I’m dating my girlfriend (20F) for about a year and 3 months, she is anorexic and she lost about 25kg ever since i started dating her. When i first met her she had a very attractive body, big thighs, big butt and breasts, that stuff. Sadly, she got really insecure about her body and stopped eating alot, losing about 20kg in a year. Everytime i look at her i just can’t find her attractive, shes very thin, lost alot of body mass and is very pale. It gets harder everyday for me to kiss and have sex with her, and i want to know if i should do something about it or if i’m honestly just being an asshole and i shouldn’t care about my loved ones appearence.
26 comments
You should care about your girlfriends health – anorexia is a very serious and dangerous disorder.
You’re not an asshole for losing attraction to her, we are allowed to have preferences and be attracted to particular body types but you ARE kind of an asshole for being more concerned about your attraction to her than her mental well-being.
What you need to do about this is sit your girlfriend down and have a serious conversation about what she is doing to herself, offer support and encourage her to seek help.
Get help for her before she starves herself to death
If she is truly an anorexic she needs medical help.
A doctor told us our daughter was anorexic and we needed to hospitalize her. It turned out she was severely lactose intolerant, interpreted her stomach pains as anxiety, and wouldn’t eat for two days until he pains went away. Then she’d gorge, inevitably eat dairy, and the process would report. She was cured by lactaid going from 75 pounds to 110 in 6 months once we figured it out. She is healthy now for years.
So, short story, get her to a doctor. Monitor her diet.
It’s normal to not be attracted to her. If you were married I would remind you that you said “in sickness and in health”. But you’re not married. Can you stick it out while she gets help/better? What if she doesn’t get better?
It will be one of the hardest battles you’ll ever face my man.
I speak from experience helping my partner through it.
They will need your full attention, support, love and care. Anorexia stems from extreme levels of insecurity. If she ever caught on that you’re asking for advice about her attraction she would likely kill herself.
So delete this post from your account once you get some good answers.
She needs to go back to regular sessions with the psych. She was diagnosed at 12. She knows what she’s doing.
Has a major life event trigger this? Why did she get insecure once she started dating you?
Ask yourself these hard questions.
You can break up with someone for any reason, and you have a right to be attracted to whoever you’re attracted to. But if you really want to know, it is pretty fucked up to see someone suffering from a deadly disease and you’re focusing on how she’s losing her curves and you don’t want to sleep with her. You can and probably should end it, if like you’ve said in the comments this has been an ongoing issue. It’s fair to not want to sign up for that for life. But I would try to just be a little more aware of what’s important in life
It’s a really tricky situation. In my last relationship, although not diagnosed, I definitely had anorexia. I weighed around 40kg at my lowest and couldn’t find myself able to eat.
In my case, it was my relationship that made me believe I was unworthy of food, so the situations aren’t too similar.
But as someone who understands the struggles, the comments sadden me.
You are **20**. You have been by her side for more than a year, watching her deteriorate. You have been supporting her thus far, trying your best.
>”Ask yourself if you’d bail if she had cancer (instead of this particular life-threatening disease).”
“you ARE kind of an asshole for being more concerned about your attraction to her than her mental well-being.”
“Get help for her before she starves herself to death”
You are amazing for supporting her the way you have, but your feelings also matter. I don’t think you’re an asshole for being more concerned about your attraction to her than her mental well-being, because I don’t think you are.
The way I see it, your girlfriend probably looks like she’s *dying.* Anorexia has the highest mortality rate among mental disorders because those who actively suffer from the disorder *are* dying, only in slow-motion. Many people watch their loved ones wither away, trying their best to intervene and help, but failing. It’s a very complicated disorder.
The concern probably also isn’t *just* about the attraction either, but rather the way to go about it. You can’t force attraction in a situation like that.
Should you stay in a relationship with someone you’re not attracted to?
If you do, should you *pretend* to be attracted to her so she doesn’t spiral?
Should you be honest instead?
I don’t have any advice, honestly. Just remember that your emotional state also matters. You’re a partner, not a caregiver. You can only do so much.
I don’t think you’re a jerk. Anorexia is a pretty serious disorder that can really mess with a person. It’s entirely possible that you’re just tired of dealing with the fallout that’s been going on. At 20 years old, consider if this is a relationship you even want.
Even if you love her, you do not have to sit around and wait for her to die doing this. I know that’s going to sound brutal and cold, but there is a limit to what anyone else can do for her.
Someone asked if you’d leave if she had cancer and I feel like that comparison is not appropriate. It’s meant to shame you. The more apt comparison is leaving an addict. Pretending not to have a problem, hiding it, the relapses, etc.
She needs to be focusing on her own wellbeing too. And being in a relationship may not be helpful for that.
Your girl is sick. She might die. With her body image issues, sex is probably something she is doing just to make you happy, because an ED is consuming. You might tell her that while you care about her and for her, you aren’t feeling sexual attraction for her right now because you are honestly scared for her. She’s not the girl you know. Don’t focus on attractiveness, but on her unhealthy transformation. She’s beautiful inside and out but she’s wasting away. She needs more intensive help than she is getting.
To be honest man. Should break up with her, let her and her family help her health get better.
If down the line she does get better and your in a good place aswell, maybe try things again.
But yeh that’s just my advice. It’s not your responsibility for her health, it’s hers.
This is coming from a former hospitalised mental health patient.
hi, you don’t owe anyone being in a relationship with them. if it’s not healthy for you it’s ok to walk away. you can care about someone while also realizing that they bring negativity into your life. just throwing this out there for anyone who needs to hear it. 🤍
if a relationship is no longer working for you, it’s okay to move forward without them. everyone is on their own life path.
I was in this position in highschool. I broke up with her and it was devastating for both of us. Many years passed and we reconnected, and we’ve now been together for 5 years! She said the moment we broke up was what pushed her to get better, and get the help she needed. She’s very strong and I’m so proud of her. It’s a complicated illness.
I’ll say the same thing as I would for the people who mention their partner gained a lot of weight.
We are attracted to health. When health goes away by gaining or losing a lot of weight, then we lose attraction.
Society has told us we need to still love them all the same and shame on you for feeling anything different, but it’s just not how we’re wired as humans.
I have a friend who lost his girlfriend to anorexia. Her immune system and organs were so compromised that she got sick and was unable to recover. I say that simply as an example of how serious a situation your girlfriend is in. You are allowed preferences and you can like whatever body type you want. I just think that shouldn’t be your biggest concern at the moment.
everyone in the thread is saying for her to get medical help, but from the comments it seems like she’s had help from many sources for over eight years.
take it from someone who had an ED, you can throw treatments and therapists and specialists at a person as much as you want but unless someone really truly wants to change. even if someone wants to change it’s obviously still a hard road, but from what op has said it seems like she isn’t there yet.
it’s so hard to watch someone you love slowly die in front of you and i feel sympathy for both the gf and op
You should talk again with her parents. Tell them you are very concerned about this anorexia and it is way out of your capabilities to deal with it.
You think the right thing to do is to break up as bf/gf. That she needs to focus on her health.
You want her to get back to her happy self but you can only support her as a friend. The relationship is not working.
Hey friend. Coming from someone who’s in a long term relationship with someone who has anorexia . Let me tell you, it will get harder than this.
Me and my partner have been together for 8 years. And there’s been some moments where I have nearly left due to not being able to watch my partner literally starve herself to death. You are not a bad person for saying you don’t find her attractive right now , I know how skinny a human can get, and let’s not beat around the bush here.. having sex with someone who you can literally just feel there bones and sagged skin due to rapid weight loss isn’t exactly a turn on so I completely understand. It’s also that knowing of the person you love is slowly dying , who wants to have sex with that stuck in your brain?
Don’t worry about anyone bashing you in this thread , if they haven’t lived through it .. they have NO idea.
Is your partner in any long term treatment right now? If not, it sounds like this is something she needs.
Soon she’s going to be too exhausted to want to have sex anyway.
You can be honest with her and tell her your struggling to be intimate because of how underweight she is . But that will come with repercussions, I myself was always honest to my partner , I wanted her to be aware that the eating disorder wasn’t something positive. And it would impact things.
You are only young, this is a massive thing to have on your shoulders, get yourself into therapy if your planning to stay, you will need it .. trust me .. it’s so much pressure on the partners and people don’t realise. Good luck.
First, I’m sorry OP that your girlfriend is going through this. I don’t think you’re a jerk for not finding your girlfriend attractive anymore. Also, I know nothing about anorexia, but I would assume it is a severe mental health issue.
I would suggest you find a way to make her understand her anorexia and have her seek for help.
Also with an anorexic GF, fortunately she’s taking care of herself. However, what she did to her body left scares and this is unfortunately hindering my attraction sometimes… However, the physical aspect is not the main culprit of that: her very low self esteem is. Difficult to fancy someone who hates herself and her body.
If you stay, prepare to buckle up because it is, very, very, difficult. You’ll always come second to the disease, even when she’ll feel better … It will take years to get slighlty better, and if it does, the relationship has already been through very rough patch that do not bind together and rather create distance, because that’s a disease that separate.
Would I have kept up my relationship 10 years ago if I could go back in time? Probably not. Today, I love her to death and we found ways to handle it, but life is not ideal and I always have in mind the if I should stay question.
Good luck to you buddy.
No, you’re not wrong for not being attracted to sickly looking people.
That’s pretty normal.
This delusion that somehow sexual attraction isn’t affected by changes in physical appearance is ridiculous.
Preference isn’t always that dynamic.
You’re not an asshole for losing attraction to her, as others have said. As someone who struggled with anorexia and bulimia myself throughout my teens and early 20s, I can tell you that she’s not going to get better unless she wants to. AND, eating disorders are never just about the food. Yes that’s part of it, but there is always an underlying issue such as anxiety, depression, trauma, etc. Support from loved ones is great, but it’s not enough. She needs to see a professional and she needs to want to get better. I’m not telling you to break up with her, but you should know that you would not be a bad guy if you did. As much as you may love her, you are not responsible for her.
Edit: Fixing autocorrect typo
You need to get her medical help, go from there, her mental health and physical health should be the priority here
Yeah get her help. Tell her you care but also say that even though you love her, it’s hard for you to be attracted to a sick body and mind.
Not at all. That’s a massive change. Her health is more of a worry though, hope you can find her some help.
Gonna be the dickhead here but sit and have a long discussion. If she is in treatment and nothings working then what is the point? To stay around because she’s got a disorder, making yourself I’ll with worry and mentally a mess you. Look out for yourself relationships breaks and don’t break. It’s all about how you want to go on. But do not loose your mentally and health because she’s got this disorder. Nobody in the few comments I’ve read have said anything about how YOU might be feeling and mentally drained because of this. You’re both also 20 and really young. It definitely sucks a donkey shes got this disorder but unless you voice opinions and everything and make it clear you like her with more meat on her bones. If any of this makes sense. Nobody seems to realise that there’s 2 parties involved and BOTH should be happy and if they’re not then something’s wrong. Good luck! Hope she accepts help and gets better!