So my girlfriend has suffered from an eating disorder for many years now, and because of it she is very thin and has some other health problems relating to that. She opened up and talked to me about it tonight, and told me that she thinks every male in her life only wants her to get better for one reason. She didn’t have to say what the reason was because it’s no secret she’s insecure about her chest. I honest to God do not care how big her chest is, and I’ve told her that many times, and after telling her that again and saying that I want her to get better because it’s healthier for her, she just walked away and started doing her nighttime routine. She refuses to believe that I could have another reason to want her to get better, and I don’t know how to convince her otherwise. I didn’t stutter when I spoke, but before I could explain what her being healthier means to me she left. Any advice on how I can convince her that her breast size means nothing to me is appreciated.
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You dont have the power to make her think differently or to convince her to eat. She needs professional help. I know how powerless you feel, but she will need to want help before help can be given. Keep your head up man and dont be afraid to take care of yourself.
Esp because it has to do with an eating disorder, her way of thinking is so warped she will probably never believe you. She needs professional guidance for that. Not to say you cant support her, but these are things you are going to have to let go. Sorry OP, this is a tough situation. You sound like a kind and caring person!
Make eating or snacking part of your routine as a couple. Make being healthy a routine (exercise, etc.)
Is she seeing anyone for her issues? She should if she isn’t.
Tell her that if you really were after her breasts you would’ve left her for some other girl that fills the criteria, but you DIDN’T and that means you really love her and want her to be healthier.
Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. Tell her you want her to get better because you don’t want her to die.
Convincing a person is not done through a single comment. It takes time and dedication. Basically, you just keep telling her, and you make sure you mean it whenever you say it! It might take a year, maybe even more, but eventually she’ll know you mean it.
She needs professional help. Eating disorders are extremely serious and anorexia is one of the most deadly mental disorders. She is convinced and she can’t believe you. Not that she doesn’t want to, but she just can’t. She needs help and you’re not equipped to give it. Most people aren’t. That’s why we have professionals
Unfortunately, you can’t convince her of anything.
In a weird way, when someone has such a bad eating disorder, trying to convince them of anything related to their body just feels invalidating to them. She probably wasn’t looking for you to tell her that she’s wrong. She was opening up to you and probably wanted to talk about it. Maybe you could have asked her why she feels that way or where she got that idea from. Unfortunately, telling her she’s wrong just shuts her down and invalidates her feelings.
How long have you been together? Im the husband of someone who had an eatng disorder. My only advice is you need to decide now if you want to be a part of the very ugly long and difficult process of healing AND all the times it WILL rear it’s ugly head in the future when she’s having a bad time. If you can’t see yourself being a force for good and putting in a ton of effort and pushing aside frustrations like this with her to help for many years to come then do both of you a favor and separate.
Eating disorders seriously seriously warp your entire way of thinking. *She* is so focused on her insecurities she thinks everyone else is focused on the same thing. It’s not rational and you can’t convince her with logic. Is there anyone else in her life who could help her? She mentioned males, is there a female family member like her mom who could help convince her to get help.
You might want to also post this on /r/EDAnonymous because the posters there are really helpful and give very good advice.
You can ask her what your options are. Yours, hers, and y’all’s together. Ask her if she’d be willing to try therapy. Ask her if she wants you to come with her. Tell her that you’re being truthful, but she still doesn’t believe you. I know it’s probably because of an eating disorder, but that would lowkey hurt my feelings if I was in your position. It’s hella hard supporting someone with mental health problems. There’s nothing there for you to fight against or confront because it’s all in their head. Been there, done that.
If its breast size that you want, you wouldn’t be with her since yesterday.🙄
It’s part of her ED, she’s using it for justification of her behavior and to rewrite the story internally so that she’s the victim. She needs to be in therapy for her ED.
Did you get any advice or just validation
Eating disorders require a professional, you can’t convince her on your own. Eating disorders go hand in hand with OCD, this is far beyond Reddit’s pay grade.
https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/expert-opinion-eating-disorders-and-ocd/
Her comment is a curve ball to change the focus of the conversation, essentially disarming your argument.
The reason she says that is so that you stop pestering her to change her health habits because she doesn’t really want to.
I had anorexia, and there is likely no changing her mind, unfortunately. Is she getting professional help?
You can’t make someone believe something they don’t want to believe.
Eating disorders cause a lot of really warped thinking. You can try your best to explain that you don’t appreciate the insinuation that you’re lying to her and that you’re genuinely worried she could die or end up in the hospital due to this. But she really needs professional help
As others said. This is something that you can convince her of. You need to let that thought go. This is a her problem.
The BEST thing you can do (in my opinion) is continue to be a loving & supporting partner. She has to work through her own issues and all you can do is show up. You cannot convince her, there are no magic words, you can’t do ANYTHING that will instantly fix this. This is a therapy/self love/self confidence/mental health ordeal that she has to transverse.
That’s not the kind of thing you can convince her of. I’m really far along in my eating disorder recovery so I’m much happier and healthier now, still struggle some days but overall much better than I was.
I was convinced my boyfriend thought I was disgusting. And there was nothing he could say or do to make me think otherwise. We had screaming fights because I was so convinced and I wanted him to prove me wrong but he couldn’t. Because it wasn’t something he has put out there.
You will drive yourself insane trying to convince her. I am so lucky my boyfriend stuck by me, he almost didn’t, because he was so burnt out emotionally. Like another commenter suggested, therapy for yourself is a must. You need to be able to get support for yourself during this. Set boundaries with her too. You don’t need to be angry but honestly tell her how this makes you feel too.
I’ll never forget when my partner told me, “You claim I think things that are pretty awful about you. What kind of person do you think I am? Do you know terrible it makes me feel that the person I love more than anything has such a low opinion of me that they think, that I think they’re disgusting?” Really eye-opening. I suggest telling her how it makes you feel, that you understand where it’s coming from and that you don’t blame her but that it hurts you too.
It sounds like a “diversion tactic” on your GF’s part, shifting the focus from “you have an eating dissorder” to something else she can pretend to be offended about.
I have no advice on how to dea with a SO with an eating dissorder, but I’d just tell her that you fail to see how the “chest size” has anything to do with eating/lack of eating, otherwise an ENTIRE breast enlargement ndustry wouldnt exist, then march her to some mental health professional to get help.
Just to echo what everyone else has said having been there myself, she doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with her mentality. I used to think that starving and purging were GOOD for me. At the time, I thought anyone who would try to tell my otherwise was trying to sabotage my “progress.” She’ll need to come to the realization that it’s actually not great herself.
You’re trying to have a logical conversation with a mental illness and coming up against a brick wall . Eating Disorders distort the perception of the body but also create false naratives in the patients mind. Trying to convince her that her perception is skewed won’t work . She needs treatment and has to accept that she is ill and that her illness is a liar and actively trying to kill her . Until she accepts that there’s nothing you can do .
I don’t think there’s a way to convince her. The only reason why she thinks you hate her breast is because she hates them herself. The only one that can help her is a therapist to boost her self esteem and help her recover from her eating disorder.
There is a reason eating disorders are the deadliest mental illness. It doesn’t matter how much people support her. She will warp any help that’s given into something to feed her disorder. She will convince herself that it’s manipulative so that she doesn’t have to face the reality that she’s killing her body by prioritizing being thin or over the control of what/how she eats. She needs help and i’m sorry but most average people are not equipped with enough resources to handle the help she needs. These aren’t normal insecurity issues, these are disordered patterns of thinking. So clarifying what you meant isn’t going to work when she’s already heard what she needs to hear to encourage her to stop eating.
Counseling, this insecurity is turning into paranoia
One thing I’ve noticed with situations like this is that the person making the accusation often does not see how insulting they are being to reduce their SO to that kind of person. They are so clouded by their negative thoughts about themselves that they honestly do not see that they are being incredibly mean to the people around them by lumping them in with creeps and assholes (that don’t actually exist).
If she doesn’t like herself and wants to play victim, then she needs professional help. It’s not your responsibility and she shouldn’t dump these problems on you.
I don’t like comments such as “I don’t care about your breast size” or “your breast size means nothing to me”. Would you say this to a busty woman? Busty women get nothing but praise and worship. They hear their breasts are spectacular, impressive, splendid. They are treated like a goddess. Whereas all that small chested women can expect is if a guy “doesn’t care” about our breasts. I agree with your girlfriend. Guys only want thicc, curvy and BBW these days.
I believe that you are doing everything that you can. In my personal experience, you can only offer as much help as a person is willing to take. It is up to them to make the necessary changes in their life to be healthier and happier.
It might be hard for her to take advice from you if she is insecure about her physical appearance and you’re her partner. If you are able to, maybe you can reach out to one of her family members or friends who she trusts and they can try to give her some advice?
You don’t. This ain’t about you. It’s about her. Nothing you can do will help her. She needs a professional
Hmmm… You could tell her “If I wanted bigger boobs, I would pressure you for a boob job. I want you better because I love you and you’re destroying yourself”. But honestly, I doubt I’d anything you tell her will have impact. Most people with eating disorders suffer from body dysmorphophobia and have to go through treatment, sometimes even hospitalizations.
“Any advice on how I can convince her that her breast size means nothing to me”.
Seriously? I think you have already more than convinced her that her breasts mean nothing to you. Do you ever compliment her breasts? Or do you totally ignore them and avoid even mentioning them? No wonder she is insecure about her chest. Busty women get compliments and affirmation all the time. Small breasts just get ignored.
This has nothing to do with you, this is all in her head and she needs to get some help.
As stated she has an eating disorder, she has a skewed idea of her breast. She has body image issues and needs treatment. You will not convivence her but you can encourage her to get counseling.
I’d just ask her
If your chest was an issue, why would I be with you?
Pull an uno reverse, tell her you’re an ass man
Wait I’m confused. Do you mean she’s skinny but with large breasts and she’s insecure about that? So she’s eating less she her breasts don’t get bigger? Because all the guys are after her chest?
Yea echoing what others said, it doesn’t matter what you tell her unfortunately. Eating disorders really mess with your mind and your perception. She needs professional help.
I have what I consider a pretty mild eating disorder and from what I have experienced the therapy is very intense. We have an intensive outpatient program here I was referred to and it’s 6 days a week 8-5. I haven’t gone because I have to work but they won’t let me do it part time because you need intense therapy to work through the traumatic shit that started your eating disorder to begin with, and you need to relearn how to eat and how to view food. It really sucks. I wish I could go because I hate every day of my life because of how much I despise myself and view myself negatively. It’s really sad but you’re a good partner for caring.
She needs professional help. You could probably tell her a million times and she’s not going to believe you.
Mental issues come along with eating disorders. So it’s not u. If she’s not in therapy, she should get into it asap.
It’s going to be hard to convince her because this is likely related to her body dysmorphia. Is she in therapy or getting professional help?
This isnt something you can fix. No matter your words of affirmation or your thought and intentions behind it, she cant see it. This issue is bigger than you. She needs to seek help herself.
She needs therapy man, nothing you do or say will fix her. You can’t fix her and it isn’t you’re responsibility to fix her, trying to will only drain you.
Your girlfriend has been traumatized to the extent of hating her body. She more than likely was victimized by someone she trusts. It’s not easy to open up about this kind of thing but her eating disorder takes her loss of control and puts it back in her hands. This is a very serious mental breakdown and will totally destroy her life if it doesnt kill her. I personally had an eating disorder for several years and have lasting physical damage from it. You should talk to her parents and siblings and convince hr to seek treatment immediately.
She will need professional help, I will try to find a few useful links for you! recovery is hard but not impossible, i wish you both the best!
Simple talking that you will have with her after getting advice here may not be that helpful as no matter what you say she will find ways to defend her thinking. She needs professional help to get her confidence back and fix her insecurities about her breasts. You can ask her to read this post of yours even though she feels bad and let her read the comments that this post gets so she can understand how others think of this situation and what she needs to do to get better to make this relationship stronger.