Insecurities about her strength, or his masculinity being diminished in some way because she’s strong. Those things are potentially more serious problems. You’re right in that you’d have to be aware of that. Similar situation where one partner suddenly has a lot of success, or maybe looses weight, and the other partner feels insecure about it. Now you won’t need me, could find someone better, will have people hitting on you, etc…
We’ve all known couples where one person has a really time intensive hobby. Golf. Cycling every Saturday. That kind of thing gets negotiated all the time.
PLing isn’t as time or money intensive as spending the day on the golf course. The food component is probably more of a deal for most couples, if someone is following a diet that effects their partner or family. It’s understandably a pain for the other person to work around.
i found that my lifting was a real wedge in my marriage. My ex just absolutely refused to work with me on food, and was VERY offended when I ate more than what she cooked. and she cooked tiny meals sometimes. Like, she would make soup for dinner with like 300 calories, and I would cook myself some eggs or something afterwards to supplement the meal, and it would make her almost cry. She couldn’t understand it. The time comitment was also an issue, even though, in my opinion, it was minimal. for her, 5 hours a week in the gym was too much. mostly because she relied on me for nearly 100 percent of her entertainment. she didnt have a hobby.
What I learned from my marriage is that it’s very, very important to me to find someone who is completely on board with my lifting. I will not entertain the idea of dating someone who isn’t . That’s a red flag I’m not willing to ignore, because I know if it’s a problem early on, it will only get worse. I would prefer to end up with someone who also competes.
Sorry to hear it. That’s very hard. Yeah, I was thinking about time and money mostly, and there are certainly WAY more expensive or time intensive hobbies to have.
Also, for women with muscle, not everybody thinks that’s attractive, but it doesn’t sound like that’s an issue with Spock’s guy. It’s not like he met her before she was lifting, then she suddenly got really buff. My hubs doesn’t like me to get super lean, and I get that. People have their preferences.
Also, I wanted to say. I know I’m talking about masculine stereotypes here. Of course women we admire also have some of these positive qualities and personality traits. I was just trying to say that what I view as strong or as “the masculine ideal” is much more than physical strength or size.
no need to be sorry i loved that relationship, i got a wonderful child out of it, and i’m happy to be done with it. it taught me what i really need to look for in the future.
I feel bad for spock because i think she’s going to try to force a relationship to work that she shouldn’t be. it’s an easy thing to do. I’ve done it multiple times. It really took my failed marriage to realize that only leads to really really bad things, and that love and admiration for your significant other do not make up for certain types of wedges, particularly basic lifestyle differences. Spock’s work in the gym seems to be so integral to who she is that it seems incredibly troublesome that she’s with someone who has even a little bit of a problem with it.
At least she doesn’t use steroids. That makes things even more complicated, lol.
A friend of mine (about 15 years my senior) had a first marriage dissolve in similar fashion. He was/is a very competitive distance runner (we’re talking a collegiate-All-American and Masters-national-champion caliber athlete), and his first wife would say things like “Do you have to run every day?” and complain that she had to do too much laundry because he ran every day.
I was completely baffled by this - putting some blame on both parties…I mean, how did she not realize that running was part of the fabric of who this guy was? Like, didn’t you guys date for awhile first? How did she not see / understand that running was always going to be a major part of his life? How did he never make it sufficiently clear that he expected to remain a high-level athlete, and would be training accordingly?
Anyways, learning from his experience…
…likewise, this became a criterion for me in any prospective relationship. I was naturally more attracted to “athletic” women, but (selfishly) I also knew that I would be most happy with someone that was a) OK with me somehow working out 5-7 days per week and b) at least somehow “active” or “athletic” herself.
Maybe take this with a grain of salt (I’m 30-turning-31 and we’ve only been married for a year) but I feel like we’ve hit the right balance. My wife and I don’t do all the same workouts (we both lift, run, and do yoga, but the pie chart looks a little different for each of us - I’m probably 5 days a week of lifting, 1 day a week running, 1 yoga class a week while she’s more like 2 lift, 2 run, 3 yoga) but we both know that it’s important to each other and plan appropriately so we can enjoy our pursuits and still get time together.
I don’t think that’s true for everyone, BTW; there are some highly competitive athletes who have a totally nonathletic SO, and that’s totally fine. I’m speaking just about myself personally, and I assume there are others in the forum who feel the same.
Im with Flip on this one. Similar experiences in life, staying in relationships when you are young and naive, then looking back when you are older and wiser asking yourself why did I waste my time? Sounds like deep seeded insecurity issues of his that will most likely never fully go away, although he may temporarily be able to mask it if he wants to make the effort. I am not saying its worth trashing the relationship asap but if you have the talk and it doesnt go well or doesnt resolve itself, you should move on…as hard as it might be.
I learned the hard way that having a partner that encourages you to do activities that bring you happiness is mandatory. Someone that takes the joy out of your hobbies is not a healthy companion to keep.
Well I certainly understand what you guys are saying, and I agree there are some red flags for sure. But it’s not like he doesn’t lift at all, he just has some serious bro mindset stuff going on.
And my powerlifting doesn’t interfere with our time together, aside from minor things like I’d prefer date nights not come before important squat days or something where I prioritize my sleep and whatnot. He’s never gotten upset about that so I cant see him resenting me in the future for it.
I just think it’s okay if he’s insecure about this because lord knows I have a bucketful of insecurities. It makes me feel insecure that he makes so much more money than I do. I don’t like how he always has to pay for dinner and fun things and how he’s gotten to the top of his pay grade in his trade and I have no idea wtf I want to do with my life.
He’s very confident in other areas of his life, in most areas actually, just not powerlifting.
I am insecure about almost everything BUT powerlifting.
We are both very flawed I guess is what I am saying.
Being flawed is fine. It’s human. But if both of your flaws are ‘lack of communication’, than that is a recipe for disaster. Have the talks. Get comfortable with having uncomfortable discussions with each other.
Insecurities are a bitch, I know that from personal experience. Some of my insecurities made me go crazy when my relationship with my current girlfriend was very fresh. As I am dealing with mental health problems, I really mean the term ‘crazy’.
My girlfriend has a lot more money than me, she has the better body/ is more attractive from an objective standpoint and gets hit on quite a lot, she has a very time demanding and family unfriendly job, I didn’t like myself and so on and forth.
What helped me was openly talk about these issues that I was having. That is easy for me to say because a) I trust her completely and invest everything I got in this relationship and b) I am a very honest person, so if she asks me something I either explain that it is too difficult to talk about or I say the truth. Even though it was very hard for me to talk about my feelings it definitely helped.
The other thing that helped me was learning to deal with my insecurities. Hard work and takes time but it is certainly doable. I wouldn’t say that I have perfected this but I got way better at handling my insecurities and it has improved our relationship.
I guess what I am trying to point out is: This is about him, not you. You can offer to talk with him about what is bothering him to help dissolve it but you certainly can not compromise because your partner doesn’t like what you are doing.
If he insists on that, I am on Flip’s side. I would say that it definitely is something that can not be ignored.
On a side note: I think it is super awesome to share this/ any passion with your significant other. For example when you come home and tell him/ her that you have hit a PR on your deadlift and he/ she is actually happy for you or actively supports you in your competitions and training… that is very important for me personally.
Well I might be able to go toe-to-toe with you on the mental health issues front , but I really loved your post!
I don’t know if it’s all 100% all on him. If I wasn’t so insecure and always trying to people please I could have brought it up months ago after the first comment and shut it down real quick.
I’d also find it easier to have simple conversations about dislikes or annoyances without feeling awful about the slight possibility of upsetting someone that I care so deeply about.
I also worry about the timing of bringing anything up or having serious conversations because I would never want to do it after a 10 hour work day, or during work when he’s busy, or early in the morning before he goes to work. And I’d rather not spoil our conversations before bed or our date nights because these things don’t get to happen all the time and I like to enjoy them .
I have stopped bringing up my PR’s and my workouts aside from good workouts VS shitty ones, and that kind of sucks. But it also doesn’t seem to be the elephant in the room either. As in I don’t think he’s thinking about it and I am actually quite okay with just talking about lots of other things that interest me.
hey SpokieGirl!!! missed you - sorry to hear that you are having some relationship issues, but you are in a relationship with a guy that has the luvz for you!! that is most awesome!!!
I cant give you advice in this realm cause i suck at communicating with my significant other. just suck at it.
so, i just wanted to say hi - that i have always thought that you are most awesome, and KEEP LIFTING!!
This is reasonable early in a relationship, but just be advised that beyond a certain point, you have to be able to bring up serious conversations in what may feel like an inconvenient time. It’s too easy to talk yourself into never addressing a tough issue because there’s always some reason (“Oh, he just got home from work / oh, we wanted to have sex tonight, don’t want to spoil the mood / oh, we have an early morning, don’t want to get us all riled up before bed” and so on).
It’s reasonable to show some sensitivity; if I’m just in the door from work and my wife can tell that I’m aggravated, she knows that I’ll be in a better mood to talk about (money / house / insurance / whatever other adult thing) after I’ve worked out and am working on dinner, maybe even with a beer. There is a little room for “Eh, it can wait” - but if that keeps you from ever addressing something, it’s a problem.
The fact that it bothers him that you are stronger than him, and that he would rather you stop something you are passionate about and very good at speaks volumes about his own feelings of self worth.
I know you wish you could just ask him to leave the subject alone, but in my opinion the truth of it is that he is unable to do that. He likely has some issues than run VERY deep (inferiority, not being good enough) and this is one of the situations that allows you a glimpse into this part of his character. This is not something that will just go away.
Almost all strategies you could think of to fix this problem will only mask the problem, and will not fix what is wrong inside his mind that causes him to feel emasculated because you lift more than him.
Honestly though, that isn’t the real issue. If it makes him feel emasculated, that’s okay, he should work through it with you! The fact that he is taking an indirect approach and would rather you quit a hobby you love than just to deal with his own insecurities is a frightening concept, and this is something that is part of his personality, that’s not likely to ever change. Basically that shows to me he is selfish beyond belief. If my girlfriend was better than me at something to the point that it really bothered me, I would work through it and I would never let her know that, because I wouldn’t want to put her in that position or put a damper on her passion. He needs to not let his own insecurities affect you negatively, I think that’s the real problem here.
Good luck hun, I don’t want to say anything to make you feel any worse about the situation so I don’t know what else to say
You could have brought it up in the first place and shut it down quick as you said, but that doesn’t address the REAL issue, which is that he would rather project his insecurity on you than deal with it himself, or confide his insecurity honestly to you in a thoughtful way, which is something you’d think a guy would do for a girl he “treats like gold”.
Edit* Sorry if that sounded harsh, I just hate how low most girls standards have gotten, mostly due to how pathetic the male population has become these days in regards to how we treat our ladies, and each other honestly.
ALSO hand numbness is not a side effect from any steroids. It is a common HGH Side effect, but that is more so in the fingers usually. You would probably know if he was on HGH depending if you guys share finances cause he would have to be on a decent dose of pharma hgh to be getting numb hands and that would be very expensive for most people.
From the sounds of your post his numb hands are caused from something else and that could point to serious issue, maybe he should get it checked out.
Of course you are allowed to have an opinion about his steroid use. Obviously it’s his decision in the end, but every decision has a consequence.
On another tangent, I hate all the negative stereotypes and misinformation readily available about steroids, I hear things like that all the time that simply aren’t true. Many of my friends who don’t lift are under the impression that if you use steroids your penis will shrink.
i loved that relationship, i got a wonderful child out of it, and i’m happy to be done with it. it taught me what i really need to look for in the future.
, but I really loved your post!
