Dear Amy: I have been married for 16 years and have been with my wife for 18. She is 5 feet, 4 inches tall and has always weighed around 200 to 230 pounds. Eight months ago she had gastric bypass and now weighs 135.

I know she is healthier and happier, but I am miserable, as I feel I lost the person I fell in love with. She makes me feel like I am a bad person for not liking a skinnier wife, but I don’t find her sexually attractive anymore.

How can I save my marriage and find her more attractive? Do I have to settle? I am 6 feet, 4 inches tall and 320 pounds and have been heavy my entire life.

— Hefty and Confused

Dear Hefty: Extreme weight loss is a major stressor on relationships, for some of the reasons you are citing. When a person literally transforms into another person, they move through the world differently, with different interests, needs, habits and perceptions. (It’s not just about how your jeans fit.)

Spouses often assume “designated roles,” and now your wife’s role has changed. But what about you? I imagine she is also receiving a lot of positive attention, which might make your alienation and disorientation worse. Her new body might also make you feel self-conscious about yours.

Because this change is so extreme, and so rapid, I hope you will be patient as you both adjust. Please seek professional help, as you transition through this marital disruption. The hospital that performed her surgery should offer a referral for a counselor specializing in this common relationship response.

Dear Amy: Am I being heartless for wanting to cut off my 24-year-old daughter? She is engaged to be married in the fall of 2020, but she is a full-time student who does pet-sitting as a part-time job. She lives with her boyfriend, and he has a full-time job.

She and her boyfriend moved to her college city almost three years ago and we see them when they visit once or twice a year.

We have younger kids and feel that although she is still a full-time student, we have to set a cut-off age and stop paying her cellphone bill. This is the only expense we pay for her. We aren’t in the financial position to help any of our kids with college tuition.

My daughter got extremely angry when I brought up the subject of her taking over her phone bill, saying she doesn’t have the money, yet I know she pays for video-streaming subscriptions and is going to a concert for a performer she has seen a couple times already.

She finishes her very demanding semester in May and says she might take one class during the summer. How can I make her realize she is being unreasonable? Or am I being heartless?

I want to tell her to get another job during the summer and stop acting like an entitled brat!

— Mad Mom Lisa

Dear Mad Mom: The cellphone bill seems to have emerged as a major marker of emerging adulthood. (I was proud of my daughter when she suggested that she would take over the cost of her phone — and yes, she was 24.)

You are not being heartless. But your daughter and her siblings will not know what your boundaries are unless you establish them. She finishes her demanding semester in May. This would be the perfect time to transition away from your phone plan and onto her own (or with her fiance). Her pet-sitting business should pick up during the summer. She could work it around another part-time job and the class she plans to take.

I don’t think it is necessary, or even useful, to try to convince a young person that her expectations are unreasonable. You simply say, “This is what’s going to happen.” And if she grumbles, so what? Your message to her should always be, “You can handle it. We have confidence in you. You’ll be fine.” (Please don’t call her a “brat.”)

Dear Amy: “Don’t Knock My Stuff” was upset that her husband seems to find and share negative information about things she enjoys. I, too, have the same curiosity as her husband and have “ruined” things for my wife.

I think the writer was being oversensitive but that the husband clearly had taken it too far.

— Been There

Dear Been There: Thank you.

Copyright 2019 by Amy Dickinson

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