Man Applauded For 'Blowing Up' On His Family For Criticizing His Girlfriend's Weight — 'This Man Is A Keeper'
His family's fatphobic comments were way out of line — and unlike a lot of boyfriends, he was willing to tell them so.
lucasazevedodd / Canva Pro Many of us come from families who are opinionated about... well, everything we do, but particularly who we date. But one man online found himself fielding criticisms of his girlfriend he found way over a line, and the way he handled has people cheering.
People are applauding the man for 'blowing up' after his family criticized his girlfriend's weight.
The man writes in his post that he's been with his girlfriend for five years and he thinks she's "the one." So he's been considering popping the question and making it forever official — and that seems to have brought out his family's long-buried true feelings about his girlfriend.
His family pulled him aside at a gathering to demand his girlfriend dress more modestly. "My mother and my brother brought me to the kitchen and confronted me," he writes of a recent family gathering, "and told me that my girlfriend needs to dress more modestly and that they have a problem with her not wearing a bra."
The man himself has never even noticed his girlfriend doesn't wear a bra, but his family as well as his mom's boyfriend certainly have.
"My mother told me her breasts are too big for her not to wear a bra and that even her boyfriend has commented on it before, saying that when she’s in the room and because she’s not wearing a bra, that’s the only thing you can look at," he says.
But it gets worse. "My brother then confessed to me that his girlfriend (26 F) also has had a problem with my girlfriend not wearing a bra, and that it has caused multiple fights between the two of them because she’s afraid my brother's eyes will wander and she secretly is afraid he likes overweight girls."
Oh no! Attracted to fat people? Perish the thought!
The man told his family off and defended his girlfriend's right to dress however she wants — and people applauded him for setting an example.
"I couldn’t help but feel angry on her behalf," he writes, so he ended the conversation, "got my girlfriend and left." When his brother later confronted him about why he left the part, he let him have it.
"I let him know exactly how I’d felt about their little talk with me," he said. "That I didn’t think my girlfriend’s body shape or the way she dresses is anyone’s business and that if people wanted to be creepy and stare at her, that wasn’t her fault."
His mom then interjected that his girlfriend "needs to have respect for other people and self-respect when she dresses" — an odd thing to say about an outfit like jeans and a t-shirt, which is what his girlfriend was wearing.
The man wasn't having any of this, either.
"I then told them how important I think it is for my girlfriend to be comfortable in the clothes she’s wearing," he told them, "and if she can’t be comfortable around my family then we don’t need to see them anymore."
This turned the conversation into a screaming match, "but I don't think I'm in the wrong," he added.
People online wholeheartedly agreed with every word he said. "The problem isn't the fact she doesn't wear a bra," one woman on TikTok wrote, "it's because these men are a bunch of perverts."
And many were downright touched by the way he handled things. "I need someone who loves me like [this guy] loves his girlfriend," a person commented on Reddit, while a woman on Twitter's response was to address the girlfriend directly: "Sis say yes when he asks. This man is a keeper."
He certainly is, especially in these times when misogyny and men demanding women revert to "traditional" gender roles and ideas of femininity is rampant.
Body-shaming and fat-shaming are incredibly damaging — a UK survey recently found that a staggering 73% of respondents had some kind of negative feelings, from shame to outright disgust, about their bodies.
And in this day and age, we all know better than to criticize someone's looks. Including, it seems, this guy's family, because in the comments of his Reddit post, he shared his theory about what he thinks their actual problem is.
"I feel like they would never ever confess it outright, but my mother and brother’s girlfriend are intimidated by my girlfriend's beauty," he wrote. They better figure out a way to get over it, though, because with the way he stuck up for his partner? This definitely sounds like a partnership that is built to last.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.