Hi Dean,

I'm curious - you said if your wife gained weight for no good reason that you would stoop to humiliation. Are you familiar with every medical condition that cause problems with weight? How would feel if you were oinking at your wife, and then discovered years later that there was a physical cause for her weight gain? Chances are it probably would be too late, at that point, to put the pieces of your marriage together.

After I married my husband, it could be construed as I "let myself go". All sorts of horrible things were happening to my body, but the weight was the most apparent. The first doctor I went to, told me I was a hypocondriac and that if I would just lose weight I would feel better. DUH! At that point, judging by what I've read, my husband should have humiliated and degraded me - because after all, there was nothing wrong with me.

It turned out after switching doctors I was diagnosed with PCOS - a hormonal condition which is very real, but for some reason many doctors (especially male doctors) don't "believe" in it. Now we know what's wrong, everything should be fine, right? Wrong! Things were still spiraling out of control and my body was still turning against me. But I was under the care of a physician, I was being treated, so I guess this would have been a good time for my husband to start oinking at me and debasing me as a human to make me lose weight? Or maybe he should have walked out, since I obviously didn't respect him because of my weight gain?

As it turned out a year or so later I was diagnosed with 2 more hormonal type disorders - Late Onset Adrenal Hyperplasia, and Hypothyroid. And I was also diagnosed with Insulin Resistance which could turn to diabetes.

If you were to look at me, I do not convey a person who has health issues. If you were to look at me, you would see a woman who "let herself go". Things are not always what they appear on the outside. I have 3 disorders that cause weight gain, and I'm on hormone replacement drugs which also cause weight gain, not even touching on all the OTHER things that these disorders cause. This has been an ongoing thing for my husband and I for 6 years (we've been married for 7)! If my husband had turned to the tactics you mentioned, his butt would have been sitting on the corner with all his stuff long ago...and there would have been no chance of "gee honey, I'm sorry, I didn't know that you had medical problems. I just did it because I thought you were 'letting yourself go!' and I HAD to try something!"

It makes no sense to me that if your wife gained weight due to a medical problem, that you would be all kind and caring - but if there was no medical problem you would humiliate her so that she would lose weight. How would you KNOW at what point it would be okay to start the bullying? Would you make her go to a doctor, get the all clear then start the debasing? What if the doctor was a quack, like the first one I saw? Do you think, if a medical problem was found that you could take it all back after years of torment and she would understand?

I'm curious how people who think humiliation is okay would handle something like this. It looks like many people think this is a black and white issue - but I've been through the medical end, and it's not always that way, and can take a long time to figure out what the heck is going on. It's not like you could look at me and say "ooooh, she has adrenal hyperplasia, PCOS and hypothyroid, and is insulin resistant, no wonder she has problems with weight!" and it's definitely not something that you would be able to tell with your wife either - all you would see is her porking up, and having other weird problems which many doctors may not recongnize as actual symptoms to "uncommon" disorders.

Talk about your apples and your oranges. Organizational behavior is, as you probably know, quite a lot different than interpersonal behavior. And of course, the military does other things within that context than humiliate. They break down to build up, but it's systematic. It is designed to a great degree to bond the soldiers to each other. You aren't talking about the same dynamic as a 1-1 relationship.



I'll stand by that. People have to decide to change themselves. You can influence that. You can't do it for them. Therapists are the same, although perhaps better trained at it.



You'd fail most likely. You would do more damage than good. I've said before that fat people are not easily moved by humiliation or ridicule. If they have been longterm fat, they have had plenty of both.

well, you seem to have drawn many conclusions anyway....interesting that this comment came AFTER you went on the "twinkie defense" diatribe....

He might not even be sneaking anything. In my volunteer work with harm reduction, I've met plenty of people who abstained completely from their substance of choice all week, then had a blowout on Friday or Saturday, and returned to abstinence until the next weekend.

Emily

I'm not sure such a thing as your unconditional love actually exists within a sane relationship. Ask yourself - would you still unconditionally love your SO (1) if he cheated on you? (2) Abused you or your kids? (3) Committed a heinous crime?

I rather doubt it - though we do have a stunning example of such love in Wanda Barzee, who stuck by her man, Brian David Mitchell, through it all. (They are the couple accused in the Elizabeth Smart abduction.) Now, you can brush off her actions as demented or whatever, but they are also reflect an extreme emotional commitment so perfect that it appeared to have no conditions whatsoever. She asked for no fidelity, no home, no income, no adherence to the law, no nothing, and she seems to have complied with his will on everything.

Unconditionally.


Ah, our list of conditions now grows to 4:

1. I'll love you only if you are faithful.
2. I'll love you only if you are non-abusive to me and my kids.
3. I'll love you only if you don't commit a heinous crime.
4. I'll love you only if your requests are reasonable.

These a sane, reasonable expectations in most relationships, but they are still conditions. The love in that relationship is therefore conditional - NOT unconditional.

If you really think about it honestly, I'll bet you could find dozens, if not hundreds of factors underlying your love for your SO. Some transgressions of these conditions might be instantly fatal (cheating), others might be merely corrosive to the relationship in varying degrees, but all of them could lead to the demise of the relationship.

So, given that you have all these conditions, why not allow your SO to have one of his own? Like, "stay thin" or "lose weight"? Isn't that a bit more reasonable than "hey, let's go kidnap a new 14-year old for me to marry, too"?


If your love is unconditional, it sure as hell is. Wanda Barzee would've complied in a heartbeat - but then, her love was unconditional. Your love comes with conditions, so, happily, you need not comply.

Ha ha ha! Ok, you and you alone brought that comparison up, so this rhetorical question really carries no weight in this argument. Any sane individual would say that it is "more" reasonable to ask someone to lose weight than to ask someone to commit a felony, but no one suggested that.

Unconditional love debate aside, I DO NOT think it is reasonable for my SO to expect me to conform to his or her idea of what I should look like. But that's just me..and my feelings about that are reflected in who I choose to date (i.e. I only date folks who share similar ideas regarding respect and love).

Sure it does - what they suggested was that unconditional love somehow is an excuse to ignore a loved one's desires. My point is that their love is actually conditional after all, and so they ought to be open to the reasonable counter-conditions.

Still don't buy it? Here is a further list of The Conditions of Unconditional Love. Take your pick - if NONE of these conditions exists in your relationship, then yours may be a true unconditional love.

(Adapted from the book "Against Love", by Laura Kipnis. Any errors are likely my typos - there is no link because I typed them in myself.)

You can't leave the house without saying where you're going. You can't not say what time you will return. You can't stay out past midnight, or 11, or 10, or dinnertime, or not come right home after work. You can't go out when the other person feels like staying home. You can't go to parties alone. You can't go out just to go out, because you can't not be considerate of the other person's worries about where you are, or their natural insecurities that you're not where you should be, or about where you should be instead. You can't make plans without consulting the other person, particularly not evenings and weekends, or make decisions about leisure time usage without a consultation.

You can't be a slob. You can't do less than 50 percent around the house, even if the other person wants to do 100 percent to 200 percent more housecleaning than you find necessary or even reasonable. You can't leave your (pick one) books, tissues, shoes, makeup, mail, underwear, work, sewing stuff, or pornography lying around the house. You can't smoke, or you can't smoke in the house, or you can't leave cigarettes in cups. You can't amass more knickknacks than the other person finds tolerable - likewise sports paraphernalia, Fiestaware, or Daffy Duck collectibles.

You can't leave the dishes for later, wash the dishes badly, not use soap, drink straight from the container, make crumbs without wiping them up (now, not later), or load the dishwasher according to the method that seems most sensible to you. You can't use dishes directly out of the dishwasher without unloading the whole thing. You can't accumulate things that you think you might use someday if the other person thinks you won't. You can't throw wet clothes in the laundry hamper. You can't have a comfortable desk, because it doesn't fit the decor. You can't not notice whether the house is neat or messy. You can't not share responsibility for domestic decisions the other person has made that you've gone along with to be nice but don't really care about. You can't hire a house cleaner, because your mate is a socialist and can't live with the idea.

You can't leave the bathroom door open; it's offensive. You can't leave the bathroom door closed; they need to get in. You can't enter without knocking. You can't leave the toilet seat up. You can't read on the john without commentary. You can't leave bloody things in the bathroom wastebasket. You can't leave female hygiene products out. You can't wash your dirty hands in the kitchen sink. You have to load the toilet paper "over" instead of "under". You're not allowed to pay no attention to what you'd simply rather ignore: your own nose hair, underarm hair, or toenails. You can't not make the bed. You can't not express appreciation when the other person makes the bed, even if you don't care. You can't sleep apart, you can't go to bed at different times, you can't fall asleep on the couch without getting woken up to go to bed. You can't eat in bed. You can't get out of bed right away after sex. You can't have insomnia without being grilled about what's really bothering you. You can't turn the air conditioner up as far as you want. You can't sleep late if the other person wants to get up early. Or you can't sleep late because it is a sign of moral turpitude.

You can't watch soap operas without getting made fun of. You can't watch infomercials, or the pregame show, or Martha Stewart, or shows in which men are humiliated in front of women or are made to play the buffoon. You can't watch porn. You can't leave CNN on as background. You can't psychologically withdraw into sports even if it's your only mode of anxiety release. You can't listen to Bob Dylan or other excesses of your youth. You can't go out to play pinball; it's regressive. You can't smoke pot. You can't drink during the day, even on weekends. You can't take naps when the other person is home because the mate feels leisure time should be shared. You can't work when you are supposed to be relaxing. You can't spend too much time on the computer. And stay out of those chat rooms! You can't have email flirtations, even if innocent. You can't play computer solitaire because the clicking drives the other person crazy. You can't talk on the phone when they're home working. You can't talk on the phone when they're in the room without them commenting on the conversation, or trying to talk to you at the same time. Your best friend can't call you after 10. You can't read without them starting to talk, and you're not allowed to read when they are talking to you. You can't not pay attention to their presence.

You can't be impulsive, self-absorbed, or distracted. You can't take risks, unless they're agreed-upon risks. You can't just quit your job in a huff. You can't make unilateral career decisions, or change jobs without extensive discussion and negotiation. You can't have your own bank account. You can't make major purchases alone, or spend money on things the other person considers excesses; you can't blow your money because you are in a really bad mood, and you can't be in a bad mood without being required to explain it. You can't have secrets - about money or anything else.

You can't eat what you want. You can't skip meals. You can't eat alone. You can't break your diet. You can't eat butter if they're monitoring your cholesterol. You can't cook cauliflower even if you don't expect the other person to eat it. You can't use enough salt to give the food some flavor without it being seen as a criticism of their cooking. You can't refuse to share your entree when dining out, or order what you want without negotiations far surpassing the Oslo Accords. You can't blow your nose at the table. You can't read the newspaper at meals. You can't eat things that give you gas. You can't make jokes about gas.

You can't drink without the other person counting your drinks. You can't bum cigarettes because it embarrasses your mate, even though you explain about the unspoken fraternity between smokers. You can't not "fit in". You must not dance because you're a terrible dancer (according to your mate; you happen to disagree). You can't leave a place before they're ready to go. You can't be late, even if you prefer being late. You can't dawdle. You can't lose track of time, especially when engaged in something without your mate, like you email. You can't forget things and then go back for them once the door is closed. You can't drive too fast, or faster than your mate defines as fast. You can't tailgate; you can't honk. You may not criticize the other person's driving, signaling, or lane-changing habits. You can't listen to talk radio in the car. You can't get angry when driving, or swear at other drivers.

You can't say the wrong thing, even in situations where there's no right thing to say. You can't use the "wrong tone of voice," and you can't deny the wrong-tone-of-voice accusation when it's made. You can't repeat yourself; you can't be overly self-dramatic; you can't know things the other person doesn't know, or appear to parade your knowledge. You can't overly celebrate your own accomplishments, particularly if the mate is less successful. You can't ask for help and then criticize the mode of help, or reject it. You can't not produce reassurances when asked for, or more frequently, when they're not asked for yet expected. You can't begin a sentence with "You always...". You can't begin a sentence with "I never...". You can't be simplistic, even when things are simple. You are not permitted to employ the Socratic Method in an argument. You can't say what you think about the mate's family. You also can't compare the mate to any of their family members, especially not the same-sex parent. You can't be less concerned with the other persons vulnerability than with expressing your opinions. You can't express inappropriate irony about something the other person takes seriously. Or appropriate anger at something the other person takes casually. You can't call a handyman to fix something if they consider themselves "handy". You can't not be supportive, even when the mate does something insupportable. You can't analyze the cinematography in a movie that they were emotional about. You can't not participate in the mini-dramas about other people's incompetence, or rudeness, or existence. You can't make a joke that the other person could potentially construe as unconsciously aimed at them. You can't talk about religion, politics, Germany, Israel, the class struggle. You can't tell Polish jokes. You can't make puns or tell dirty jokes or relate overly lengthy anecdotes. You can't make jokes about bald spots, ear shape, fat, or any other sensitivity, even if you didn't know until that moment that it was an area of sensitivity. You can't talk about your crush on your shrink. You can't talk about past relationships. Or you can't NOT talk about past relationships, and can't refuse to reveal all the long-forgotten details when asked. You can't refuse to talk about what you talked about in therapy. But you can't "overanalyze" either, or import psychological terminology into your relationship. You can't not "communicate your feelings". Except when those feelings are critical, which they should not be.

Thus is love obtained.

I never argued for unconditional love. There are certainly conditions in relationships. And one of MY conditions for a relationship is that my partner respect me. Shaming or humiliating me into doing something is not respecting me; therefore, the relationship would not meet my conditions and I would be outta there. You may be different. To each his own.

And my point about the Smart case was that such a hyperbolic rhetorical question brings the entire argument to a farcical level and therefore leads nowhere.

Unconditional love means loving someone in spite of the things that annoy you. It's still possible to love someone even if they don't fulfil everything you want in an "ideal world". THATS unconditional love. It's nothing to do with being some type of saint who never gets annoyed at the little things their partner does.


Boy look where"Andy and Candy" have led us!!!!!

My 2 cents on humiliation.

Yes, humiliation is a motivator to get people to lose weight. Much like alcoholics, many overearters have to "hit bottom" before they get help, be it from a doctor, a group of taunting children/adults, not being able to fit in a ride with your child at the fair...etc..

My point is, that kind of painful humiliation happens... but should it be dispensed by someone who professes to love you? Isn't there enough pain to be had without feeling you have the right to inflict it on your spouse? Or is it that it's not happening fast enough to suit the one handing it out?

Whom would you rather have ask you to lose weight?

Your spouse?
A perfect stranger?

If we are to believe Andy, Candy would rather hear it from a stranger. Personally, I'd rather hear it from someone who loves me, because I could trust their motives more easily.


Indeed, much as Wanda Barzee never made a fuss.

If your love is unconditional, you would not complain about being asked to slim down - you would happily comply.

If your love is conditional, you would complain, whine, cry out in vain, hit back with a hurtful counter-remark, eat more carbs, storm off in a huff, etc. It is all a part of the vast, endless power struggle that occurs in intense conditional negotiations that represent real-world love.

The most aggressive response would be to comply, lose weight, then dress provocatively to make your spouse seethe as other people come on to you. That way you get the health benefits AND the revenge all in one tasty package.

wait a second....weren't you just arguing that love is, in effect, conditional? Am I then to assume that you would complain, whine, cry out in vain, hit back. etc....

I now have no idea what you are arguing for or against.....

My points are these:

Love isn't unconditional.

It is conditional for everyone (except maybe Wanda).

The conditions of love are negotiated. A request to lose weight is merely another condition to be negotiated.

Those in love should not be discouraged by the hystrionics that sometimes accompany these negotiations; nor should they accept the false excuse that "love should be unconditional".

Unconditional love has to be defined properly to be understood.

What's unconditional?
It's not putting strings on the emotional. Conditional is: I will love you if you clean your plate/stop flirting at parties/give up the ax murdering. UNConditional is: I love you regardless of conditions.

HOWEVER:

What's love?
Love is about both giving and receiving. Or it's not love, it's only dependence, or control, or desperation.
Love says, I love you even if you screw up. Love says, Gee, you keep screwing up, and putting strains on our relationship, and make me feel unloved. Love says, Since you keep treating me badly, you must not love me.
And so, love cannot exist without being returned, since there isn't any coming in from that source. And thus unconditional love has only one condition: it must be returned.
Doesn't matter if the other party is the theater, your newborn baby, your best friend, or your significant other.

This is the crucial difference in what poor Wanda has and what true love is. True love goes both ways.
Think about unrequited crushes, and relationships where one party is treated like dirt, and a fan stalking a celebrity. They say it's LOVE.
But one way love ain't love.

A request to lose weight could very well be reasonable (depending on how it is approached). However, humiliation or emotional manipulation is not acceptable. This is what this whole debate is about, after all. And if you want to keep trying to convice us that humiliation is a viable tactic with a loved one, gotbeer, then go right ahead. I'm afraid you won't convince anyone of that. Unless, of course, it is yourself that you are trying to convince.....