Thursday night. April. Family Bible study had just ended.
That’s where my now ex-husband chose to tell me he didn’t want to be married anymore.
When I asked him why he wouldn’t touch me, why he wouldn’t sleep with me, he had one answer.
My weight.
While I was pregnant with our daughter, before we were ever married, he said I was too fat. That he couldn’t be with me because of my weight.
Those words stung. And I married him anyway.
Not because I was silly. Not because I was dumb. That woman simply didn’t love herself enough yet to say, “I’m fine on my own. I don’t need a marriage to be whole.”
She does now. Divorced. Two kids, two different fathers. Still single. The marriage doesn’t define her.
Neither does the weight.
Learning to admit that I had made my weight an excuse to accept less than I deserved.
Who he was really talking to
What he said didn’t land on a grown woman. It landed on a little girl.
The little girl who always felt judged by her size. The girl who felt shy even in the presence of God because of her body.
Then came a man I loved. A man I believed in. A man I followed from Georgia to Virginia and back again. And he had the audacity to tell me my body was the reason he didn’t want me.
He apologized. He was sincere about it.
But it was said. And there is no unsaying some things.
We went to therapy. Still, I never looked at him the same.
What it actually cost
That night became the catalyst. My relationship with food was already fragile, and his words kept pressing on the crack.
After my daughter, I was bigger than I had ever been. Every time I looked in the mirror, I heard him in my ear: Because of your weight.
That’s a big part of why I chose weight loss surgery.
Would I do it again? Hell yes.
Not because surgery fixed me. Because it forced the real work. Once that decision was made, there was no getting around my relationship with food. I had to face it.
And facing it taught me something harder than any diet ever could.
The forgiveness nobody tells you about
These days, this story comes out without the pain. This is only possible from years of therapy. Years of learning to love the woman in the mirror.
Learning to forgive myself for blaming myself.
Learning to forgive myself for not forgiving.
Learning to admit that I had made my weight an excuse to accept less than I deserved.
The journey taught me to forgive other people too. People can only give you what they have. And every one of us gets a choice: keep passing the pain we received on to the next person, or decide it stops with us.
Pain that comes to silence you
Scripture says we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. We are spirits having a human experience. So when someone wounds you, look deeper than the person in front of you.
Here’s what I came to see. The pain in my life wasn’t random. It came to silence me.
Think about Jesus. They hunted Him as a baby, before He ever said a word. A child was treated as a threat because of who He would become and the message He would carry.
So what do you think happens to the rest of us who carry a light?
That’s why I count every trial, every tear, every bully as an honor now. When I look at the woman I am today, the woman I love, the woman I’m still discovering, I think: dang. I have a mighty bright light to share.
Important enough that something tried to take me out before I could shine. Important enough that the hurt didn’t stop with what others did to me. It got me to start doing it to myself.
Then a different question hit me, and it changed everything:
What was I being broken down to keep from saying?
If you’re still carrying it
If you’re still blaming yourself for what someone else put on you, get the help you need to forgive yourself.
If therapy isn’t within reach right now, that’s okay. Start smaller. Make an intentional effort to discover who you are.
Tell yourself every day: I am not my journey. I am not the people who tried to harm me.
Then ask the better questions. What is my light? What is my purpose? Who am I here to help? And why was I worth silencing?
My ex and I are cordial now. Not close. Cordial. I forgave him for my own heart’s sake, not for his.
He wasn’t the only reason I gained weight. That’s a different story, and I’ll tell it. But he played a real part in my decision to have surgery, because the pain came from someone I was vulnerable with. Someone who met me as a thick girl and was supposed to love me as one.
Time didn’t erase my wounds. It changed how I read them.
Now they’re fuel. Fuel for my faith. Fuel to be brave enough to tell this story out loud. Fuel to remember exactly how powerful I am.
Somebody worked very hard to keep me quiet.
This is my clapback, not being quiet.
This is The After Years.
A community for women living in the after. After the surgery. After the weight loss. After the marriage. After whatever tried to define you.
Fair warning: if you’re looking for just a personal trainer, I’m not her. I’m a lifestyle and wellness support coach who works with a team. Someone who has walked this road, who is still in therapy today, and who will be in your corner. I work alongside a practitioner and refer out to a therapist, because this was never just about weight. It’s about your whole life.
More is coming. The pain, the failures, the wins, and what each one taught me. It’s my time.