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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/
Can’t trust someone who can’t keep their mouth shut in such things. If there is no trust there is no marriage.
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 once just to move my things out with the help of my brother (truly my hero in all of this) and despite the apologies and begging for me not to go, all I could hear was his joke and the way he laughed when he said it. It was like it was all I would ever hear from his mouth no matter what he actually said. I told him that if he actually loved me, he would have never treated me like a joke, and that was the last thing I said to him. He’s tried calling but I’ve blocked his number. I’m staying with my brother and John’s been smart enough to not come by because my brother told him if he walked onto his property, the only way he’d be leaving is in cuffs or a bag. John seemed damn intimidated by that, thankfully. So I feel safe here.
Going forward, I know I’ll be okay. I’m going to take time to focus on myself, move, and work towards my own goals. I think it will be a good way to let go of this relationship and what could have been by reminding myself of who I am outside of it.
Thank you again. <3
****EDIT: I showed my brother these posts and the comments and he said he’d buy all of you a drink if he could (and could reasonably afford it). <3
(Editor’s Note: OOP wrote a post about a different ex 4 years ago, prior to getting together with John)
***SECOND EDIT: I don’t want to have to explain this over and over just in case so I’ll put it here. If you’re going to bring up the unsent letter I’ve posted FOUR years ago, here’s the explanation: https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/U0jjbslZAL
OOP: John knows about that letter. It was something I wrote because of a suggestion from my therapist resolve my thoughts about a boyfriend I had before John that used to make me anxious when I wasn’t responded to. He actively supported my writing it as he knew it would help me get the feelings out and the words I wished I could have said to that man. He’s even the one who suggested I post it in the Unsent Letters Reddit because “it’s the digital equivalent of putting a letter in a bottle and setting it adrift at sea. Maybe it will reach him, maybe it won’t, but at least you’ll have let go.” <- direct quote.
We were very happy and supportive of each other. He’s just done something now that I can’t look past or forget.
**LAST EDIT because it’s beginning to irritate me lol:
The letter that was posted four years ago was not WRITTEN four years ago. It was written like two months after John and I got together. He and I had a long standing friendship before our relationship began so he knew all about the ex boyfriend and how everything went down. A year into our relationship, I found the letter when we were clearing out old stuff out of my apartment, and we had a good chuckle about it. He encouraged me to post it on the Unsent Letters subreddit as a final farewell to the letter, that chapter of my life, and to show that I was free of it and doing so much better. Those of you who are hung up on it are free to speculate how that makes me an awful person or whatever it is you believe, but I am secure in the truth of it and what went on. I never expected for people to latch onto something from four years ago and somehow use it to justify their harsh opinion of me and their presumed narrative but hey, it’s the internet, that’s what people do. I should have known.
Anyway, aside from that, I appreciate you all for taking the time to listen, offer your words whether they be kind or not, and for simply letting me feel heard. I wish every single one of you success and good tidings.
Relevant Comments
Downvoted Commenter: YTA - honestly sounds like John dodged a bullet. Yes he made a joke at your expense and should apologize and never say that again. But if this is your level of foot out the door when “something gets tough” then your marriage would have been a failure anyway. Marriage is hard….its harder when someone has their foot out the door for any slight that happens.
OOP: I never had my foot out of the door. I was all in with John. I gave him the opportunity to apologize over the course of this, and he never did. He continued to act like I was overreacting to a “joke”.
This wasn’t when “marriage gets tough”. The when “marriage gets tough” moments in our relationship were when he lost his job and I solely provided for our relationship for four months. Or when we had to be long distance because I had to travel for work for most of a year. Or when I was so depressed after the death of a close friend that I never left the house. Those were the tough times, and the both of us were there for each other. Not once did either of us make each other feel bad about any of it. I didn’t mock his insecurities to my friends. When he lost his job, he was so convinced he was a failure and a poor excuse of a “man”. I never, NEVER did or said anything to reinforce that line of thinking because it wasn’t true.
I don’t need to explain my choice to you, but there was no writing on the wall before this. John taking the biggest insecurity I have and making a joke about it to his friends was a direct contradiction to everything he’d ever said to me about it. Instead of saying an actually funny joke, he decided to strike my most vulnerable point as a “joke”. And he doubled down on that point instead of apologizing genuinely. I have the self respect and dignity to know that I don’t want to be with someone who can just mock their partner’s insecurities to others and then have the audacity to tell their partner how they should feel.
I won’t respond to anything you say if you reply to this, but funnily enough, I know you aren’t him but you’ve said a lot of the same sentiments John did.
Commenter 2: I’m floored he’s mad you won’t “let him explain himself.” What’s to explain? He said what he said. Block the numbers of any of the friends defending him as well.
Commenter 3: u/branchbutt, I have to say that I am impressed by the size of your ovaries!
Not meaning to sound condescending in any way, shape, or form, but here on Reddit you read so many stories about people from all walks of life who take whatever BS their partner hands them - “because they love them soooo much” - especially if they have been together for a while…
Hell, sometimes even 6 months is enough for them to lay their dignity on the floor!
I love the way you love and respect yourself so much that you do not take that man’s disrespect, and BS.
Indeed; someone who loves, appreciates and respects you would never make a joke like that - especially to others.
On to better things, OP!
DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7
THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP
