[turismo]

Hi there,

I'm really hoping I can receive advice/guidance.

My fiance and I knew each other as friends for a few years before we started dating. After a year of dating, I proposed to her and we are due to get married in about 6 months time.

Before we started dating, I was aware that she had an issue with her weight and that she looked bigger than the average figure. To put it simply - she works with kids and she's received on more than one occasion the comment "Do you have a baby growing in your tummy" from one of the kids! I saw her weight as not being such a big deal when we first started going out.

Time has passed however, and her weight has become an increasing issue in our relationship, particularly now that we are going full steam ahead towards getting married in 6 months.

Over the last 16 months of us being together, I've learnt about her insecurities about her weight and her wanting to do something about it. I've always tried to be supportive and help her address it. I also encourage us as a couple to exercise regularly (walking, swimming, etc.) - I even setup for us a joint membership at a local gym, a somewhat costly membership that I continue to pay for.

She's tried going to the gym on various occasions throughout the last 8 months, but she struggles with motivation and I find that she can often be very complacent and lacks motivation. She wants to lose weight but doesn't seem to care enough to actually do something about it. To me, it seems like for every step she takes forward, she takes two steps back.

She hasn't lost weight, and quite frankly it looks as if lately she has somehow put weight on. Her main drawback is in her diet. She does eat better, drink better, and snack less since we were together - but she often slips back on this and undoes any progress she's made. My fiance is confident, strong-headed and so outgoing in areas, but when it comes to disciplining herself and motivating herself to lose weight - she just seems utterly incapable!

As her fiance, I've tried so hard to support her and help but more and more I find myself starting to give up hope. Her inability to put some proper effort into this is affecting my physical and sexual attraction to her, and it's starting to affect how I feel about her.

I'm sure many will think I'm really shallow and horrible (and I've thought this of myself many a time on this), however her weight and her insecurities are causing some of the following problems in our present and for our future together:

1. She doesn't like photographs or video being taken - trying to get some nice photos of us that we can one day look back on them proves to be very difficult
2. I went clothes shopping with her once - never again! It was an absolute nightmare. The sizes she expected to fit didn't, she walked out of the store in a foul mood and spent the afternoon then taking it out on me.
3. She's bought her wedding dress - but she's not convinced she's happy about how she looks in it.
4. She wants us to keep the lights off when we first have sex on our wedding night - our first time together as a married couple should be intimate and open, not kept in the dark.
5. She makes passing comments about her weight (I think in search of compliments) - I find her lack of confidence to be highly unattractive.
6. When we go out for meals, she often goes straight to the dessert menu and shows much more excitement towards the selection of desserts than any other aspect of the dining experience (This I find particularly unattractive and embarrassing when we are around other people - I imagine people thinking the same as me here - "...ah..such excitement at the desserts explains the weight problem then")
7. Sometimes when watching a film or looking at something on the computer, she'll come to sit on my lap - this simply hurts my leg because of her weight!
8. At my wedding, I always liked the idea of carrying my new bride up to our room at the end of the night - this won't happen given how heavy she is.
9. About six months ago, my fiance was experiencing irregular periods. After an appointment with the doctor, results showed that she sometimes suffered with cysts on her ovaries, which prevented eggs being created on certain months. This could be an issue for if/when we try to have children in the future. She was advised by the doctor that trying to lose weight and achieve a healthier lifestyle would help to prevent this from happening again.

I've spoken with her about all this on two or three occasions over the last 10 months or so. It's usually ended up in her pretty much breaking down into a flood of tears and me feeling like the most horrible and shallow person in the world. I've told her that if it's such an issue for her (and it is for me as well), then she needs to do something about it.

I'm unsure what I'm repulsed by more - her weight or by her lack of effort in actually doing something about it.

I love my fiance very much however I'm concerned about what effect this has on my physical attraction towards her. My fiance is an attractive woman, however at this stage I'm unsure whether I'd like what I see if I saw her naked. I'm a committed Christian and my fiance and I make every effort together to work at our relationship. And it's killing me that I can't just overlook this. I want to just accept it and love her regardless. But I can't help but worry that this issue for me is only going to get worse. Part of me says that if something such as her weight can be such a big deal, then do I honestly love her as much as I think I do?

As I said, I've communicated these things to her before. And we've always sorted it out eventually and she's agreed to put in more of an effort and to take the issue of her weight more seriously. But then the promises that get made just fade away over the weeks following the conversation. It's affecting my trust and I feel that even if I speak to her about all this again, not only will it hurt her, but I'm unsure if I will trust her again if she says she is going to try.

I always saw myself with a woman who is confident and willing to put every effort into things that mean something to her. Lately, I'm starting to feel like I've agreed to marry someone who is complacent, lazy and quick to complain yet slow to act. These for me are highly unattractive qualities that I never thought I'd find in a woman I'd hope to be married to.

Our wedding plans have already started to take shape and is only 6 months away. I love my fiance very much and she has so many good qualities about her. But no matter how hard I try, I simply cannot will myself into overlooking this issue with her weight and her complacency to do something about it.

I don't wish to give up on her entirely, however I'm questioning whether it's naive of me to expect that this will improve or get sorted. The last year and a half dealing with this has been tough and put a strain on our relationship each time it has been brought up - I'm doubting whether I can honestly put up with it for a lifetime!

Please, any advice or guidance on this would be much appreciated. I feel very alone about this and like I can't speak to anyone for fear of being called shallow or a horrible person. I'm open to any suggestions or constructive advice on how to deal with this.