She gained weight
Good morning.
Today we’ll get part two of Janeane Garofalo and Rob Riggle’s celebrity advice. If you missed Friday's part one, please check it out.
Here’s the letter.
Q: First off I need to say that I'm a guy. I don't read your column every day so I don't know if it's rare for men to submit questions or not. Here's my situation. I started seeing a girl a year and a half ago and at first, things were pretty good. Even still, emotionally I think things are pretty good. I'm happy with that.
The problem arises in that she's gained a lot of weight since we started dating and I'm just not physically attracted to her anymore. I'm not kidding or exaggerating when I say a lot. To defend myself some, she wasn't petite by any means to begin with so I don't think I'm being unreasonably superficial. She keeps bringing up the fact that we aren't physical enough and I keep telling her it's because of this or because of that, when in reality it's because I'm just not attracted to her physically right now.
I don't know what to do, I feel terrible about feeling this way but what can I say -- it's how I feel. We've "started" going to the gym and I'm hoping she'll stick with it and things will change but I just don't know what to do anymore and I'm getting sick of blaming my own made up issues for our lack of intimacy. At the same time, from my point of view, it would be even worse if I hurt her feelings by being honest about the weight thing.
Am I being a jerk? Arg...help!?
– AmIAJerk, Metrowest
A: AIAJ, you’re not a jerk for not wanting to sleep with your girlfriend. You are a jerk (well, only a little bit of a jerk) for telling weird lies about why you don’t want to sleep with her.
Honesty feels wrong in this situation, but it’s still right. You have to tell her everything. You have to tell her you’ve been less attracted to her – and then explain that you’ve been feeling like a jerk about the whole thing. Just do it as delicately as possible and explain that you’re also a bit worried about whether there’s a reason she gained the weight (depression, stress, etc.). And if you can throw in a few compliments, that would be good, too. You connect with her emotionally. If you didn’t care for her quite a bit and weren't attracted to her on some level, you’d already be out the door.
She’ll be hurt. But if she has really gained that much weight, the truth may not come as a shock. It might get ugly, but I’m not sure there’s another option. You can’t keep lying -- and she needs to know what’s going on in her own relationship.
Do it soon. Before Thursday. Before turkey.
Readers? Thoughts? Is this guy a jerk? Can the relationship survive extreme honesty? You share, and watch the celebrity experts below (they get very funny at the end of the video).
– Meredith
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