We Broke up Because I’m Too Fat
By: Septhiria Chandra
Tags: Body Image, Self Love, Life Lessons, Love, Dating

“I want to take the time to evaluate our relationship. I don’t think it’s working out.”

He started the conversation on a rainy Friday night.

I knew it was coming. I had hoped it came. I had felt alone in the relationship for a while and was hungry for an emotional connection that I couldn’t feel from him. I actually had the same intention that night to clear the issue after weeks of uneasiness and doubt over my need for this relationship.

My initial reaction was relieved. It’s easier now, wouldn’t it? Two adults having a mature and objective conversation about a relationship that we both think is not working out well. No tantrums, no broken hearts, no one making a scene at a public place.

“Thank you for saying that. I agree, I also don’t think it’s working out.”

I said, calmly and with an assuring smile. I was giving him the easiest break up ever, I thought to myself.

“What made you think so, though?” I asked.

“I realized I am more into the skinny type.” He said, not looking me in the eyes.

…

We had met earlier that year but lost contact after one date. He rekindled the relationship just right after I cut ties with a verbally abusive boyfriend where my body was a constant criticism opportunity to him. We had a few dates until he kissed me at the cinema after waiting for three hours because I couldn’t get out of a work situation. After that night, we started meeting more and dated for a couple of months.

During the honeymoon period of the relationship, we developed a strong physical attraction towards one another. He would kiss and touch me in the right places and say kind words about how I look. He brings out a sense of safety and security that I did not felt in my previous relationship.

I was happy to meet someone who celebrates my body as much as I do, a body that I learned to love after years of self-hatred and harsh self-criticism.

Body image was always a struggle for me and having a lean, skinny mom and friends do little to boost my self-esteem. One time around seventh grade, I stood in front of the mirror and went through all the wrong things with the girl in the reflection. Her arms, her stomach, her thighs, her hair, her acne-prone, and textured skin. I pinched, slapped, and hit all her body parts I wish looked different than the way it did in the mirror.

It was the first and sadly, not the last time I poured hatred all over her body.

‘Beautiful’ was not a word I dared to associate her with because I felt that she was very far from it. My mind and her body were constantly raging war with one another, and my mind seems to be the bigger bully of them both. According to the central command in my head, she was always either not good enough or way too much, always missing the mark by a mile.

It took me a feminine meditation circle, journaling, contemplation, and lots of daily affirmations to reach a state of acceptance. Loving myself, which includes my body, was the biggest win in my adult life. It catalyzed a lot of positive mental and physical changes. It allowed me to have a healthy relationship with food. It helps me to lose weight in a very kind and healthy way. It even allowed me to feel beautiful. It enables me to understand that I am a multitude of values, and I am beyond how I look on the outside. Finally, loving myself was the path that led me to be at peace with myself.

But that night, everything I worked on so hard for years was invalidated by someone close to me. My heart sank listening to all of the reasons why I am still not good enough for him. My food portion that is sometimes comparable to his, the one picture of my lunch at a healthy food joint that I had sent him once but somehow made him turned off by the size of it, the times when he felt me getting bigger and heavier when we’re intimate, the one picture of me last year when I weighed 20 pounds heavier. All these resulted in his lack of attraction to me, which put the final nail in the coffin.

Slowly, I can feel the tingling sensation on my back, a feeling I always have whenever I feel trapped or wanting to cry.

It took me several hours to process how hurtful the fact that my physical weight surpasses the weight of intangible qualities that I have to offer. I started to get angry that he imposed the notion that I had changed when I am the exact same shape and weight throughout the relationship. I kept obsessing over the missing gap between the passionate longing and the loss of interest during the time we’re together.

But above all, I was so upset that the thing I’m most insecure about was the reason for all this.

What a crippling feeling to think that you’ve won a battle only to find yourself back to square one. To have our mind make up stories that are untrue but feels very much like they do. To see myself violating everything I preach to other people on loving ourselves. To rage war on ourselves despite that being the last thing we need.

Once again, I became the girl who always felt not good enough, and that night, it was true.

It was really tempting to spiral back to where I was. But if there’s one thing that I learned from self-love is to become the kindest person to myself, developing the mind-body connection and treating them like a couple of supportive sisters who care deeply about each other’s happiness and well-being.

After the breakup, I stood in front of the mirror just like I did in seventh grade.

Photo by Chiara F on Unsplash

Instead of berating and nitpicking, I stripped myself down to my underwear and hugged myself. I stood there, looked at the girl in the mirror, cried as I would to a best friend, and consoled her as a sister would.

I reminded her that everything is okay. I told her that she was herself through and through and that she did all the right things in her power. I told her she is smart, powerful, compassionate, loving, and every kind word in the vocabulary that I could think of. I reminded her that she is kind, she is warm, she is soft, a mantra that we recite to ground us back whenever we feel that we’re forgetting who we are.

Looking back, I find the situation funny but I was grateful that I was kind enough to myself to do that. If I were able to split myself, I’m sure she would be sitting there with me with a tub of the finest vanilla & macadamia ice cream she could find and sit with me all through the night.

I had a friend in me who loved and believed in my goodness and was very adamant that I should believe it too.

That night, I realized the whole point of self-love is not to reach a level of transcendence where nothing can shake me off but to be able to practice loving myself when it happened.

…

After two weeks, I completed the grief cycle and accepted that it is simply what he prefers. I appreciate that this is a preference that he found through contemplation and not a toxic standard that he adopted on face-value from society. And I really appreciate that he got steel balls to tell me the truth because it must have been hard to admit things like this without feeling like a major asshole.

In fact, I had a really hard time balancing the facts and impressions when retelling this story. I don’t want other people to think that he is not a smart and good person I know. He is actually a progressive and open-minded ally to a lot of social issues. He picks his good fight in mental health and is very passionate about pursuing it, a trait that I respect from him.

We had an amicable break up that night. It rained hard so we talked about the good times we had over a bottle of beer for him and a cup of tea for me. He told me that I’m a nice and loving person. I gave him a Jason Mraz song with lyrics that communicate a lot of well-wishes that I want for him. We laughed at how this sounds like a good arrangement theoretically but not in practice. We wished one another good luck in work and personal life. We say thank you to each other. We hugged and I got into the car, making sure I didn’t look back.

It’s been two years since this happened. We have not talked since we broke up but I don’t have any hatred or negative emotion towards him. In fact, I’m still grateful it went the way it went because it allowed me to understand myself more. He gave me the opportunity to practice loving myself and realizing that it’s a conscious choice that I have to take, especially when my belief was distorted. The breakup was an exercise that I didn’t know I needed and it allows me to be even kinder and loving to myself.