My[21F] boyfriend[20M] of 3.5 years has always hated exercising. He finally suggested we exercise together and it's day 3 and he got pretty angry :(

Tl;dr My loving, sweet, patient, kind, boyfriend becomes a big groucho when he exercises but we both know it's good for him. How do I help him not get so angry? I know experiencing his anger is as fun for him as it is for me to deal with.

He's always hated exercising and he gets away with not doing it because he's slim and relatively fit looking. He appears to have biceps and triceps and some abs despite sitting in a gaming chair 10 hours a day most days. Lucky genetics.

He has hyper mobile joints and knows gaining muscle would ease the stress on them. Doctors have said it for years. I work out consistently 4-6 days per week and have been for years. He finally suggested we try a routine because he likes One Punch Man and saw that guy who did the One Punch challenge. I got excited and made a visual thing to check off each day and he really liked it. I made gradual increases that he could manage over the next 9 weeks.

To start we did 25 push ups, sit ups, and squats, and ran/walked 1.5 miles.

He was angry afterwards the first day. Cool, i expected it. He warned me a lot. Second day he was pretty sweet and nice. Today he snapped at me as we were walking to the gym and then got all pissy and saw someone else in the apartment gym and angrily said he wasn't going to and I gave him some time and tried talking to him and he snapped at me again.

He's normally so so sweet and patient and kind, but exercise makes him so angry. He said it's not like a trauma thing, he just hates being sore and tired and sweaty so much. He played soccer and then baseball from elementary school through freshman year of high school and loved it. He also likes rock climbing sometimes.

I was so excited that he finally suggested it on his own after I'd tried inviting him a dozen times, telling him he was always welcome.

What do I do? He says he knows it would be good for him but he just hates it so so much. His love language is having his favorite foods home cooked so I've been cooking extra. Steak, chorizo hash, banana waffles with homemade whipped cream and homemade dark chocolate sauce made from fancy chocolate bars from my trip to Switzerland a couple weeks ago. He's loved it all. I'm trying to make it as easy as possible for him, but he's so angry. I know once he gets passed the initial soreness it'll probably be okay. He said he's never worked out enough to reach that point ever.

He's currently sitting at his computer crying a little because he's frustrated at how angry he gets from exercising and for snapping at me.

Do I give up? Do I have him talk to a therapist again? (he used to see one for college stress related issues)

Any similar experiences or advice? I would appreciate anything. I just want to talk to someone about this and my next therapy appointment is in a couple weeks.

Submitted June 03, 2019 at 09:16PM by c-r-i-k-e-y http://bit.ly/2wxG6TK