How do I tell someone I love
I couldn’t tell you the number of times I have had someone come up to me and tell me a story about a loved one. “Kristin, I have a mother/father/sister/brother/friend who really needs help. He/she is such an amazing, kind, fun person but I think his/her weight is really holding him/her back from true happiness. He/She has tried to lose weight many times but never seems to stick to it very long. Now it has gotten to the point that I am scared for his/her health. I don’t know what to do?”
How do you tell a loved one they need to change? YOU TELL THEM. You just tell them. Tell them the truth. Straight forward. No sugar coating. If your intentions are in the right place how could it hurt. Just know full well going into the conversation that the person is either going to acknowledge what you just told them and change, acknowledge what you just told them and not change or just flat out get mad at you because the truth hurts. Regardless of the outcome at least you do not need to sit back and torture yourself with the situation any longer. At least you know you did what you felt you needed to do.
Now, you may be thinking “but is it really my place to say anything?” I am telling you sometimes we need to be told. I knew I was overweight. I knew I needed to change but I always managed to ignore it. I always managed to sweep the problem under the rug. Sometimes we need people in our lives to remind us about what we need to do.
5 comments
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I once had a friend confront me about my weight. But, I felt attacked. I found myself cornered as she told me I should have weightloss surgery. I really felt attacked and my defensiveness was not helpful. I felt judged. The approach is very important!
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Thanks for the blog Kristin. You have this amazing ability to talk about issues that are on my mind. I am compelled to post a comment to reinforce what you have said. If there are those you love in danger, TELL THEM. This is a timely topic for me. My sister had surgery yesterday to get a gastric band. Good news.. however, she was allowed (insurance coverage) to have the surgery because she is in liver failure and is too obese to be eligible for a transplant. If her liver fails before she reduces her BMI enough to be eligible for a transplant, she dies. The cause of her liver failure, fatty liver from years of being morbidly obese. DONT WAIT to talk to you the ones you love. If we had been stronger, would her life have been different? I won’t know because I didn’t act.
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I have been married to my husband for 7 years now, but we have been together for a total of almost 11 years this coming February. In those years I have seen his nephew grow to a men’s size XXXXXXL. He is so bad off that even normal central air conditioning isn’t enough to keep him cooled off in the summer. He actually has to have a seperate window air conditioner to keep cool. My mother-in-law and I have expressed to his mother and him time and time again of our concerns for his health. But everytime we do he either shruggs it off or he will walk out of the room. What else can be done? I would love some suggestions.
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WOW Kristin! Thank you for this post! I’ve wrote a few blog posts about how I WISH someone would have said something to me sooner…although I had reached 342 pounds, not for a moment did I “feel” the detriment of my weight, not for a minute did it seem as extreme as it had become. I knew in the back of my mind I was overweight, but I hadn’t faced the facts and come to the realization that I was literally killing myself. Love often tries to “ignore” our issues that truthfully need dealt with because in that persons mind they feel as though they are protecting our emotions by remaining silent. In the end it only hurts the person more. I quote the Bible verse Proverbs 27:6 ALL the time, “faithful are the wounds of a friend,” because when you are coming to someone with the right heart and motive, it very well may wound them for a period of time, but the intention is for the end result to be them waking up to see the truth of the matter. It wasn’t to harm them but to help them in the bigger picture.
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This one is hard for me. I had an “intervention” performed on me by my mother-in-law and her best friend while I was with the two of them for a weekend getaway. I can’t say that she helped me at all…in fact, our relationship is still hurting because of that night. I am really trying to learn how to get rid of that pain and work through it, but every pound I lose (70 since June) makes me mad…yes, mad…because I feel like my mother-in-law thinks she played a part in that weight loss…AND SHE HASN’T. I don’t want her feeling like it was her who created this change in me. I struggle with this every time I see her. I can’t tell you how many times she said things or gave me a look or I walked in on a conversation she was having with one of her friends about me and my weight. The other night she came over to the house and wouldn’t quit going on about how beautiful I was now, and how proud she was…I know she was trying to compliment me, but it pissed me off! I guess I wasn’t beautiful or worth feeling proud of before? I’d imagine all of this is another emotional brick that gets mortared into the wall as we go through a weight loss journey, but this is a BIG one for me because it hurts really badly and I don’t know how to repair those feelings. Do you have any suggestions, Kristin, or anyone else? How do you deal with that feeling of not being wholly accepted as a big person, but now that you are losing weight, people do accept you? And how do I get over my whole thing with my mother-in-law?