Some of the worst that really got me:
“I have this sense I’m fat and I shouldn’t be,” he says. “It feels like the worst kind of weakness.”
A 2017 survey found that 89 percent of obese adults had been bullied by their romantic partners. Emily, the counselor, says she spent her teens and 20s “sleeping with guys I wasn’t interested in because they wanted to sleep with me.” In her head, a guy being into her was a rare and depletable resource she couldn’t afford to waste: “I was desperate for men to give me attention. Sex was a good way to do that.”
He told her during sex that her body was beautiful and then, in the daylight, that it was revolting. “Whenever I tried to leave him, he would say, ‘Where are you gonna find someone who will put up with your disgusting body?’” she remembers.
Emily finally managed to get away from him, but she is aware that her love life will always be fraught.