I think it makes your point more clearly.

Thank you, Fred Pete. That’s a very important distinction!

It's everything my mom said to me for my entire childhood, come home to roost.

Oh, ugh. Ugh. I mean, I knew this was a huge issue for you, but I’d forgotten that part of it. I’m so sorry, Steph. No advice, just tons of support.

Totally unrelated, everyone should go look at my website and see the adorable little change Deena made this morning: [link]

-t, I just got back from my supplier (aka the lovely coffee place on the corner) and have nummy coffee in hand. Once I get my fix, I'll be tackling the to-do list. It'll either be the living room or the guestroom - not sure which one yet.

It snowed last night so I'm not getting on the roof and cleaning the gutters. Not a chance. And the garage is too chilly to be out there cleaning out my car. Brrrr.

OK, I have no excuse, then. I'm off to the cleaners, and then to buy a cooler, and then to clean out the old fridge and the living room.

I have never been so glad to own an iPod, I tell you what.

Tep, I had an additional thought - if he's coming from the idea that now that you are moving in together your problems and concerns become his (ie, your health is in some way his responsibility) he just needs to get over that. And it can be gotten over. And I can babble on about that later if you want, but meanwhile I need to go do the above tasks.

{{Tep}} The only wise words I have are to point at what others have said and nod. I would have been totally devastated in your position and I don't know how I would have dealt with it. The fact that you're actually trying to deal and work through it is wonderful.

Sorry I couldn't help with the procrastination, -t. But you've been working so hard with this move... and now you're almost finished - you can do it!

I tried to take a bag of trash out to the dumpster and the stupid thing is beyond full. I'm glad the HOA finally sent people out yesterday to clean up all the leaves around here, but couldn't they take their 80 bags of trash with them??

I'm a big fan of saying that it's the little things that make me happy, but it's also the little things that can piss me off, too.

Teppy, having seen the two of you together - he adores you. Why he said that - who knows - but it is clear that he thinks the world of you.

This, most definitely. And even with the little that I know of your history together, of how slowly and thoughtfully you both arrived at where you are, all I can think is that he just didn't know.

One thing that did occur to me when I met him was that he seems like a slender, ropy sort of guy, possibly the kind of person with the kind of build who just never has weight-gain issues. And IME, it's difficult for people like that to fully understand, at a bone-deep level, just how scary and loaded those issues can be.

There are plenty of skinny weight-obsessed people who can be deliberately mean about all those issues, but there are also plenty of people for whom those issues just aren't real (there's at least one such in my family -- someone who's truly unmalicious, and truly clueless, because all he's ever had to do is walk an extra flight of stairs a day and his (tiny) gut vanishes in a week).

None of which is meant to diminish for even a second just how awful and devastating it was that your Boy said it at all. I just can't believe, from everything else I've ever seen and heard of him, that he would have said it, even out of worry for your health, if he'd had any real idea of how it would hit you.

It's everything my mom said to me for my entire childhood, come home to roost.

Oh, love, I'm just so sorry. It's terrifying, how much power a parent's words have, how they shape and overshadow your emotional landscape for decades.

Aw, Steph. I'm sorry you were hurt. It does sound like a lack of tact than a statement on his lovey feelings for you. Doesn't diminish the hurtiness, though. Don't know if you are a lover or hater of hugs, but I give them all the same {{{}}}.

I'd offer advice, or try to comfort, but being a guy, I'd probably muck it up. So, know that comfort is sending through the pipes.

And, to offer a bit of levity, I offer this link of a romantic wedding first dance. [link]

The problem with that question is that it implies that people gain weight on purpose, when many of us have watched every bite we've eaten for years and still gained. The naturally skinny have no idea what it's like. They're the guys who just have to stop supersizing their McDonald's meals for a couple of weeks to lose 10 pounds. It's probably impossible for him to know the true depth of your feelings about weight. From everything else you've said about him, I think it had to be cluelessness or temporary insanity, and not a statement that his love for you is contingent on your weight.

I'm depressed about the subject myself, having just read Gina Kolata's Rethinking Thin, which was much more depressing than her book about the 1918 flu pandemic. (What she says, essentially, is that nothing works.)

((((Teppy))))

I'm going to try blundering into this because, even though I'm male, I also have long experience in a relationship with another male. And I'm not sure if this will help, but Hubs and I have learned over the years how to phrase questions to each other. A lot of it involves asking open-ended questions.

It sounds like The Boy was stupid/ignorant rather than malicious. And needs to realize that the correct reaction to your huffing and puffing around San Francisco is, "Are you okay?" Which you could answer in any of a million ways.

And if he can't get that certain topics are simply Out Of Bounds, I'd be happy to beat him soundly about the head and shoulders with a plush Eiffel Tower. Which I just happen to have in my office.