This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 on 2025-01-30 05:04:09+00:00.
I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/branchbutt
Originally posted to r/AITAH
AITAH for breaking off my engagement because my fiancé made an offensive joke about me to his friends?
Thanks to u/queenlegolas for suggesting this BoRU
Trigger Warnings: body shaming
Original Post: January 20, 2025
Buckle up. It’s long and I’m sorry about that.
I (28F) and my fiancé (32M) have been together for five years. For the sake of anonymity, I’ll be referring to him as John. John and I have had a wonderful and loving relationship for these past five years, and I truly saw myself with him for the rest of my life. We’ve had our ups and downs, but not once has John ever made me feel like I wasn’t enough. He’s supported me in all of my endeavors and dreams, and our relationship even survived nine months of being long distance as I’d been sent to another state for work in 2021. I truly love John, and even now, I still love him, but I have my doubts now about how he feels about me.
A little context. I grew up fat. I had been fat when we met and for the first three years of our relationship, I was fat. This isn’t a problem and never has been in our relationship, but it was something I had a problem with about myself. I wanted to be healthier and to simply lose the weight because I knew it would make me happier. John was supportive of this. He said he’d love me no matter what form I took because it was my heart and soul he’d fallen for. I had believed that as I had no reason not to. John has always made me feel that he loves me and made me feel desired.
But now, I’ve lost half of what I weighed before and at my age and due to being overweight my entire life, I have plenty of loose skin. I am absolutely insecure about it, and John knows this. He’s made every effort to reassure me that he still finds me beautiful and that he looks at my body as the evidence of how hard I’ve worked and how far I’ve come. He reassures me that he still loves being intimate with me and loves my body, even as it’s changed. I felt so lucky to have a man who loved me so unconditionally and truly.
Recently, John and I had gone out with a bunch of our friends as we’d not been able to align our schedules until now. Whenever we go out with a big group like this, John and I usually spend the beginning of the evening and the end of the evening together at the party. At some point in the middle, we always split off to go socialize with our friends separately. When it came time that I went to rejoin John, I had seen him with his best friend and a couple others, engaged in conversation. John’s back was to me, and his friends were all chuckling about something as I approached, but I stopped dead in my tracks when I heard John tell his best friend that my body looked like a “deflated weather balloon” and that it was hard for him to not laugh when we were intimate and my body moved.
I had never expected the man who spoke so warmly and lovingly to me always to talk about me in such a way. John was the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with. He’d known my insecurities and still loved me anyway. At least, so I thought.
Needless to say, I was hurt and angry and devastated. I walked up to him, handed him his ring without a word and I left. I didn’t even go to our home. I went to a hotel and stayed there. I turned off my phone and just took a couple days to just cry out my heartache. When I turned my phone back on, there were messages and voicemails from John and our friends. Most of John’s messages were apologetic and begging me to talk and come home. But then the most recent were the opposite. He said I was cruel and cold for ignoring him and breaking off the engagement without warning or so much as an explanation. When I responded to him and told him I’d heard what he’d said, John told me that I was acting like a child because I took his joke too seriously. That he was just trying to make his friend laugh. I asked him why he needed to make his friend laugh at my expense by telling him about my body and how it looked to him or how he struggled not to laugh at me when we were intimate. He didn’t respond.
Instead, as I’m writing this, I’m still receiving messages from our friends telling me that he’s sorry and that I should “see how miserable he is” without me. That I’m so cold and a bitch for running off like that instead of giving John a chance to explain himself.
I’m hurt. I genuinely don’t know if I was too rash in breaking off our engagement, but the only thought in my head and what is still sticking with me now, is that when I was fat, people mocked me because of my body all the time. I lost the weight only to still have people mock me because of my body. And it just so happened to be the one person I allow to see me at my most vulnerable who showed me that. I know John’s hurting (or at least seems to be), but so am I. Should I have heard him out? Five years and I didn’t even give him the chance to explain or to really apologize. I just shut him out immediately. I still love the man, those feelings don’t go away overnight, but… I don’t want to hear his apology. I don’t want his explanation. I’m just… angry and hurt and my friends seem to think I’m throwing away my relationship over something easily fixable.
AITAH has no consensus bot, OOP was NTA
Relevant Comments
Downvoted Commenter: So you blame him for seeing your body in the same way as you see it and for admitting the truth to his friends? Being a supportive partner doesn’t mean that you should be in denial of reality, it just means that they should still love you anyway. Sometimes that means giving people a chance when they say a truth even if it hurts us.
So anyway good luck with finding someone else, genuinely hope it works out for you.
OOP: I don’t see my body as a “deflated weather balloon” and I don’t feel the desire to laugh when my body moves during intimacy. I’m insecure about the loose skin, yes, but I have never described my body in such a way.
His making a joke about something I’m so insecure about to other people who do not need to know the details of my body like that, and to know that he’s telling jokes that directly contradict his words he’s spoken to me feels like a betrayal. If he sees my body in such a way, he’s had many opportunities to tell me that as I’ve given him the space to do so. I’m under no illusions of what my body looks like. It’s not a denial of reality to ask that my partner not mock my body to other people knowing that it’s an insecurity of mine and that I would not want anyone else to be that aware of my body’s imperfections.
John is by no means perfect in every part of him, but I have loved him like he is because even the most imperfect parts of him were perfect to me because they were his. I would never have done what he did.
*edit to address your own edit:
I have only asked for reassurance once, to clarify, and since he’d told me he still wanted me, I didn’t ask again because I trusted that. He’s been more than comfortable telling me when he’s had issues that might hurt my feelings because we both advocate for communication. This is the first real time I’ve not upheld that desire to at least hear him out when something is wrong because it’s the worst he’s ever hurt me before.
Commenter 2: Can the friends who think this is easily fixable explain how it gets fixed???
OPs insecurity is about her body. She worked hard and lost weight👏👏👏. Her fiance decided to crack joke not just about OP’s insecurity but specifically at the times when that is on full display and OP would need validation. How is OP supposed to grt intimate with John from here on out without feeling low? Let those friends explain that coz I am real lost what their logic is here.
OP see this as the warning it is and heed the warning by walking away. Look at it this way: if you had not walked up to them, you would forever be the butt of their jokes and be oblivious to it. Now that you know what you know…you have to wonder what else has John used about you to make himself feel better?
Break up and remember something: flabby skin is temporal. It goes away. A little more hard work and you will not even have memory of it. Your dignity is forever. Let John have his laughs. Have your dignity. Well done on the weight loss. I am still struggling with a gut.
NTA and sorry this happened to you
Commenter 3: NTA. You can never un hear those words, and if you gave John a second chance, they would play in a loop in your head anytime you’d try to be intimate with him. Save yourself the long-term heartache and dump him now. And congratulations on getting rid of ALL of the excess weight!
Update: January 23, 2025 (three days later)
Firstly, thank you. All of you. Every one of you who offered solid advice and even just kind words… It’s meant the world to me.
Second, I have left John. I don’t intend to go back or try to fix things when it’s not my responsibility to do so in the first place. And it’s not something that can be fixed anyhow. A lot of you said it would be hard to forget that he’d said that, and you’re all right. I saw him …
Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/1idf3xk/aitah_for_breaking_off_my_engagement_because_my/