I sat next to him on the couch last night and felt the gap between us. Not a big gap. Just enough that our thighs weren't touching. I moved an inch closer. He didn't move away, but he didn't lean in either. We watched the show. I kept my hands in my lap.
I used to wear his t-shirts to bed. Now I wear my own oversized stuff, the kind that hides everything. I told myself it was for comfort. But really I didn't want him to see me. The way his eyes would sort of skip over my body now, like he was looking at a wall behind me.
I noticed it first with photos. He used to take pictures of us all the time. Random stuff. Me cooking. Me laughing at something stupid. Now his phone stays in his pocket. When I asked him to take a picture of me at that restaurant last month, he did it quick. One shot. Didn't even check if it was good. Just handed the phone back.
The bed feels bigger than it used to. We still sleep on the same side we always have. But there's space now. Cold space. I wake up at 3 AM sometimes and just lie there, listening to him breathe, wondering when touching me stopped being automatic. When did I become something he had to decide to reach for?
I keep replaying moments in my head. The way he kissed me goodbye last week. Quick. Dry. On the cheek. I stood there in the doorway holding my coffee and watched him walk to his car. I touched my own face after he left. Just to feel something.
I found myself on Reddit at 2 AM last week. Typing "boyfriend not attracted to me because of weight reddit" into the search bar like it was a secret I was keeping from myself. Reading other women's stories felt like reading my own diary. The same small hurts. The same quiet confusion. The same question nobody wants to ask out loud.
I gained weight and my boyfriend isn't attracted to me. I say it to myself sometimes when I'm alone. In the car. In the shower. Just to hear how it sounds. It sounds different than I thought it would. Not dramatic. Just true. Heavy in a small way. The kind of true you carry around in your chest all day.
I started avoiding mirrors. Not consciously at first. Just... not looking. I'd brush my teeth staring at the sink. Get dressed with my back to the full-length mirror. When I caught my reflection in a store window last weekend, I didn't recognize myself for a second. Just this woman with my clothes on. Standing alone.
He used to touch my waist when he walked past me in the kitchen. Little stuff. No reason. Now he walks around. Gives me space. I told myself I was imagining it. That I was being sensitive. But you can't fake the absence of something that used to be there. You feel the lack of it. Like a draft you can't find the source of.
I didn't even realize how much things had changed until I came across something that explained it in a way I couldn't ignore. I was reading about why physical withdrawal happens in relationships and it hit me that I wasn't crazy. That this pattern has a name. That other people have stood exactly where I'm standing, feeling exactly what I'm feeling.
We haven't had sex in two months. I stopped counting after that. It felt pathetic to keep a tally. Like I was keeping score on my own rejection. The last time I tried to initiate, he said he was tired. He was tired a lot now. I stopped trying. Now we just go to bed at different times. Me first, usually. So I don't have to lie there wondering if tonight's the night he remembers I exist.
I look at old photos sometimes. From two years ago. I was thinner then. Not happy-thinner, just thinner. But he looked at me differently in those pictures. I can see it in his face. The way he leaned toward me. The way his hand always found some part of me. Hip. Shoulder. Back of my neck. Like he needed to confirm I was still there.
This kind of quiet distance builds slowly without either person noticing at first. I read that somewhere. Psychology Today maybe. It made sense. We didn't fight. We didn't have some big moment. Just... erosion. Little by little. Day by day. Until one morning you wake up and realize you're living with a stranger who knows everything about you.
I bought bigger jeans last week. Stood in the dressing room and cried a little. Not because of the size. Because I was buying them alone. Because there was nobody outside waiting to tell me I looked good. Nobody whose opinion I trusted more than the mirror I was avoiding.
I started taking something called Mitolyn. Saw it online. Figured I'd try something. I don't know if it works. I don't know if I care if it works. It feels like doing something, which is better than doing nothing. Better than sitting on the couch feeling the space between us grow.
He still says he loves me. He says it when he leaves for work. When he hangs up the phone. But love and wanting are different things. I know that now. You can love someone and not want to touch them. You can love someone and look right through them. I think that's worse than not loving them at all.
I find myself watching him when he doesn't know I'm looking. Trying to catch the moment. The exact second he checks out. But he's good at hiding it. Or I'm good at missing it. Either way, I never see it happen. I just notice after. That his eyes moved on. That he's thinking about something else. That I'm standing right here and I'm already gone from his mind.
Lack of physical affection can slowly affect emotional connection more than people realize. I read that on WebMD during another 2 AM spiral. It explained why I feel so lonely even when he's right next to me. Why I feel single in a relationship. Why I stopped telling him things. What's the point of sharing your day with someone who's already halfway out the door?
I keep thinking I should talk to him. Sit him down and say the thing we're both not saying. But what if he confirms it? What if he says yes, it's the weight, and then I have to know for sure? Right now I can tell myself I'm imagining things. I can hold onto maybe. Maybe he's stressed. Maybe he's depressed. Maybe it's not me.
But I know. I know in the way he doesn't look at me anymore. In the way he finds reasons to be in other rooms. In the way I feel invisible in my own home. In my own skin.
I don't know what happens next. I don't have a plan. I'm just... noticing. Collecting evidence. Building a case against my own happiness I guess. Or for it. I can't tell anymore.
Last night I lay in bed after he fell asleep and touched my own stomach. The soft part he'd stopped touching. I tried to remember what it felt like when he couldn't keep his hands off me. When my body was a place he wanted to be. It feels like a long time ago. It feels like someone else's life.
I still love him. That's the messed up part. I look at him sleeping and I feel the old want. The old ache. But he doesn't look at me and feel that anymore. And I don't know how to fix something when I don't know when it broke. When I don't know if it's fixable. When I'm not even sure I should want to fix something that makes me feel this small.
So I'm just here. In the gap between us. In the space that keeps growing. Wondering if I should say something. Wondering if I should leave. Wondering if I should lose the weight and see if that brings him back. Or if he's already gone and the weight was just the excuse he needed to stop pretending.
I don't know. I really don't. I just know that I sit on the couch now and I don't move closer. I let the gap stay there. Because reaching out and find
ing nothing hurts worse than not reaching at all.