Can weight loss ruin my relationship?

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Follow this podcast to make sure you don't miss a thing. Can weight loss ruin your relationship? Well, I'm afraid under certain circumstances, yes, it can. And I have seen it happen.

I work with bariatric patients in two clinical practices, and I see them a couple of times before surgery to sort of check out how suitable they might be for surgery, but also to run through some of the sort of pros and cons of the sort of weight loss that they will experience with bariatric surgery, bearing in mind that patients on average lose about 70% of their excess weight with bariatric surgery. So we're talking about substantial numbers. This isn't just a couple of kilos.

This is a really substantial amount of weight, sometimes up to about 90 or or 100 kilos of weight loss. So you can imagine the profound effect that that has on people's lives. And it also has a profound effect on their relationship. So going into surgery, I always discuss where they are relationship wise. And I have sort of a different conversation that I would have with somebody who's single rather than somebody who has a partner.

So people who are a single, generally, I discuss the effect that the weight loss will have just on their life in general, but particularly the amount of attention that they're going to get once weight loss occurs. What we tend to find after surgery is that for most people, their confidence will increase. You see some people trying out new hairstyles, new fashions, new clothing.

You know, sometimes times they have a real change in their confidence level they have a change in the sort of vibe that they give out you know their approachability if you like and what they often find if they are single is that when they do venture out or they meet up with friends or they go out for an evening they might find themselves getting a lot more attention than they used to and it's not because because

I'm buying into that idea that larger people are less attractive than smaller people. It's not that at all. But when somebody's body has really changed quite dramatically sometimes over a period of only a few months, you will find that that also often has an effect on their personality. So what happens here, as well as the physical change, is the real kind of personality dynamic that that person has. So for single people, I warn them, how will you feel about this extra attention?

Are you someone that will be happy and comfortable with that? Or are you someone that would absolutely hate to have that sort of attention thrust upon you? For people that come into this with a history of. Let's say relationship issues, particularly something like domestic violence, or if they've come out of a relationship which was very unsatisfying for a very long time, those people can actually be very reluctant to get into another relationship.

So the last thing that they would want is find themselves becoming more attractive to others due to that weight loss. Also, if you you have in the past been through some sort of assault, especially a sexual assault, again, you might find that that sort of attention that you might get from other people might be acutely uncomfortable and that you would do anything to avoid it. So I always talk about the change in attention that you might get if you're a single person.

If you are someone that has a partner, Now, the conversation is obviously very different. What I talk about there is how long have you been with your partner and have they seen you and loved you at all different shapes, weights and sizes? Diseases because there's an awful statistic attached to this.

And generally, if you have been with your partner for a long time and they've sat with you through many diets and they've known you and loved you at every shape and weight you've been for, let's say, 20 years, the likelihood is that major weight loss will have no detrimental effect on your relationship. In fact, we often I often see it has a very positive effect on the relationship, especially someone's sex life.

And for a couple, generally, there's a good result, if you like, because what that person is doing, the person that has the weight loss, is going back to a previous time where they were also with the same partner. The physical side of their relationship doesn't really suffer at all, can be improved. And generally, there's improvements all round.

The problem comes, however, if somebody has only been with their partner a reasonably short period of time and their partner has only known them at their top weight. Then, unfortunately, the statistics around that are pretty awful. Awful, the research says that that relationship has a 75% chance of not surviving.

Now, obviously, that's not a statistic I go in with when I'm talking to people who are potentially wanting to have surgery and they've got a partner that they haven't been with very long. I tend to say to them instead, have you talked about this? Have you talked about all the eventualities? and then we go through what those eventualities might be. Because what I want that patient to do is to have a talk and say to their partner, you know, if I weighed 50 kilos less, how would you feel about me?

Would you still be attracted to me? What about physically? What might my body look like if I lost 50 kilos? And how would you feel about that? So to have those conversations initially about how your body might change and how your personality might change, for instance, is really, really important.

So why would this happen? Why would those relationships not survive? Well, sometimes the partner just prefers a larger body. That's why they got together with that person in the first place, because they were attracted to people with a larger body.

And when that person loses weight, let's say they lose 50 kilos, it's simply it's not what that person desires anymore they didn't want that sort of body otherwise they would have gone out with someone that weighed 50 kilos less so it's sometimes just as simple as that it's personal preference sometimes the partner will struggle with the personality changes that often happen when someone loses a great deal of weight as i said earlier that person can gain more confidence,

they can become more outgoing, they might change their hairstyle or their clothing style. And sometimes partners really struggle to adjust to that. And once again, it's that example of this is not what I signed up for. I was attracted to a certain person at a certain weight with a certain look and a certain demeanor. And now that's all changed. So it can be the personality change as well as the physical change.

Sometimes, of course, there's another layer to that. It's because these changes create a lot of jealousy. And if somebody sees that their partner's getting a lot more attention due to their weight loss, they can start to become quite jealous or quite possessive. So that is something I would discuss with people beforehand as well. And sometimes it's a lot worse than that. Sometimes times there's some element of coercive control at play.

And when somebody loses weight, that element of being able to manipulate someone, perhaps because of their weight, disappears. I've often had conversations with people where their partners have straight up said to them, no one else will fancy you, no one else will want to be with you.

So to kind of really try and diminish someone by suggesting that the only partner they can get is the partner that they have and trying to really kind of wear them down so they don't even realize they deserve better. We see that sometimes. Luckily, I don't see it all that often, but I know it's out there and I have encountered it with some of our patients.

I've also had the change come from the other side of the relationship, the person that has actually lost the weight. And I'm reminded of a patient that I had many years ago now. This was right in the early days of me practicing. And I must admit back then it really threw me because I hadn't encountered it before. She came into my room and she was about six months post-op, I think.

And she sat down and she said at the start of the session, I'm going to tell you straight away that I've actually left my husband. I said, oh, okay, well, this is unexpected. What's happening? And she said, well, quite frankly, I can do better now. And at the time, I was really stunned. I just didn't expect anybody to say that. But we had a conversation about it and she just said, look, I've put up with so much for so long. I've put up with not being appreciated, being undervalued.

I never thought that there was another option for me. And now I'm aware that there are other options and I think I can do better. I think I deserve better. As you can see from a lot of these reactions, sometimes that push to end the relationship will come from the person that has lost the weight. And sometimes that push will come from the person who's the partner of the person that has lost the weight. But nevertheless, for those couples, it really is likely that the relationship won't survive.

So that's something that you have to take very seriously.

And it can also bring about something that we call weight conflict. And weight conflict is an area where somebody's weight brings about some sort of benefit for them. If they become aware during the course of their post-op experience and they're losing weight, if they become aware that somehow it's negatively impacting another area of their life and relationships would be an obvious one that it might be impacting, their subconscious will sabotage their weight loss attempts.

In other words, it will try and return them back to what they were and who they were before the weight loss kicked off, to try and take them back into that comfort zone. Because even though we sometimes realize that the situation we're in has its disadvantages. It's still often the situation that provides the most comfort for us. And by that, I mean, we're used to it. It's our comfort zone. Even though it might not be good for us, we know where we are with it.

We can negotiate it because it's so familiar. Sometimes when people's bodies change and their personalities change at the same time, suddenly they're thrown very, very quickly and abruptly out of their comfort zone. And that can be a very disconcerting place to be, sometimes so disconcerting that people's only escape mechanism is by returning back to what they know and where they were before. And sometimes the subconscious will do that. And it's one of those sort of safety

mechanisms that is inherent in us sometimes. times. So that's one of the weight conflicts we see.

Another weight conflict can be the reactions of others, not an intimate relationship necessarily, but some people that are close to us, friends and family maybe. A lot of the time they will say things and they always follow the same themes here. Things like, don't lose any more weight, you're looking really scrawny now. Scrawny is a word that comes up time and time again. And it comes from patients as well when they say, I don't want to look scrawny.

There's this idea that weight loss is going to create this really kind of gaunt, is another word that comes up, gaunt and scrawny. And sometimes people will say this to the patient, don't lose any more weight, you're looking gaunt, you're looking ill, you're looking scrawny. The other one that is commonly used is you're no fun anymore. You're no fun, You used to be such good fun. You used to be always up for a laugh. And now you've become miserable and boring.

The other way that people try and sort of throw us off is to say things like, oh, come on, you deserve a treat. You've been so good, you deserve a treat. And it's because other people are feeling uncomfortable about the changes that the patient has made, and they want the patient to return to the comfort zone because it's their comfort zone. And it might not even be the patient's comfort zone, but it's their comfort zone.

So they want the patient to go back there. so what are the solutions to this if we know this is all out there well i think the major solution is to communicate with the people around us and this has really got to start before the journey of weight loss begins so for anyone that's considering particularly having surgery where you're going to lose a lot of weight in sometimes a reasonably short period of time please please please,

please talk to your friends and family and to your team before you go into this. Discuss with your partner the weight loss. Get a little bit of a guesstimate from your team of what sort of weight you might get to and say to your partner, if that weight is unfamiliar to both of you, say to your partner, can you picture me at that weight? What might I look like? How would would you feel? What will my body look like? Am I likely to have excess skin? And what will that do to our relationship?

Are you likely to find me less attractive? Are you likely to find me more attractive? Does that side of the relationship not bother you at all? Do you not base your opinion on me on how I look at all? So discussing what those things mean. Before and after surgery is really, really useful. Also discussing sexual attraction. You know, what is it that kind of does it for the partner? What do they find attractive?

And if, for instance, they find a fuller body more attractive or a big bum or big breasts, and then you know that after surgery, probably those elements of you are going to change.

Change how will that relationship survive but talk about that before you go into it let's discuss how we can make this survive let's discuss what we can do to make sure that everything is still good in that area even though physically bodies might change and also discussing loyalty to each other and especially from the point of view of the person that's about to go on that weight loss journey is even if they might receive more attention,

their loyalty, their commitment to their current partner and how they have no intention to leave, no intention to look for someone else. And they might need to really clarify that to the partner to put their mind at rest. All this discussion can be really, really useful going into surgery and also discussing ways of of which you can both enjoy the weight loss journey together.

So what can you both get out of it? Don't have it as just one person's journey, because as a couple, it does involve both of you and it involves your relationship.

I've actually, over the past few years, had a few couples that have gone through surgery together. And when this started to happen, I guess as a whole team, we were a little bit nervous because in the early days, we hadn't seen this before. But we had seen people's relationships suffer because one person had been through the surgery. When it came to two people going through the surgery, we were really concerned, like, will this be a double effect?

Will this be an absolute absolute kiss of death for these people. And what we actually found was the opposite. We've had lots of couples that have gone through the same surgery, sometimes even on the same day, and both been really, really successful.

They've supported each other. We have, as a team, have made it very, very clear to them that they have to treat their journeys as separate, particularly if they are are different heights, different starting weights, different genders, then they have to have very different parameters and very different goals that they will be led by. So it's really important to still be an individual, even though you're part of that couple.

But for those couples, it has been a fabulous journey and they've done it together.

So just to recap, yes, weight loss can ruin a a relationship. However, don't despair because it can actually really make vast improvements to a relationship as well. But really take on board, if you've got a team, if you're doing the weight loss through bariatric surgery, take on board the help that you get from the team.

And if you don't have a surgeon that has a great team behind them, make sure that you get some sort of relationship relationship help so that you know on the other side of this, not only will your body be a bit smaller, but you will also be happier as well. And your relationship will be thriving as a result of that weight loss, not suffering. So that's all today. Thank you so much for listening and please follow us.

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