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By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on Apr 08, 2022
Time is a fickle being and often unforgiving.
The bodies we had in our teenage years and our young adulthood quickly slow down both in metabolism and growth and all those sodas and fried foods catch up and hit you like a truck.
It’s hard to deal with and manage and becomes especially harder when you’re a woman who has given birth to any number of children — each one making it increasingly difficult.
However, what makes things even more challenging is if those close to you don't make you feel good about growing old gracefully.
A woman on Reddit caught her husband sharing an old photo of her with a friend and joked that she let herself go.
In a society where people are constantly pressured by advertising and influencers to be skinny, fit, and have a perfect and often unattainable body, bodyweight is something that many people struggle with.
Add relationship weight, which is a real thing according to pseudoscience and polls, and you have a recipe for insecurities and self-esteem issues.
On the subreddit “r/TrueOffMyChest,” one woman posted about her misfortune after discovering a conversation her husband had with a friend.
“Last Thursday I went through his Facebook, I shouldn't have and I'm stupid for doing so, I know, it was open on my laptop when he had left for work,” she wrote.
“I was caught off guard by the picture of me in my 20s, read down, there [were] a few messages, then there's his saying how it's a shame she let herself go.”
No one wants to see their significant other say something about them like that, but at the same time, she wouldn’t have known had she not looked through his things.
Later on, she admits that “Reading and going through people's messages is always wrong, doesn't matter what your relationship is, its wrong,” but debates about privacy aside, this can easily take a toll on someone’s self-esteem.
“Our relationship is good, I've always struggled with my weight, especially after kids,” she writes, “he hasn't ever said anything to hint that he finds me unattractive apart from the aforementioned message.”
The 48-year-old woman added that she know she let herself go and that she was working on fixing it, letting people know that she wasn’t getting a divorce but just wanted to get it off her chest.
Many people in the comments joked that their wives would kill them if they said something like that to someone else.
Others comforted the mother, saying the truth about how it’s impossible to look like you once did when you were in your 20s after having multiple children and being in your late 40s.
Some people questioned who the husband was talking to because, to be honest, it’s a little weird that he was sending a picture of his wife in her 20s to someone and saying that it’s a shame she let herself go.
But she concluded, saying “I'm in the process of working on being healthier and I have done over the last few years."
"I haven't and won't bring it up with him, it hurt my feelings but again, I'm working on being healthier and he seems to love me and be affectionate for me now.”
If the marriage is fine and there’s no cause for concern, maybe it’s okay not to bring it up and cause unnecessary problems.
The most important thing to keep in mind is to not change yourself for anyone else but to do it for yourself.
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Isaac Serna-Diez is a writer who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Follow him on Twitter.