Chapter 1

My goal in this story is to describe my husband’s weight gain over the course of our relationship, my reaction to that gain, and maybe to provide some advice to other women who have a similar experience. I am not much of a writer and I could delay forever trying to make this perfect, so I am just going to lay it out there and maybe edit at a future date.

I will say at the outset that while I did not date a ton of guys before I met my husband I was not particularly attracted to bigger guys when I was younger. I know that that makes me different than some of the people on this site, which is fine. Likewise, you will see my husband did not sit out to gain weight again with no criticism of those who do I’m just setting the background for this story.

I first met my husband Kev when I was 19 a freshman at community college. Kev was 22 and a senior at a nearby small private college. He was a soccer player, not good enough for division I. But plenty good enough for division III. We met in late September so I was able to see the last few weeks of the soccer season. He was a strong muscular defenseman and I loved watching him muscle opponents to the outside of the field or disrupting their shot. He actually had been a Midfielder or when he first came to college as a 5’ 10” 155 pound Freshman but he got into lifting and put on about 20 pounds of muscle over the next two years before they moved him to defense. He still had a quick burst of speed and lot of strength, even if he couldn’t quite run the field as he had as a freshman.

Kev was more than a soccer player, though. He was a really good student and a mathematics major who had gravitated more towards economics near the end of college. I was not a bad student, but didn’t approach things with the same intensity and drive that Kev did. I love that about him. He always went to class, and hit the library in between. He practiced hard and often lifted after practice. Then he would hit dinner and eat a big meal to fuel a driven athlete. We would often meet in the library of his college after dinner and study together for a few hours (my grades went up that year) before heading back to his dorm room. It was nice because he had a single. Usually he would stop on the way back and pick up a Gyro or large pizza on the way back to the dorm. As the fall went on, I would stay over more.

Soccer ended and Kev got caught up in both the hard work and fun of senior year. There was a recession and so jobs were tight but after a lot of interviews, Kevin landed a good job for a regional bank. Still, interviewing took him a number of days and then he had to catch up in class. Most of the interviews were day long affairs and included a good business lunch as a way to make sure potential employees would do well in that setting. Kev kept lifting a couple times a week, but being so busy and with it getting cold, mostly stopped the cardio.

We continue to get closer and spend a lot of time together. Most of the time during the week it was dinner in the cafeteria now that he no longer ate much with the team and then studying in the library before a late night snack. On the weekend we would often go out. At that point in our lives, it was usually a casual but nice chain for dinner then a movie or a concert before hitting a diner at the end of the night. Neither of us were big drinkers, but we probably did drink more beer that spring than before. It wouldn’t surprise you to know that Kev put on maybe 15 pounds between the end of soccer and graduation from 175 to maybe 190 given his height that mostly manifested itself in his being a little thicker more muscular. This is going to be a pretty clean story but I will admit I totally loved cuddling up to a strong, solid boyfriend.

The next chapter will focus on the year after Kev’s graduation, as he started his new job and our relationship deepened.