Married Guy Feels Trapped, Depressed in Marriage to Fat, Lazy, Ingrate Wife / 2015 Study: Married People Fat, Single People Skinny
There are several different things I could say about this married man’s letter to Dear Abby. I don’t know if I want to get into all of it or not.
Before I give you the letter, here are a few comments or other links pertaining to the guy’s letter.
I suppose I’ll start with his complaint that his wife weighs 300 pounds.
I saw a study the last week or so that says married people are fatter than singles. Hee hee.
(Link): Married People Are Fatter: Study
(Link): Marriage and Weight Gain: Why Couples are Fatter Than Singles
by Catherine Griffin
Jun 29, 2015
Could marriage make you fat? That may just be the case, according to a new study. Scientists have compared couples to those who are single and have found that while couples eat better, they also weigh significantly more and do less exercise.
(Link): Married people are fatter than singles, study claims
People who are married or cohabiting are more likely to be overweight than singles, a new study suggests.
Researchers from the University of Basel in Switzerland and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Germany collected data from 10,226 people across nine European nations: the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, Russia, Austria and the Netherlands.
They compared people’s relationship status with their body mass index (BMI). This is a method used to check if someone is at a healthy weight and is calculated using height and weight to get an approximation of body fat.
People in a couple have a higher BMI than single people, the researchers found. This was the case with both men and women across all nine of the countries sampled.
The average BMI for single people was 25.7 for men and 25.1 for women, whereas among married couples, the average was 26.3 for men and 25.6 for women.
According to the World Health Organisation, a ‘normal’ BMI is between 18.5 and 25. Anything over that is overweight and a BMI over 30 indicates obesity.
However, the study also found that married people tend to eat more healthily than single people. Married men, for example, were more likely to buy organic or fair trade food than their single counterparts. Despite this finding, University of Basel assistant professor of health psychology and study author Jutta Mata said that “couples are not healthier in every respect, as has previously been assumed”.
For example, single men participate in sports and exercise at a higher rate than married men do.
—- end excerpts ——
A lot of Christians try to guilt trip and scare singles into marrying by quoting studies that claim that singles do not have life as easy as married people.
Singles are supposedly going to be miserable or die younger than married people.
You can read one example here of how famous Christians use scare tactics on singles:
First of all, none of this is true (Bella DePaulo has written many a blog post debunking anti-singles claims such as those).
Secondly, the Bible does not say it is wrong to be single, or that it is detrimental to one’s health to be single.
The Bible does not teach that marrieds necessarily have life easier -or- harder than singles. Both marriage and singleness come with distinctive sets of advantages and disadvantages and perks and drawbacks.
That is one reason I feel it is a little dishonest for Christians to try to portray singleness as being more dangerous or horrible than marriage. If you are a sola scriptura Christian and believe that marriage is better for people than singleness, then, in my view, you really need to make that case from the Bible, rather than quoting from secular psychiatric or medical studies.
This is not to say I am opposed to Christians using secular medicine or psychology, but that if Christians are trying to make being married some kind of doctrine or station of life that they think God commands all to enter, they need to prove it from the Bible – not from quoting studies by researchers.
But Christian leaders such as Mohler love to quote from secular studies (which tend to be flawed, per DePaulo) that claim that marriage is better for people’s mental or physical health than singleness.
Secondly, there are many single adults who WANT to be married, but they have not been able to find a partner.
See:
I mean, really. I would like to marry but haven’t been able to find a Mr. Right.
So how do you think it makes someone such as me feel to see these jerky, obnoxious Christians, such as Mohler, gleefuly and happily rejoicing on their blogs, magazine articles, radio broadcasts and TV appearances, that I will supposedly die sooner than my married counterparts, or that I’ll get a case of crippling depression because I lack a life partner?
DEAR ABBY LETTER
Next we have a letter by a married guy to Dear Abby who is upset because his wife is overweight, lazy, and a spend thrift.
One of the things I find strange about this letter – were there no warning signs? I mean, did he not notice when they were dating that this woman has a penchant for being messy and so on?
I have a few more things to say about this letter below:
(Link): Marriage To Slovenly Wife Brings Man Close To Tears
DEAR ABBY:
I have been married 40 years, and it’s just the two of us.
I work full time and make a good living. We have a large house in a great neighborhood.
My problem is my wife. She hasn’t worked throughout almost all of our marriage and has to be the laziest person I know. We haven’t slept in the same bed for 20 years. She weighs 300 pounds and is always going to diet, but never really does.
She sleeps in her own bedroom with a huge walk-in closet piled up to the top shelf with nice items she refuses to put away. She also has a separate bathroom and living room.
Her section of the house is a pigsty. It stinks to high heaven because she never gets around to cleaning it. The kitchen is worse. She never cooks a meal. Either I do it after cleaning up, or I live off TV dinners.
When it comes to our finances, we’re up to our eyeballs in debt. She spends money like it grows on trees. If I ask a simple question, her replies are mean and sarcastic.
I would have gotten a divorce a long time ago if I could afford one.
I’m a reasonably good-looking guy. I could have had an affair ages ago, but I wasn’t brought up that way.
Don’t bother saying she should get counseling. According to her, she has no problems.
I am so tired of living the way I do, I could just cry if I thought it would do any good. What do you think?
— BUMMED OUT IN SAN DIEGO
DEAR BUMMED OUT:
If your wife is happy living this way, she may be right. She isn’t the person with the problem — you are.
Although she may not be open to counseling, you should have some to help you understand why you have tolerated this one-sided arrangement for 20 years.
You say you may not be able to afford a divorce, but if what’s driving you to the poorhouse is your free-spending spouse, it would also be in your interest to consult an attorney to find out if it’s possible to break that cycle.
— end letter —–
I do think that both members of a marriage, should, if they can, health permitting, stay in shape and stay as attractive as they can for their mate.
What I said above about partners staying in shape? This goes for men as well as women.
There are a lot of men of all ages – even fat, balding 45 year old men or older – who think they deserve women who look like models. A big no on that.
I am a visually attuned female. I care about what a man looks like – face as well as physique.
If the guy has a really great personality or treats me well, I am willing to be less stringent on what I prefer in a guy physically. But I will not date or marry a shlobby slob.
Guys need to stay in shape, too.
Also, a lot of men need to have reasonable expectations for their wife or the women they want to date.
You cannot realistically expect your 50 year old wife to look as though she is still 19 years old.
Which is not an excuse for middle aged men to try to date 20 somethings:
It’s not that women ages 35, 45, 55 and older don’t look attractive in their own right, but a 55 year old woman is not going to look the same at 55 that she did at 25, unless she’s a super wealthy movie star who can afford lots of premium cosmetic surgery and personal trainers.
I believe people should do their best to date people within about five years of their age, either plus or minus. It’s unrealistic and stupid for every man, age 20 to 99, to want to only date 20 something women. Women do not cease being attractive or alluring once they hit 35.
You’re not going to have much in common with someone more than about ten years your age.
I don’t know if I’d blame this guy for divorcing this woman.
There are Christians who push for the permanence of marriage no matter what (even in cases of abuse, sad to say), but you only get one life down here.
If you’ve made an honest go of saving the marriage, and you are just utterly miserable with your spouse (like the guy in this letter), I don’t blame him, or people like him, for divorcing.
I know I would not want to put up with two years of a fat, lazy, spend thrift husband, let alone, what did this guy say, twenty, or was it 40, years? of it. No way.
Related Posts:
(Link): Why We Thought Marriage Made Us Healthier, and Why We Were Wrong by Bella DePaulo
(Link): Hey, Justice Kennedy: You don’t need to shame singles to uphold marriage by L. Bonos
(Link): Is Singleness A Sin? by Camerin Courtney
(Link): ‘Why Are You Single’ Lists That Do Not Pathologize Singles by Bella DePaulo
(Link): Glad I’m Not Married – ‘Help! My Husband Caught Me Cheating and Now Wants an Open Marriage.’
(Link): There is No Such Thing as a Gift of Singleness or Gift of Celibacy or A Calling To Either One
(Link): A Long Time Single Responds to a ‘Why You’re Not Married’ Article
(Link): Myths About Never Married Adults Over Age 40
(Link): Slut? Selfish? Sad? No, just a single woman (editorial)
(Link): Lousy 40 Year Marriage – Husband Cheats on Wife for Decades
(Link): Women Are Visual And Like Hot Looking Men (Part 1) Joseph in Genesis Was A Stud Muffin
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