She grew a human baby inside hers for almost a year while I polluted mine with whiskey and beer. Here's how not to be an insensitive arse about your partner's post-baby body.
I came home from work one day to find my partner in our bedroom with piles of clothes strewn across the floor. As I walked into the room I was nearly decapitated by a flying black and white polka dot cardigan. I peered into the walk-in robe and saw my partner furiously sorting through her clothes.
“What are you doing sweetheart?” I asked nervously.
“I’m throwing out anything I can’t fit into anymore.” She replied in a tone which suggested ‘question my methods at your peril!’.
“Uh, are you sure you want to do that?” I asked, digging myself deeper into the hole.
“YES!” she replied, so curtly I should have realised then the mess I had waded into.
“But what are you going to wear when you return to your normal weight?” I queried, thinking perhaps she hadn’t thought this through.
She didn’t reply and instead refocused on what she was doing before I entered the room.
Looking back on it now she would have been well within her rights to pick up her sharpest high heeled shoe and lob it directly at my head. But all I had to contend with was pair of black knickers flying past me onto the ever-mounting pile.
At the time I figured I should shut up and let her be. If she was that determined then there was no changing her mind anyway.
Later that day
I hadn’t realised the hurt I had caused her until later that day when we sat down to dinner.
“You’re assuming I’ll be able to return to the weight I was and that might not even be possible.” She said out of the blue.
At first I simply looked at her confused, wondering what the hell she was talking about. Then I heard myself saying the words ‘your normal weight’. At that moment I hated myself.
A series of images flashed across my mind:
That time she tried to fit into her favourite jumper and cried when it was too tight.
The slightly bitter look in her face when she was showing me photos of the holiday she took when she was in her early twenties and super skinny.
Her looking for wedding dresses online and complaining that all of them would be unflattering on her.
Her crying when she first got stretch marks.
And finally, the hurt expression she had on her face when I talked about her ‘normal weight’.
Through hell and back
She had put her body through incredible stress and transformation to provide us both with a child:
Her thighs with which she already had an emotionally tumultuous relationship. Her stomach that she rarely admitted was flat and smooth. Her body that suffered constant aches, cramps, bloating and general discomfort for 9 long months. The same body that, despite all the energy used to deny it, she couldn’t help but compare to friends, co workers and celebrities.
To provide us both with our beautiful daughter she had put her body through hell and yet I saw it fit to inform her I was expecting her body to bounce back to exactly as it was before the pregnancy?
I held her tight and apologised profusely. I reassured her that I loved her and that she was and is the most beautiful creature I had ever laid eyes on and all I wanted was for her to be healthy and happy, in whatever form that takes.
Forget weight, forget clothes, forget appearance. Health and happiness is all that matters.
Health and happiness.
This article was originally published on New Dad Lessons