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Internet users on a top Reddit forum are consoling a woman who overheard her husband tell his friends that he didn't find her beautiful.
Posting to the popular r/TrueOffMyChest subreddit, u/ThrowAwayAllHurt got more than 13,800 upvotes and 2,500 comments for her confession, "My husband admitted to his friends that he didn't find me beautiful. Nothing feels the same anymore."
The original poster (OP) says that she and her husband just got married and had their honeymoon. Afterwards, her husband had a video chat with his best friends. OP said hello and chatted for a little while, but then said she was going for a walk, leaving her husband and friends to chat alone—or so they thought.
As OP was about to leave, she noticed that it looked like it was about to rain, so she went back inside to get her raincoat. While fetching the coat, however, she overheard her husband's conversation.
"They started interrogation about our honeymoon and they were all teasing and laughing until one of his best friends asked him if my looks were still an issue for him," u/ThrowAwayAllHurt wrote. "My husband told her that he loved me and that we had a great honeymoon and that I'm beautiful on the inside and he said 'you can't have it all'."
Her husband's friend then asked if he'd felt that he'd "downgraded" from his previous girlfriend.
"'Maybe, but she (me)makes me happy,'" u/ThrowAwayAllHurt reported him replying.
After this, other friends said that she would look better if she lost weight, and her husband agreed.
"Nothing feels the same anymore. I always knew I wasn't beautiful but I thought that he liked how I looked, or at least, didn't mind it so much. I know he values my other qualities and that he loves me and is very kind to me but I don't feel good with him and I haven't been happy since that day (5 weeks ago)," u/ThrowAwayAllHurt wrote.
She says that though she has lost weight since then, and he's complimented her for it, hearing him comment about her physical appearance—even positively—makes her feel awful.
"I hate every encouraging word he has to say and yet I feel like I need to be more appealing to him. I feel so much hurt it's insane!" she wrote.
It's never a good feeling when the person one loves admits they're not attracted to them. People want to not only feel loved, but desired. Advice columnist Carolyn Hax weighed in on a similar story in a 2019 edition of her Washington Post column. In that column, the letter-writer found a list her husband made five years prior of the "pros and cons" of being in a relationship with her—and her appearance was on the "con" list.
Hax told her that things can change, asking her if she had made such a list, "What would your list have included then, and what would you put on it now?" In addition, a reader offered the advice, "People can grow more attractive as we get to know them. I can't tell you the number of guys who I originally didn't think were cute, but who got attractive to ME as I got to know their quirks."
Another advice columnist, Heather Havrilesky, in a 2014 edition of her Ask Polly column for TheAwl.com, called for being more straightforward about a woman's feelings when her lover—who is otherwise great—slams her looks.
"You kept your mouth shut for way, way too long. You were young. HEY LADIES! Don't bite your tongue when your new paramour starts clumsily hurting your feelings about your physical features. Make it crystal f**king clear that you are unique and beautiful in your own way and if a dude can't see that with his lazy pig eyes then he should get his rocks off with 2-D images and leave you the f**k alone. (You can get this point across without sounding like a vengeful evil queen in training, of course. Theoretically. Not that I've tried.)" Havrilesky wrote.
"Competitive hotness is also terrible for your soul, and your personality. Stay in shape, shampoo your hair, sure, but don't start thinking about your relative hotness in the room, in the neighborhood, in the town," she added. "Because here's the real truth. Are you listening? EVERY WOMAN YOU KNOW IS AN OK, PRETTY GIRL. Every single one. Every woman has been told there are hotter women out there."
The netizens of r/TrueOffMyChest had u/ThrowAwayAllHurt's back.
"This is something you need to talk about together. Losing weight for health is great, but don't do it just to please someone else. It could be something as simple as 'I really like it when you put your hair up' or 'When you do your makeup like that it's really attractive.' I know my husband has preferences, and I have them for him," u/OIWantKenobi wrote. "Please talk to him. Don't beat yourself up. He clearly loves you for you, but maybe he's just really not great at expressing how he truly feels about you."
"As a couple, they need counseling. As an individual, OP's husband needs to learn to keep certain things entirely to himself and set firm boundaries with his gossipy friends," u/firelark_ wrote. "Even if I thought my partner was ugly as sin, I'd never say a word about it lest some whisper of it ever got back to them, and I'd take offense to any of my friends trying to push me to talk about my partner negatively, even if they didn't mean any real harm by it."
"I've dated some wonderful women who were plain, ordinary or whatever, (their words) and I had nosy and rude 'friends' make comments. Same thing, I just shut the s**t down and said my love life and who I date is really nobody's concern. And if they continued I ignored them and even stopped associating with a couple of them," u/LL_is_a_Cool_J wrote. "My business is my business. The OP's husband is either immature or just an idiot. Maybe both. I really feel bad for her, that behavior is just so wrong."
"Girl... the only way you'll be able to move past this is if you tell your husband EVERYTHING YOU FEEL. Stop acting shy. Stop throwing yourself a pity party. Communication is the key to either healing a wound or finding the best solution to a problem," u/My_Immortal_Flesh wrote. "PS. Tell your husband he's not exactly Chris Hemsworth either."
The original poster told Newsweek that she was going to confront her husband about what she heard.
"I don't know how and when, tho. Thanks for the support. I'm overwhelmed," u/ThrowAwayAllHurt said.
Update 6/1/2022, 6 p.m.: This article has been updated to include comment from the original poster.
About the writer
Matt Keeley is a Newsweek editor based in Seattle. His focus is reporting on trends and internet culture. He has ... Read more