Surviving the Domestic Jungle

My husband came home from work today and told me a story about seeing one of the women at his work and she said to him “you’ve gotten fatter!” My husband was actually a little irritated by this which is very understandable. He has gained weight but it was only because he quit smoking (YEAH!!) and gained 30 pounds which he needed to gain anyway. He looks great but I guess she hadn’t seen him in a while and the difference was shocking to her. When he told me the story the first thing that popped in my mind was ‘what would happen if a man said that to a woman?’ He would probably be tarred and feathered and then forced to leave the country. Ok, obviously over dramatic but come on! A woman would have probably been in tears and freaking out and it got me wondering why women are so sensitive about weight yet we talk to men like they are made of stone and don’t care about their weight. Most men would have you believe that they don’t care but of course they would love to look like the hot guy on the beach with the ripped body. Who doesn’t want to look like a perfect specimen? I sure do but I don’t have the time to work out all the time and I have no desire to eat 100 calories a day and the only pack of anything with 6 in it I care about is toilet paper. Ok I am getting away from my point which was women and men talking to each other in a similar fashion being completely unacceptable. I actually feel sorry for men. They have to be so careful with everything they say and pretty much everything they do at work all to come home and still have to watch what they say! Oh well, can’t feel too sorry for them but when it came to my husband’s story I was a little shocked by that woman. He has been asked if he has gained weight and people have said he looks ‘different’ but never just a blunt ‘you look fatter!’ He is pretty thick skinned so I am sure he hasn’t put much more thought into it but I thought it was such a wonderful example of how we talk to men like they can handle what we say. Men actually have it pretty hard on a couple of topics. We will freely tell them they look bad or blow off their sexual advances because we are too tired (everyone loves rejection!) and we will have no problem telling them their hair looks terrible! Now flip the situation and you would have a lot more divorces and therapy. I would flip out if my husband was that hard on me! I’d cry! I think we need to start maybe treating men like they have feelings buried deep down in their furry chests. Somewhere beyond the jerk things they do lies a heart and feelings and perhaps I will start being a little more aware of just how hard I am on my big fat husband!!