Carolyn Hax, February 20 2024: “Sedentary girlfriend’s weight gain is affecting their relationship.”

Nudge-nudge, wink-wink.

Link to original letter here.

My take: To recap, the LW’s girlfriend is not into physical fitness and has gained a lot of weight. The LW is “very fit and enjoy[s] exercise and all of its benefits.” He loves her, but wants “her consistent weight gain” to stop. How can he tell her?

Carolyn tells him: “Her inactivity is the relationship problem; her weight simply made that visible.” The italics are hers.

And this is after the guy very clearly wrote: “She still is just not very interested in establishing a fitness routine. That’s okay and her choice, and I accept it, but the significant extra weight is starting to have an impact on me and how I view our relationship.”

In other words, Carolyn explicitly tells the LW that he doesn’t feel what he explicitly says he does feel. She tells him he actually feels what she wants him to feel. She’s correcting his question; saving him from himself. You can almost see the big, silent, nudge-wink.

How the LW or anyone else should feel about weight is an important topic, but it’s arguably irrelevant here. The LW implicitly asks Carolyn to accept his feelings as as given. He certainly provides no reason to think he can change them. Like him or not, he makes an obvious effort in this letter to be both truthful and fair. He is not gratuitously cruel. So Carolyn’s response is advice-column malpractice, IMHO.

Chance this letter is fake: Very low. He’s so obviously trying to be honest-but-fair that it’s pretty hard to believe he’s making it up.