Me and my (now ex) boyfriend dated for a year n a half. He mentioned some months back that he has always preferred slimmer women and asked me to lose weight. For reference, I am a bit chubby but not obese and still healthy. When this conversation happened, I weighed the exact same as when we first started dating. He said he went against his usual physical preference because he fell in love with my personality first.
He told me that I would be his perfect woman if I was ‘’20 pounds lighter’’. He later admitted he was in the wrong, apologised and said he and would try work past this preference he had. He told me some weeks later that he’s not thought about it since. Skip forward about 5-6 months and I told him I gained 10 pounds. A week later we got onto the topic again. He told me he can’t get past this ‘’internal conflict’’ he has about my body not being his preference, and since trying to overcome it didn’t work for him, he again asked me to lose weight.
I felt like he never should have dated someone outwith his preference in the first place, and then ask me to carry the cost of his discomfort. So I told him i can’t be in a relationship where it’s conditional that I lose weight and don’t gain any, and we ended things.
I’m already not confident in my body and hoped to lose some weight anyways, but it felt wrong for me to do it because of my boyfriends sexual preference rather than my own health. From my side, we didn’t have any other major issues and I saw a real future with him. I don’t know if I made a mistake by calling it quits so fast, and maybe should have tried to make the effort to lose the weight instead.
TL;DR: I’d appreciate advice on if it is normal to lose weight to save my relationship. My boyfriend asked me to lose weight to suit his physical preference and instead we broke up.