Boyfriend (30M) of 6 years said he sometimes finds me (26F) unattractive. He said I’ve gained weight and I’m lazy. Should I take it personally?

Sorry this is a long post, but if you have time, I’d really appreciate the advice!

So just to give a bit of background, I’ve been with my boyfriend for about 6 years. Bit of a rocky relationship with lots and ups and downs due to physical and mental ill health on his part. He’s still pretty ill and hasn’t worked for about 3 years until very recently. During this time we’ve both lived with our respective parents and I’ve supported the relationship financially. This includes dates, holidays, his phone bill, presents, you name it, I’ve paid for it. I’ve basically stood by him through his physical illness and depression, which, if anyone knows is damn hard. I’ve also been training to be a veterinary nurse for the past 2 years, working full time in practice and attending college every week, and hopefully should be qualified in the next few months!

Anyway, despite our rocky first few years, we are stronger than ever. We’re truly best friends, we love each other unconditionally and both are in agreement that we want to spend the rest of our lives together. We’re completely committed to each other and have a very open relationship in terms of communication.

A few months back I was very ill resulting in being off work for 5 weeks and had to stay in hospital for over a week. During this time, I gained a little weight. We’re talking about 7 pounds, but it’s enough to add a little extra jiggle on my bum and tum and made a few items of clothing a little too snug! I’m currently 147 pounds, and am in a UK size 10-12. I was aware of this weight as I have some self-esteem issues. However, I told him i was going to lose the weight.

Now the second issue. I’m real fucking lazy. I’m talking my floor is my wardrobe, I have 12 mugs in my bedroom kinda lazy. Add that to working my ass off working 8.30-7.00 5 days a week and I ain’t got no motivation to work out. Ive managed to lose a couple of pound from diet but I’m not quite there yet.

So recently my boyfriend said that he was feeling kinda off. He’s still ill and just started a new job. He’s feeling a lot of pressure to make things work, especially now we’re talking about the future and moving in together and kids etc. So I just assumed it was the usual. However, he told me he wasn’t feeling the relationship physically and has little interest in sex. Granted, our sex life has slowed down a little due to the nature of my illness earlier this year, but we still have fantastic sex and are very intimate and affectionate. He then told me that he wasn’t attracted to me ‘sometimes’ because I had gained a little weight, especially on my face, and because I’m lazy and unambitious which he finds very unattractive. He says he still loves me and wants to be with me, he just doesn’t want to be one of those older couples that either joke about never having sex and living like friends or resenting each other and cheating. He wants me to sort my shit out and better myself and make a lifestyle change.

For some reason, this really hurt me. I was upset that I had stood by him through all this shit, that I had cuddled him in bed when he hadn’t showered for 8 days when things got real bad, that I had only gained the weight as a result of being ill myself, and that I’m lazy because I work my ass off to pay for both us and am exhausted every day. I have a healthy social life but he’s now saying I don’t want to do anything and that I’ve lost my ‘spark’. Baring in mind that over the past few years I could probably recall every date we ever had because there’s so few. I would ask to do things constantly but due to his illness, we rarely did anything.

It’s really hurt my feelings with regards to self esteem and it’s worried me that my ‘laziness’ is something that I can’t fix as it’s a pretty ingrained personality trait at this point.

So I guess, my question is, am I wrong to feel upset? I know that this is the mature way to approach this and I should believe that he loves me and that I should be grateful he wants to make our relationship better.

But part of me can’t help feel self-conscious and paranoid that he thinks this of me. Sitting next to him now I’m just hyper aware of doing anything wrong or standing in bad lighting or about the way I look. I feel like I can’t hang out without make up on or eat anything I shouldn’t in front of him. It’s really screwed with my head. There are things I find unattractive about him but they’re negligible! I’m still attracted to him unconditionally. And because I’ve gotten so upset, he’s now panicking and upset that he’s ruined the relationship by bringing it up. I’ve asked him what if it never changes and he said he’d still wana be with me because everything else about me is worth it.

I’d really love to just hear people’s thoughts on this. I really want to save my relationship, I think we both do. I’m just struggling to get past the confidence knock.

EDIT So there are a couple of details I omitted because I didn’t feel they were too relevant but after all of your amazing replies I think full disclosure is important.

Firstly, I suffer with a chronic back condition. It is hardening of the bones between my sacro-iliac joint. This leaves me with back pain if I stand or walk for too long, lift heavy objects from below waist height and strain myself in kneeling or crouching positions. It leaves me with pretty bad pain which affects my ability to walk. Obviously doing the job I do, I often come home from work in pain. This has affected my ability to do serious exercise as my job has always been the most important thing, and worry that anything I do outside of work will affect my ability to do my job. For example, I went out a few weeks ago with friends, danced for about an hour and was in pain for about 4 days. I’ve had to consider changing careers but I love my job more than anything and my employer is very understanding. I’ve tried lots of physio and seen various consultants but have come to the conclusion that it’s just something I have to live with and manage the best I can.

Also, the illness I had earlier this year. I was ill from NYE to beginning of March. To cut a long story short, I had a miscarriage that turned out to be a cervical ectopic pregnancy that hadn’t fully expelled. I was admitted to hospital as an emergency and had blood transfusions and came very close to a hysterectomy. So yeah. Thought you should all know. That’s why I gained weight. I was severely anaemic and was eating whatever I wanted, and was also almost bed bound for 5 weeks.

TL;DR My (26F) boyfriend (30M)of 6 years said he sometimes finds me unattractive because I’ve gained weight and I’m lazy. He still loves me and wants to be with me, but Ive has a massive confidence knock. Should I take this personally and if not, how do I cope with it?

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 07:19PM by loz29d http://bit.ly/2KfAuWb