Man's wife says he's 'body shaming her,' he says, 'I can't support her delusion.'
When this husband feels like his wife is putting him in an awkward position, he asks Reddit:
'AITA for refusing to tell my wife that she’s skinny?'
My wife (F31) has some sort of obsession with being skinny even though she’s clinically and visibly obese. She already is seeing her therapist and doctor about it so she learns to accept her body.
I find her beautiful either way, but she keeps asking me whether I think she’s skinny or not. I tell her that she is not skinny but she is still beautiful, because I’m not going to support a delusional idea and enable her dysmorphia.
Today we were at the mall and she tried on this dress and was really excited and told me that she thinks it made her look slim and asked me if I agreed. I told her she looked great in the dress but it doesn’t make her look skinny if that’s what she was going for.
She started crying and screamed at me for body shaming her and never supporting her. AITA?
Let's find out what Redditors had to say.
tritoeat writes:
NTA. It doesn't sound like you're being nasty to her, just answering her questions honestly and telling her that to you, beautiful /= slim. I do hope her therapist can help because she obviously needs it, but it's not right for her to set traps for you.
myanmaster writes:
Agree OP is NTA but….idk, he probably needs to stay away from the word skinny (and all related words) in general cause telling her she’s NOT skinny probably isn’t helping her as much as he thinks it is... Leave working through this to her therapist and doctor even though she’s the one asking.
I’m not a medical professional in any capacity, so someone who is is welcome to correct me, but I imagine it’s definitely hurting her progress to be told outright that she’s not skinny.
OP, you should ask to join her for a session so that you can figure out FROM her therapist what would be the best way to help her, but if she declines, stop engaging in talk about her size. If you think she looks good in something, stick to compliments that don’t involve her size.
So if she asks “does this make me look slimmer/skinny/fat/etc?” you answer “it makes you look beautiful” and leave it at that. If you don’t think whatever it is looks good on her, you can answer “I don’t know if that’s you’re style” or something else that’s noncommittal about why it doesn’t look good on her.
Ultimately she’s playing stupid games by asking such loader questions in the first place, and you’re NTA for how you’re responding.
responsibleput7 writes:
YTA if she specifically asked if the dress was slimming. That’s possible for a dress to do on any body type. I can understand not supporting her calling herself/asking if she looks “skinny” but if she’s trying on a dress she feels good in you should be nothing but supportive.