As a curvy girl in a relationship with a tall, lanky guy, I’ve had to grapple with the uncomfortable feelings that can come with being bigger than my partner. When I realized that I was focusing too much on our size difference and that it was getting in the way of being able to fully enjoy receiving love from him, I knew I needed to work on it. Here’s how I learned to be comfortable and happy weighing more than my boyfriend.
- There’s no “right” ratio of body size in a relationship. As women, we’re frequently told that it’s unattractive or problematic for women to take up too much space, especially physically. When a man has a female partner who’s physically heavier than them, it’s often positioned as the butt of a joke (think the entire plot of Shallow Hal) or as something he should be ashamed of or embarrassed by (think literally any “I hooked up with a fat chick” joke in any bromance movie ever made). But this degrading stereotype has absolutely no basis in reality. If the love is real between the two of us, our sizes shouldn’t matter.
- If I compare my body to his, I’ll never be satisfied. My partner is naturally tall and lean while I have wide hips and a broad, thick lower body. Sometimes I get envious of his killer soccer-player legs and washboard abs, especially when I gain what feels like 10 pounds during my period or when we’ve been vacation-mode eating for a week and it doesn’t affect him. It can make me and my squishy belly and full thighs feel inadequate. The truth is that estrogen and testosterone do different things to the human body; men and women carry weight in different places and retain or lose weight in different ways. Being insecure about weighing more than him is a losing game because our bodies are and always will be naturally different.
- He loves my body because of its size and shape, not in spite of it. One of the most loving things my partner has said about my body is that he doesn’t love my body despite its curviness, he loves it because of its curviness. I decided to take a page out of his book and start saying this to myself in the mirror whenever I was having a bad body moment, and it has helped tremendously! And while I’m a huge proponent of finding your own worth and not needing someone else to define it for you, it’s been super helpful for me in getting over my concerns about the differences in our bodies.
- The number on the scale doesn’t mean anything anyway. We’ve all heard this one before, but it can’t be said enough: the number I see on the scale only reflects the numerical value of my relationship to gravity. It does not reflect more nuanced things like muscle mass and overall physical health, but more importantly, it definitely doesn’t reflect how much love I deserve, how worthy I am in infinite ways besides what my body looks like, or how badly my boyfriend wants to have sex with me.
- It doesn’t impact our sex life. There’s a cultural myth that thick bodies and thin bodies are completely incapable of having awesome, kinky, passionate sex with each other. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Having a body that’s bigger than my boyfriend’s has no impact on how great our sex is, except for when I let it get in the way of being confident and comfortable in my own skin.
- Our bodies fit well together. Besides the great sex, our bodies do lots of other stuff really well together, like my favorite pastime: cuddling. When we fall asleep together, our bodies fit perfectly with each other—and as mentioned above, that’s because of my squishy, curvy, lovable body, not in spite of it. Physical intimacy is so much more than just sex, and the differences in our bodies are what make our physical intimacy so wonderful.
- Confidence about my body is the biggest turn-on—for both of us. When I’m feeling confident about my body, I’m so much more confident in the bedroom. I’m not afraid to try new things, to receive pleasure, and to tap into my inner sex goddess. When I’m comfortable and happy with my body just the way it is, it drives him absolutely crazy, which is a huge turn-on for me. When I let go of any concerns about weighing more than him, we both feel the benefits.
- I shouldn’t feel like I need to make myself smaller to receive love. I try to tell myself this whenever I feel like I need to lose lots of weight or make my body smaller because I feel insecure about our size difference. Being overly conscious of our difference in body size and letting it get in the way of receiving love from my partner is basically the same thing as telling myself “I don’t deserve to be loved because of my body” over and over again. My partner has never said that to me, so why would I continue to fixate on an idea that is cruel, harmful, and untrue?
- Bodies change all the time. Even his! People’s bodies change throughout the lifespan, and women’s bodies in particular go through drastic changes throughout the course of our sexual and reproductive development. If I don’t learn to be comfortable and confident with my body size now, how am I ever going to manage the inevitable changes my body will go through if I decide to get pregnant? When I go through menopause? When I fulfill my lifelong dream of gaining a bunch of happy just-retired-on-the-Amalfi-Coast-eating-pasta-for-every-meal weight?
- If I feel happy and healthy, that’s all that matters. Perhaps the most important reason it’s 100% okay that I weigh more than my partner is that I feel happy, healthy, and thriving, and that’s all that matters. There’s no point in focusing on how other people view our size difference or bringing toxic stereotypes about how much smaller I should be than him into the relationship. The best way to receive love from someone else is to start with loving yourself first.