” to take it with him. I try to
get him to work out with me, and he won’t do any
physical activity at all. Except sex, of course. And
can you imagine how I feel about having sex with
someone who looks 14 months pregnant? Especially
because he’s having sex with someone who works out five
days a week!
I’ve never bugged him about his weight
because I know how much it bothers me when I’m
carrying a few extra pounds. The only thing I know to
do if I can’t talk to him about it is to try to keep
healthy food in the house. Obviously that’s not
enough. But what to do?
Now he’s talking about taking a beach vacation.
There’s no way I’m going with him anywhere that he’s
going to be taking his shirt off. But of course I
can’t tell him that. Do you have any advice for me?
Married To The Guy Who Always Orders Dessert
Dear Cheesecake,
The problem here isn’t your husband’s weight per se. It’s that you’re disgusted by and ashamed of him. You don’t want to have sex with him; you don’t even want to go out in public with him. I doubt you’ve said as much to him, but believe me, he knows. He knows you think he’s not good enough for you.
Maybe he really doesn’t care about his weight. Maybe he’s just tired of you passive-aggressiving him with the “lean lunches” because he already has a mother. Maybe he figures that if he does lose weight, it won’t stop — you’ll keep peeking at the scale when he weighs himself and sighing disapprovingly when he orders a sundae, because you don’t trust him not to put the pounds back on, and then you’ll find something else wrong with him and try to fix that too, and he’ll never measure up, and you’ll just wind up writing to a stranger about how he doesn’t take proper care of his shoes instead of accepting him as he is.
If you don’t like fat on a guy, you don’t like it, end of story. We can’t help what turns us off. But get honest with yourself about what’s really going on here — you don’t like it that he’s fat, or you don’t like it that you can’t control him — because you can’t change him. Either love him fat and all and stop riding herd over his eating habits like he’s five years old, or leave, but this isn’t a fight you can win.
Dear Sars,
I’ll try to keep this short, but it’s a
bit of a story. Last year, as a freshman in college, I made a series of
bad decisions. One of these bad decisions was to become “best friends”
with this guy (let’s call him Asshole) who lived down the hall. We were
pretty close, but then it was all shot to shit. I was going through a
serious bout of depression, and eventually Asshole was frustrated enough
with my situation to take it out on me, physically. The logic confuses me, too. In addition to shoving me around, he put me down a lot, told me I was
stupid, called me a horrible person and friend, et cetera. I kinda kept quiet
about all of Asshole’s abuses because I didn’t want Asshole to go telling
everyone about my emotional problem; of course, the one person I did tell
about it was his girlfriend, probably my second “best friend.” I didn’t
know she was his girlfriend at the time, but that’s another long branch of
the story, and needless to say, Girlfriend and I aren’t friends now, either.
Anyway, it’s sophomore year now, and I live in an entirely different
building from Asshole and still-devoted Girlfriend, which is good. The
thing is, Asshole and Girlfriend are rooming with some of my other dear
friends, and I always get a horrible knot in my stomach when I go to visit
these other friends of mine, to the point where I find myself consciously
avoiding these other friends so I won’t have to deal with
Asshole and Girlfriend. Also, while drunk, I very well may have told some of
our friends (more my friends than his friends, but still) how Asshole
treated me.
So, how can I stop being so nervous when I go to visit my other friends?
Secondly, how do I react if Asshole confronts me about spilling/tells
everyone about my past problems? Thanks so much.
Hates Living In A Soap Opera
Dear Soap,
Asshole is judgmental and violent. Nervousness prior to seeing him seems like an appropriate fight-or-flight response to me, and in any case, you can get around it by asking your friends to visit you most of the time. You can tell them why, too; Asshole gives you the heebs.
And as far as Asshole confronting you — fuck that, and fuck him. He’s lucky you didn’t report him to the campus authorities the first time, and there’s nothing to stop you from doing so if he gets in your face now. If he didn’t want anyone to know that he’s a fuckwad, he shouldn’t have acted like a fuckwad, so he can own it — not your problem. If he thinks depression is some kind of trump card that he can play to get everyone to hate you, not a legitimate illness that many many college students suffer from at some point, let him think so — so you got depressed. So what? You dealt with it, no thanks to that dickrag, and if he uses it against you, that says more about him to any thinking person than it says about you.
Don’t let him shame you. It’s not for him to do that. You didn’t do anything wrong; there’s nothing wrong with you. Avoid him if you can, and don’t pay any attention to his bullshit, because that gives it power over you.
Dear Sars,
I have been with my boyfriend for over a year, and lately we have been
fighting a lot. It is the same fight over and over again about issues in
our relationship. We are obviously not very good at resolving this, and have
discussed going into couples therapy.
I have two people that I talk to about our problems other than him. One is
my sister, and the other is a very close friend. Both of them know and like
him, and I value their advice because they don’t judge either one of us, and
they’re supportive while telling me what I’m doing wrong. My boyfriend says
he doesn’t want me talking to them about our problems because it violates
his privacy. I am always careful not to tell them intimate things, or
anything that isn’t relevant to the conversation. I feel like he has no
right to tell me what I can say and who I can say it to! I understand that
he might talk to people I wouldn’t necessarily discuss personal things with
(though he doesn’t seem to need the support of his friends and family like I
do). My friends don’t judge him, or think less of him as a result of what
I’ve told them. He wants me to only discuss these things with my therapist,
but since I don’t talk to her every day I think that’s unrealistic. Things
come up and I need to figure them out ASAP, not next week when I see her.
I don’t know what to do. I love him, and I don’t want to hurt him or betray
his trust. Talking to my friends helps me figure things out, like why I’m so
angry, hurt, defensive, et cetera and I feel like it only ends up helping my
conversations with him. I don’t want to give that up, and frankly, it pisses
me off that he’s asking me to. What do you think?
Thanks,
Torn
Dear Torn,
Break up with him. The relationship is barely a year old, and already you need couples counseling? Not worth it. You don’t agree on who shares what with whom, and you fight all the time — I could give you advice on trying it his way for a while, or talking with him about how you don’t like him telling you what to do, but you know what? If you spend that much time talking with a counselor and a battery of friends and family about all the problems you have with the guy, the pain is clearly outweighing the pleasures here.
Dump him and find a guy who doesn’t require a panel of experts.
Hiya Sars,
Last year I moved out of a major metropolis and into a minor metropolis to further my career. The job has worked out great, and I have made a handful of fun friends at work. I had been quite content in my new life until recently, when I stumbled onto a problem that I am not quite sure how to handle.
Our collective bargaining agreement at work is being renegotiated, and the issue of domestic partnership has been brought to the table. Some people in the union are lobbying hard to get health benefits for employees with same-sex partners. To me, the whole issue of equal rights and privileges for homosexuals is almost confusing in its simplicity. Gays and lesbians should enjoy the same rights and privileges as heteros. Duh. I was raised in a close-knit family with several homosexuals just mixed right in with the rest of us, no big whoop. I have never found this to be a volatile issue with my friends, because until recently I had only gravitated toward people with similar views.
Well, as it turns out, my new friends are a wee bit homophobic. A few have made it clear that they do not think that one second of negotiating time should be “wasted” on the domestic partnership issue. I wasn’t entirely shocked when I realized where these people, my friends, fell on the issues of homosexuality. I have never really had friends like these guys before. I have a blast hanging out with them, because they like to laugh and drink and smoke at about the same pace as me. While it was almost immediately obvious that these people weren’t exactly the same as me, it was also immediately obvious that they were all good people. I arrived in my new town last year on September 11th, and I was understandably eager to make some friends pronto. I think the timing of my move facilitated personal connections with people with whom I might not have otherwise pursued friendships. Anyway, it’s a year later and I am struggling to figure out how to handle friendships with homophobes.
Just for the record, my friends aren’t the bashing type of homophobe; they are more the “I don’t mind that you exist, just so long as I don’t have to see it too much” type of homophobe. They are perfectly capable of being polite and even friendly to our openly gay coworkers.
I am not a political person by nature. I don’t believe that I could change their point of view. I don’t feel any need or desire to argue about this, but I am increasingly uncomfortable. My friends know where I stand on this issue, and for awhile it was sort of avoided as a topic of conversation, but recently, because of the negotiations, it has been coming up more and more. Last night I ended up feeling downright offended. I had had a few beers and didn’t want to get into it because I was worried that once I got going I wouldn’t be able to prevent a full-scale rant. I woke up this morning feeling like, “These people are my friends?” and more than a little ashamed that I hadn’t been more adamant about my feelings.
I suspect that one of the gang feels much more similarly to me than he lets on around the others. Should I ask him to hook me up with a little moral support? I don’t think I want to lose these people as friends. I like them, I have fun with them, they care about me, but damn, they walk a bit to close too the bigot line for my taste.
Any advice? How do I handle this? I’m really struggling with my whole conception of good people and bad people. Can bigots be good people? More specifically, can they be my friends? What do I do when my best friend (who is a lesbian) comes to town?
Sincerely,
Down With Homos
Dear Down,
Decide where to draw the line, and don’t let them cross it. “You can think what you want, but don’t say things like that around me, please — it’s offensive.” “My best friend is gay — care to repeat that?” If your friends won’t respect that, at least as far as keeping any semi-bigotry to themselves around you, get up and leave. When you can’t hear any more, don’t hear any more.
It’s kind of awkward to do it, especially at first when you haven’t called them on that shit before. I’ve dealt with a very similar situation — you really like the person, except for a couple of views that you really don’t agree with that seem really wrong, so for a while, you don’t say anything, because they don’t agree with your beliefs either, but it doesn’t seem to bother them, so why make a big deal of it? But then you feel ill every time you let a questionable comment go, because you’d totally have busted on a TV character for saying that same thing, and you only let it pass because you know the person and she’s really basically nice, and you feel like a wimp for even staying friends with her, much less not speaking up.
If these guys value your friendship the way you value theirs, they’ll put a sock in it when you ask them to. If they don’t, punt them. It’s sort of like I said a few days ago — “perfectly capable of being polite and even friendly to our openly gay coworkers” is setting the bar too low.
Tags: boys (and girls) friendships workplace
