A No-Win Question You Never Want to Hear and a Couple of Tips

The scenario goes like this: You and your significant other are in the bedroom getting dressed to go out -- not even for an evening on the town but maybe to the grocery store or local Taco Bell. Your wife/girlfriend (I'll just refer to wife henceforward) is getting dressed and stares at herself in the mirror. Just because you happen to be in the room, a bombshell drops into your lap, with the question, "Am I fat?" You have noticed that your wife has put on some pounds, and despite the new wardrobe of loose-fitting attire, you can see the bulges. It's not really an issue with you because you are carting around a watermelon-sized bulge in your abdomen. It matters even less if intimacy has flown out the window ten years earlier.

You're confronted with a dilemma -- to tell the truth or to simply make up some half-assed lie. Now, I tried telling the truth. I felt I had to because it looked like my wife had doubled her size since I married her, and I thought a lie would be too obvious. I said something to the effect that her body had taken on a pear-shaped figure. This was not very accurate, but the comparison to a pear REALLY pissed her off. (Maybe I should have said she had the overall shape of a potato?)

There were a number of follow-up questions, like "Am I a cow?" You know the routine -- at least you older guys who have been in the same relationship for a long time. You're wife wants your opinion, but she really doesn't want it based on any true eye-ball measurement (after all, you haven't seen her naked in ten years, so everything is a pure guess). For the younger guys, if you get tossed this can of worms, and your honey is slim, just make a "pfffft," sound.

Somewhere I heard that women see a worse picture of themselves in a mirror, and men see a better one. God, I hope that isn't true because I think I look pretty awful. But, the point here is that women have a worse opinion than what is reflected, so they are basically looking for reassurance.

Reflexively, I'm the type of guy who just tells the truth, and I have to work on that.

For the rest of the day, into the evening, and as a last gesture before shutting the door to her bedroom, I got this snarly grimace of an expression. Neat stuff, eh?

So, the solution is to lie. If you can't do that, play up her remaining good features -- whatever they be -- her hair, her fingernails, the sparkle in her eye. This is the only way of staying out of the dog house even if you are living in separate bed rooms already. The extra pounds may be of no difference to you... especially if there is no sex or even close intimacy. My wife complained that when I caressed her I was secretly measuring how much lard was on her bones. So, I gave up doing that. But, if you are going to continue to live with your wife/entity, you have to be super-indulgent of her vanity issues. Some men are more adept at this than others. Judging myself, I'm rather a clod, so I struggle and trip over my own feet. Having given up the idea of any form of intimacy, my mission now is to just maintain some kind of continuous peace in the household because I cannot stand discord. My mother was a loose cannon, so when I'm with my wife who is acting irrationally, I can feel those cannon balls whizzing past my skull. So, good luck to you, gents. Try to say as little as possible on the subject because this is an area where you can only lose.