Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Trigger warning. The issues we are discussing today regarding body image can evoke strong emotional and psychological responses. They land differently with each individual, and it is always important that we check in with ourselves before we receive information as to whether we are mentally in a place to manage the processing of that information. It is an act of self-compassion to know when not to listen to something. Please take a moment to do this. Check-in now to decide what is right for you. And if listening to the show today brings up any issues for you, help is always available at Lifeline on 131 11 4, or through the Butterfly Foundation, who specialize in support for eating disorders and body image issues on 1 803 3, 4, 6, 7 3. Body image in relationships, part one,
Speaker 0 00:00:44 Today we're digging into the hard stuff, body image. It affects a lot of us. In fact, one in two Aussies, rarely or never speak positively about their bodies. And it affects us in more ways than you might realize. It can especially affect our relationships, the way we feel about ourselves, the way we feel about our partners, the way we connect with our partners, and the way we are intimate together. Our Australian of the Year for 2023, Taran Brum FITT was chosen as a leader in the body image movement. The time has clearly come culturally for us to open up and discuss the real impact of negative body image and how we can find a more positive path
Speaker 1 00:01:22 Forward.
Speaker 0 00:01:28 Hey, we're Kim and Rod, and we're here to show couples how to get the best out of their relationship so they can start living their dream life
Speaker 2 00:01:35 Together. We're a West Aussie couple who are living the life of our dreams. We don't entertain the word should we think about the future as a field of possibilities, and we'll let joy our compass.
Speaker 0 00:01:43 We've taken the simple idea of working as a team and applied it to our marriage, and it's been a game changer, allowing us to work out what truly lights us up in life and to go after it
Speaker 2 00:01:53 Together. From living in snowy Japan to starting our own house stripping business, we've achieved some big dreams, and most importantly, we feel fulfilled in, are having the most fun we've ever had.
Speaker 0 00:02:01 Hey, conversations from inspiring couples, thoughts from relationship experts and tales from our own lives. As we help you to gain the wisdom and skills you'll need to turn your relationship into a real team. These
Speaker 2 00:02:11 Are relationship conversations for real people, by real people. So sit back, get comfort from whatever tickles you, pickle, and enjoy living the team life.
Speaker 0 00:02:27 So today we are talking about body image and specifically body image in relationships. And I'm excited to do this show, and that might sound really funny and a little bit dark. It's not. I'm excited because one, this is a really deeply personal issue for me. It's something that's impacted me seriously, uh, at different points in my life. And I, and, and two, I really, we both believe that this is a secret superpower for relationships. If you work out how to handle body image and support your partner and yourself to have body confidence to have higher self-esteem, it is, it is a superpower. It can absolutely change. And researchers backs this up. It can absolutely change how well you're connected with your partner and how, how high quality of a relationship you have.
Speaker 2 00:03:27 Yeah, I, I think, um, that's a great way to to view this, is that if you think that there's a good, there's a good chance that your partner, whether they're male or female, has previously or currently had some sort of body image issue, um, whether that be large or small, and to say that's completely detached on how they see themselves interact within the relationship, how that might impact how they feel you feel about them, um, would be naive. And so I think it was a great way to sort of come at this from a different perspective between two people in a relationship. If you can get around it and you can discuss it, you can figure out some ways to maybe assist your partner and even, and really help yourself as well, then your, it's a bit of a life hack. You're actually, you're actually figuring out how to have a stronger relationship with your partner.
Speaker 0 00:04:26 It's complex. Even as you talk about it now, it is such a complex big issue because it's not just about how we individually feel about ourselves, that permeates the whole relationship, right? So how I'm feeling in myself and the knock on effects of that, my own mental health that impacts the relationship. But then also there's the flip side of this, which is how the partner engages you in regards to your body image. And that's got, its its own suite of issues. And what I'm gonna say, possibilities. Because when they engage you well, the potential to improve your relationship, and again, the research support system will talk more about it, is incredible. And it might again, sound weird for me to be looking forward to today to be excited about potential in this space, but I know firsthand w what it's like to ha go from having, I mean, it's like literally making me emotional to go from having a negative body image, to having a positive body image, how impactful that was on our relationship and our connection, and obviously on my own life as well. So I, I know how powerful this can be. I don't know if you feel the same way from your own experience, maybe it looks a little bit different, but yeah, it's got, it's got huge
Speaker 2 00:05:48 Potential. I I, I like, I like also that you're talking about this as a, uh, this is a hard conversation to have between your partners, but even for, for us to talk about this on a podcast. Um, but you're looking forward to it because I think what we really do try to do on this show is have real conversations. And by having the real conversations, we're hopefully providing a gateway for other people who might not feel comfortable to think about this, talk about this, let alone have a conversation with their partner or their friends or, you know, any, anyone about it. Um, and just understand that this was a hard conversation. This is going to be a hard conversation for Kim and I to have, uh, leading up to the conversation leading up to this podcast. Uh, we've been talking about this one for a long time and there's been lots of twos, Andros, and I've constantly put my foot in, in my mouth. I've said things that were inappropriate but not meaning to be, not like I was trying to crack a joke or anything. I'm, you know, I'm hopefully mature enough where, you know, that stuff's just not, not, not funny. It was never funny, but I didn't find it funny. Um,
Speaker 0 00:06:52 I think you hit on old wounds. I think, you know, this stuff impacts me or has impacted me in the past at such a deep emotional and psychological level that I'm getting pretty raw, pretty fast here. But this is the truth of it. And like you say, this is the safe space where we wanna, we want to help other people to see that having these conversations is important and can be super helpful. So I will say it was, it, it's impacted me so much in the past that even having these chats with you in show prep and show research, we were really, it, it just hit on a lot of, there's just a lot of rawness there for me still. So yeah, you did put your foot in it a few times, and I think part of the beauty of our relationship is that I was able to really pick you up on that and honestly, and, and you were able to recognize it as well. So
Speaker 2 00:07:42 I think, um, you, you, you were able to pick me up on it, but then you also understood that I was actually trying to, I was trying to see things from other people's side. I was trying to give you my perspective. And so you didn't hang me out to dry. He didn't chastise me. He just said, Hey, ROJ, this is how what you are saying can have this impact. And really I'm learning and I know I'm gonna learn a lot in this podcast. Um, so even if, uh, even if other people listen and they sort of feel like, oh, that didn't hit the spot. I'm, I'm pretty confident for me, I'm gonna take something out of it. And yeah, hopefully, hopefully people do take a lot out of it, even if it is just the ability to say, Hey, maybe I, I do need to talk about this with someone, whether it be, um, a friend, my partner, a therapist, or whatever.
Speaker 0 00:08:30 Absolutely. So on that note, uh, I just, I'm gonna dive in there as some pretty hectic stats around body image. I'm just gonna throw two out there to sort of highlight how pervasive this issue is that it impacts most of us at some point in our lives. And the first stat is that 73% of people wish they could change the way they look. These are Australian stats, 73% of people. And that just absolutely blows my mind. And then in regards specifically to relationships, research has suggested that poor body image is associated with lower levels of relationship satisfaction. That's how serious it is. It can impact how happy you are, how content you are in your relationship, and that obviously has a flow on to whether you're going to stay in that relationship, whether you're going to thrive in that relationship or whether you're gonna go in another direction.
Speaker 2 00:09:32 Yeah. So just to, I guess, um, backtrack on what I was saying before is it's likely that your partner, male or female has body image issues mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And they will bring that whether they want to or not, into how they feel about themselves and maybe how they think you feel about them. And so it will impact the relationship. And they're not doing it mainly. They're not trying to burden the relationship. In fact, you know, my my point of view is it's your, your job as their partner to support and help them through those issues. Even though of course, a big part of this is always taking, um, accountability of things yourself.
Speaker 0 00:10:11 Absolutely agree. And again, that's that potential, isn't it? If you've got potential to help your partner. We know that when we support our partners, especially through things that are very emotionally and psychologically difficult, we know that builds really deep connections. So again, you know, if your partner's having these issues and you've been framing it from a perspective of, ah, this is so hard for me and it's, it's impacting all of the relationship, I'm hoping that from listening to today, you might be able to start to switch that lens over and put a lens of potential in front of it and see that when we understand this stuff, when we make space for honest conversations, when we show our support to our partners, we grow incredibly as a couple, we build that relationship trust. And that's, that's a positive thing. And like we always say, relationships require work. You don't get it for free. You do not get to be happy for free. You have to do the work. That's the reality of
Speaker 2 00:11:13 Life. Everything worth doing requires hard work. Yeah. Um, and you really like everything in life, what you put in is, is what you take out. And, you know, I think if we can all sit back and put our empathy hats on, um, during this potty, I think it will, uh, put you in a good space to think about how other people might feel about it. And then of course, put your, put your, the mirror in front of you and understand that, hey, maybe the way you look at your body might be impacting the way you feel about how your partner looks at their body or how you feel about their body.
Speaker 0 00:11:47 Mm. Definitely linked, I think. Okay. So just to break it down for people, uh, what body image is, cuz there might be some people out there wondering what does that actually mean? And basically there are four parts to, to body image or what makes up body image. It's the thoughts we have about our body. Um, it's the feelings we have about our body. It's the perception we have. So perception is basically, um, whether how you perceive, for example, the shape of your body, you might say, I, I am fat and you might be a size 10. It's, it's a false perception, but it's the perception, it's your reality we have, right? So that's part of it. And then behaviors are the other, are the other element that research shows is part of, of having body image issues. And the behaviors we are talking about here are behaviors that people engage in, such as restrictive eating or, um, avoiding activities because of their negative body image.
Speaker 2 00:12:54 Can you just lay those four on me again,
Speaker 0 00:12:55 Sweetie? So in a really simple way to think about it is thoughts, feelings, perception. So how we see ourselves and the behaviors we engage in.
Speaker 2 00:13:05 Cool. Thank you.
Speaker 0 00:13:05 Yep. Makes sense. Okay. So with that later out, I'm gonna jump into a little bit of my experience with body issues so that we can start to understand, I guess where we are coming from when we are talking about this show and something that we've sort of been through and to build trust with you guys as well. We're not expecting to, to teach on this stuff without giving some of ourselves out into it.
Speaker 2 00:13:33 Right? Yeah. That's, that's a bit of a contract we've got with everyone here as we're asking people to listen to us and, you know, take some hints, tips, lessons, um, from our history together over 21 years. Yeah. Um, from our life experiences as we edge closer to 40 kids,
Speaker 0 00:13:48 Some of us faster
Speaker 2 00:13:49 Others. I was, I was gonna caveat that you're a little bit further away than me. Uh, but I think, you know, we, one of the, one of the ways we do hope that you can come on the journey with us is actually by exposing ourselves a bit. But please understand you are doing that. And even you, sweetie, as we go through this, if you need to take a moment, just let me know. We'll just keep recording. I can always cut it out or, you know, whatever.
Speaker 0 00:14:11 Appreciate that. Appreciate that. Okay. So the first, there are two clear phases. When I think back to, um, my, my journey with body image, there are two clear stages of life where body image really impacted me. The first one was as a teen. Um, and I went to an all girls school and body image was certainly a big issue. It was, it, I think what was taught to us, or certainly how I perceived it, was that if you were pretty, which meant being skinny in, in the nineties, if you were pretty and skinny, you, you were worthwhile. That's how deep it was. Because people paid you more attention. And especially at that age, really, you're looking for boys or girls, depending on your inclination, you're looking for the people, the, the romantic connection to pay you attention.
Speaker 2 00:15:11 So a lot of your self worth is caught up in what the other sex thinks of me and how I look to them, how cool I am, how
Speaker 0 00:15:18 It was, how good I look. Absolutely. It was for me it was. And, and society fed that entirely. And we'll, we'll talk more about that after we're just, so I just,
Speaker 2 00:15:28 Beverly Hills 9 0 2, I know
Speaker 0 00:15:31 <laugh>, what's like, I dunno what, how they
Speaker 2 00:15:34 Looked. Yeah, I think if you look at them, like all the, all the young, the people on that show were all gorgeous, like even saved by the bell. Everyone's just so good looking on TV and all that. We'll, we'll get to that later. Yeah. They just like, I, you know, may I always like to reference those times in our lives, but what tours on TV at the time, sorry. And back to
Speaker 0 00:15:53 You. No, no, that's, that's probably a really valid point. I mean, that is what the media puts out there, right? Especially in that era. Coming back to my story. So my teenage years were very difficult. I felt like I learnt when I, when I started high school, I feel like I was quite a confident young woman. I didn't really think about it like that. The more years I spent at high school and I put on weight when I started high school, which I had had always been a, a skinny kid. And all of a sudden lots of people were commenting on my body. Strangers, family, friends felt like they had a right. And as much as people say, oh, it's harmless, when someone calls you chunky or healthy, it's not to a teenager, a teenage girl is, is pretty switched
Speaker 2 00:16:39 On. Oh, just one word would just be so damaging
Speaker 0 00:16:41 Healthy. Oh, you're looking very healthy, Kim.
Speaker 2 00:16:44 You do come from a bit of a farming background. And so it was more of a, you know, you call a spade a spade and I'm not saying I'm not. Oh
Speaker 0 00:16:51 My God, I
Speaker 2 00:16:51 You didn't
Speaker 0 00:16:52 Not just mitigate
Speaker 2 00:16:53 That. I, I'm, that's, oh, okay. All right. Let's strike one. Okay. Yeah, Liz. Yeah. Uh, but no, what I'm saying is that in, in, in their world, they, they, if someone was getting chubby, you called them, you called them chubby. You didn't sort of hide behind
Speaker 0 00:17:07 Me. It doesn't mean it didn't impact the person or it's appropriate.
Speaker 2 00:17:11 No. In fact, I, I a hundred percent agree with you. I'm just saying that that's the background you had. So you were like, it was, if, if you came home and you were a bit chubby, someone would literally point it out to you straight away. Here you had nowhere to go. Yes. First part will be editing out <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:17:28 Yes. Anyway, so I was made aware that my body had changed, uh, that it wasn't, um, it wasn't optimal in some people's minds. And uh, that also I had this concurrent sense from the attention other girls were getting that attention came and worthiness came from being pretty and being skinny. And so I did the equations obviously in my head and thought, well, I also want that sense of worthiness and I wanna stick it to the people saying these things to me. That was part of it. That was a big part for me. Cuz that's sort of the little rebel in me, uh, didn't really understand that I'd be sticking it to myself. But you're a teenager and, and, and I ended up with an eating disorder that was pretty serious. Um, and that started me down a very nasty path of very poor mental health.
Speaker 0 00:18:26 The fact that I, I look back now and think I don't even know how I got through high school. And some of the girls who went to school with me will remember some of this stuff. No doubt. Um, anyway, I did, I made it through school with an eating disorder. I was anorexic at school. Uh, they tried to fix that with some very old school tactics that actually just obliterated me. They were not about improving my self worth, they were about controlling me, forcing me to eat. And I ended up bulimic as a result. Um, and so that's when my story really begins is when I met you. So a year later after school I met you and I was bulimic when I met you, which you only found out. I dunno, when did I tell you that? Years later. Oh, prob probably years later.
Speaker 0 00:19:15 Yeah. So I met you and we started dating and we, well first we were friends. This is obviously after the discussion about dating. This is in 2002. This was a while later. This was 2002. And we, um, yeah, got to know each other. We became friends quickly at uni and um, we started dating and you came over to my house. It was like week one I think, of us dating. I mean dating back then, we weren't really dating with, I think it was the second night kissing at parties. And we Yeah, we together made up. No, you came over later that week. It wasn't that, that that first night you came and, um, you came over to my house. We talked all at three in the morning and I knew we had a lovely connection, but later that week you came over to visit and I was in these hideous car key tracky pants I had, which were reserved only for home life. And I said, oh, I'm embarrassed. I'm in my car. Key tracky pants. They're so ugly. And you said, I think this is the prettiest you've looked. And I it does, it makes me emotional because I had never, ever, as a teenager felt like anyone had told me that just as I was, was enough ever.
Speaker 0 00:20:44 So when you said that, I look pretty in those pants, it's
Speaker 2 00:20:49 Okay babe.
Speaker 0 00:20:51 Yeah. So that was a big moment for me. And the crazy thing that came out of that really quickly. I mean, we started seeing a lot of each other. We were doing our agree together and, um, yeah, I, it it, my bulimia just stopped. Years of it just vanished. Um, and I look back years later and thought about it and just could not believe that it was as simple as finding unconditional love to cure this really serious illness. And yet finding unconditional love can be really hard. So yeah, that was my first experience of body image issues and my first experience of how powerful a positive relationship, secure attachment, loving kindness from my partner, unconditional love from my partner could actually drastically change my sense of self-worth. And without a shadow of a doubt that has bonded me to you for life. I have no doubt that underpinning all of my love for you is this deep, deep gratitude for what you did for me. Um,
Speaker 2 00:22:33 Well I I think, um, you know, cause we often talk about on this podcast, uh, you know, the first 10 years of our relationship and then the last 10 years and the juxtaposition between, you know, the first 10 years where we were misaligned, we weren't living the team life. Um, and, and this last 10 years where we're very much aligned with our dreams, our values, and how we work together and we have each other's back. But really looking at those first three years of our relationship, you know, from when we were 18 to 21, 22, um, we just lived in each other's pockets. We, our friends can attest to this that it was always the two of us. We put the two of each other first. Yeah. Above our friends, above our families, above everyone else. We were just thickest thieves. The two of us
Speaker 0 00:23:14 We're in our own little bubble. We
Speaker 2 00:23:15 Couple bubble, we were in the couple bubble in those first three years. And then of course it is a bit easier to do that because, you know, you go to, after that, you go, you go to work, you, you need, you need to go buy a house. Life, life starts to get real. Like you, you come out of that sort of, uh, cocoon of your, um, later teens, which not all
Speaker 0 00:23:32 Everyone's, I dunno, I I just, I just wanna jump in there. You say life starts to get real in some ways I feel like life started to get fake.
Speaker 2 00:23:40 Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:23:41 Because we headed down directions that were not genuine to us. Yeah. And when we met, we were just, ourselves was doing the best we could in hundred percent the world percent. Yeah. And when we started to head down these should paths, that's when we really started to struggle. And I first feel like we detached a lot from ourselves. Like in each individually our own connectedness to our own person. And, and genuineness was reduced. And so our connection in the relationship was reduced. Our alignment pretty much vanished.
Speaker 2 00:24:13 Um, well, yeah. Yeah. We started especially, I know I definitely did. I I, I didn't know myself at all and so I, I just slipped into the what society thought I should do. Mm-hmm. Go work for a big four financial services firm. Um, you know, go do another degree or try be, you know, climb the corporate ladder and go live in a fancy apartment. Like I just, I just didn't know that what mattered to me and which, you know, looking back is embarrassing cuz I know what matters to me. And that's you. And you know, we, I'm, I'm always grateful that we got there in the end cuz there's not a lot of, you know, we do know a, a couple of people who have been together since they were high school sweethearts or 1819, but it does, it doesn't happen often cuz you know, you carry a lot of baggage through your, your previous relationships into your new relationships and it's exactly the same thing.
Speaker 2 00:25:03 Probably even harder when you, you are with the same person for 20 so years because you carry the same baggage through the same person <laugh>. But yeah, I think those, those first three years of connection, um, and I know you definitely saw me for me, uh, and for me, I mirrored that back to you seeing you for you because I didn't like the pretense of, um, you with your, um, can I say that you used to wear like short skirts and a g-string and <laugh> all that. Like you look, you were, you were banging. Um, but I I, you know, when you were just in your sort of, you know, your, your your javis, your your tracky ds and a little pri top, you know, I just, I I could, I could um, d out on you all day there, so.
Speaker 0 00:25:48 Oh, that's very sweet. Um, yeah. So that was my, one of my, I guess, transformative experiences of body image and our relationship and another stage. And I don't know if you wanna jump in and talk about your own experience now or if you
Speaker 2 00:26:06 Bit later No, you talk about you. I think my, I I experience it very different and we can talk about some of the differences between men and women. Okay. And body images. Um, I think the more and more data that comes out, it does seem that while they experience very much similar body issues, uh, but they experience them in maybe different ways. And, uh, more emphasis on muscularity for boys for example, but still being thin. Um, 25% of all people of eating disorders are men. Um, so,
Speaker 0 00:26:34 And I think I saw some stats as well around like the breakdown. Like yes, there's 69, 70% of women suffer body image issues, but like 20, 23% of men, something like that, 23, 20 5% of men actually suffer like body image. Not just eating disorder, but body image
Speaker 2 00:26:51 Issues. It's, it's hard actually. Cause there's a lot of studies. Some of them are a thousand people, some of them, um, um, are longer. Um, and it also depends what era you are in. Like social media is more pervasive now, but we'll, we'll, we'll probably talk about that in the next segment. But yeah, maybe you kick on with your next, um, the next issue.
Speaker 0 00:27:07 I'll explain the other, the other stage that I've experienced. And then yeah, let's, let's unpack that gender experience,
Speaker 2 00:27:13 That gender difference, and then maybe I can talk about how I've felt about it, how I see some of my friends. Okay. You know, have felt about it. Um, and then how I see maybes some things creeping up in society.
Speaker 0 00:27:23 Okay,
Speaker 2 00:27:24 Let's go, let's go back to you.
Speaker 0 00:27:25 All right. Well, the other stage I guess for me that some other women I absolutely know will relate to was, so then we had sort of like, just to put this in perspective, timeline-wise, we had sort of like 15 years of of, of really, like, I had a stable body image. I was very, I was very fit and healthy. I was always health conscious, but not body image conscious. And to be fair, it was pretty easy. My body didn't really change shape. I, I was, um, I was probably, I probably had it a little bit easier in that regard because I was always very, you know, we did marathons and I was always very active, so I didn't have to really, but even as I'm saying this, I'm realizing like I was putting value on how I looked because I'm saying, oh, I didn't have to worry about it. Why should you have to worry about it if you're not running marathons and you're not super fit? Well,
Speaker 2 00:28:17 You, you, I think it's always you. It's almost like you're always gonna have body image issues. It's about how much does it impact your day-to-day life.
Speaker 0 00:28:24 Yes,
Speaker 2 00:28:24 Yes. How much does it impact impact your emotional and mental state?
Speaker 0 00:28:27 100%. So you, I think you're exactly right there. It, it didn't impact my life. It didn't drive my decisions being healthy and fit did, I loved training for tra um, for, what do you call those fun runs. I loved all
Speaker 2 00:28:41 Different widgets. When you run, you'd come back and go, it gave me a clear head versus I'm thinner
Speaker 0 00:28:46 Now if you know what I'm what exactly. And also for me, I had learned in my teen years that running controlled my anxiety a lot. So I did run a lot for anxiety, um, and for mental wellbeing. So, um, yeah. So anyway, so that's, so you're right, it didn't impact my life for about 15 years. I didn't really think about it. Um, so that was, yes, I still had this warped idea that, and I think I probably always struggle with the societal pressure to look a certain way. Um, and I'm working on that every day. But, um, it didn't impact my life anyway.
Speaker 2 00:29:20 It's like a freckle on your bum. You, it's always there, but you don't always notice it until you look in the mirror.
Speaker 0 00:29:26 Oh my gosh, your analogies are weak <laugh>. Anyway, so the next time that body image issues became a negative impact in my life again, or really started affecting me was when I got pregnant. And I'm gonna start with pregnancy. Even though pregnancy, again, it didn't impact me negatively throughout my pregnancy, it did feel really weird. I did struggle with my changing body. I didn't, I wasn't hugely pregnant, so I didn't really have, you know, uh, like I didn't have like a physical demand on myself. It's not like I was really struggling to walk around or anything and thinking, oh, this is so demanding on me. I was probably just your average size pregnancy, if not a little bit smaller because our daughter was a little bit underweight. Um, but it, it felt very strange as my body grew, uh, part of me was proud that I was, were able to grow and as you need to.
Speaker 0 00:30:27 But I did struggle a little bit with that. And then I had a cesarean, uh, I had a cesarean with our daughter and that was a surprise to me. Um, and so I hadn't, there's just so much work that needs to be done in the new mother space to support women around adjusting after birth and the fourth trimester and all those things. But one of the areas is to adjust to this changing body. And at the beginning with a c-section, you can't do anything for quite a while. Not that you've got any energy anyway, cuz you're shattered. Uh, but it does change the shape of your body as well. And then once you finally get past the healing phase of the C-section, you, you are dealing with a slightly different body from the obviously being cut open to, to give birth. Uh, and that, that period was hard for me.
Speaker 0 00:31:26 It took, I just didn't bounce back the way I had imagined. And I, again, I remember a pivotal point in time and it's funny how these memories stand out. Like when you told me that you loved me in trackies, I was at, I used to do bar in Melbourne where we were living at the time. I was at bar and a girl who had been pregnant the exact same time as me came in and she looked exactly like she did before she got pregnant. And you knew everyone at bar. Everyone was sort of quite familiar. And this is like exercise at a bar. This isn't a bar you're going through. Oh, sorry, yeah. No, b a r e <laugh> if I wasn't a bomb source a couple of weeks after give birth. Yeah, yeah. Well, no judgment. No judgment. Um, anyway, uh, I was at bar exercise bar and it wasn't a few weeks, it was months after I had given birth.
Speaker 0 00:32:18 And this girl walked in. She'd also just given birth the exact same timeline as me. And she was just a beam pole. She'd just gone exactly back to how she looked prior to getting pregnant. And I had not, I was probably, oh, who knows? I don't know. I just wasn't the same size yet. Pretty close. I was getting pretty close. But because I wasn't the same size, it was still impacting me and I didn't recognize myself in the mirror. And she walked in and one of the instructors said to her, oh my God, you look amazing. You've bounced right back to exactly where you were. And I was standing right next to her. I got mad
Speaker 2 00:32:54 <laugh> over here.
Speaker 0 00:32:56 I get mad <laugh> and it hurt because I knew I hadn't bounced back. But I really desperately wanted someone to tell me I had, and I didn't know this new body. And I didn't know how long it was gonna take to get used to it or to have any influence over it. I was hungry. I was eating really erratically because our daughter was kidnapping and all of those things, you're
Speaker 2 00:33:20 Having trouble breastfeeding.
Speaker 0 00:33:21 Breastfeeding was horrific.
Speaker 2 00:33:25 <laugh> no sleep.
Speaker 0 00:33:25 Talk about that another time. I had no sleep. No sleep whatsoever. Our daughter has a hole in her heart. We, we ha we had a lot of challenges. She has no immunity. So we had a lot of illness. We had a lot of challenges in those for a long time. And yeah, I, I just didn't, so I, that comment that woman made in front of me, which was not meant to impact me at all. Uh, it really hit home for me. And so I went through this period that I think has lasted for a long time since our daughter was birth birth was born, birthed. Birthed. Yes. Where I felt detached from my body. And I think I actually, my dysmorphia grew because by the end of year one I was actually pretty much back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I think it was about three kilos off. And I still felt enormous. And it just shows how quickly you can detach from yourself if you don't feel worthy just as you are. And I'm gonna throw you under the bus a little bit here.
Speaker 2 00:34:28 Uh, hit, hit me. Hit me.
Speaker 0 00:34:31 You did not help <laugh> you did not help. I think 15 years of knowing me as this really fit, very, um, small frame was a surprise to you that I had not rebounded the way a lot of people do back to the size before they get pregnant. And you made some, you made some comments about it.
Speaker 2 00:34:57 Yeah, I, I, I I think we've talked about this previously and I'm not sure why I did it. Um, you know, we'll talk about this when we talk about how or not to do and how you can help each other in the relationship and what impacts the relationship. But definitely I, I said some things that were either me projecting because I've never really had a, a great body or it was a, maybe I was trying to control you or maybe it was a little bit of revenge because you used to, um, give me a bit of stick about my body. Um, whatever it is, it was probably meant to. It wa it wasn't there to help. Um, it was only there to hurt. And yeah, it's something that I cringe at, um, I cringe at now. Um, and the fact that you and I can talk about, it's pretty, pretty cool even though what I said isn't cool, but, you know, I think I always have the saying that if you don't look back on things you've done in the past and cringe, it means you haven't grown. Yeah. I, I, I, you know, I I've definitely learned from it and, um,
Speaker 0 00:35:54 Definitely and I, I thank God we're in a, a better place today. It's taken a lot of work for both of us to rebuild because they, I guess the reason I really wanted to tell this story was obviously highlighting that body image shows up after you have a child. For a lot of women they have to deal with massive body changes. And, you know, just quickly on that people don't understand, men don't understand when a woman gets pregnant, not only is it the post-birth era that you have to deal with, being pregnant is really hard on your body. When you ask a woman to get pregnant with you, you ask each other to get pregnant. She is doing all of the work and it is massive. The toll it takes on the body is massive and she needs a lot of support cuz she is, she is carrying it all quite literally for the both of you. So you gotta, you gotta show up on the other side. You gotta show up with all of your goodness cuz she's doing all of the physical work. Everything.
Speaker 2 00:37:04 Yeah. And, and from a physiological point of view, a woman's body is meant to change during and after childbirth. Um, this is an evolutionary thing mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so if you are expecting your partner or wife to look how they did pre-birth mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, it's just, you're going against nature and it's really unfair because even those who, uh, are naturally able to do that and those who work very, very hard, you know, if they are to do it and there's, there's plenty of people, uh, who work very, very hard and still can't get anywhere near it. It's just not how you are supposed to be. And so you are asking something almost that cannot be done of your partner. And that is that, you know, we often talk as guys, oh, you put, you know, I, I'm, you push me into a corner, you put my back against the wall, you know, that's why I did what I did. But you are, you are doing the same thing to, to your partner, um, by trying to have an expectation of how they should look based on the past when from a physical perspective, they're just not meant to be, they're not meant to be the same.
Speaker 0 00:38:08 Yeah. And I think that's a beautiful perspective to share. It would, it is a very helpful one to remember. And if I look at like just jumping, you know, forward now to how we've healed together from that period where I felt like you had broken the trust we'd had around body image and um, and that that had our connection around that had eroded a little bit. Not, you don't, you don't, this this is a beautiful thing in life. We had 15 years plus of really positive connection in that space. So you didn't undo all the good work. I knew you loved me as I was, I knew you loved to,
Speaker 2 00:38:44 I built up enough credit, but
Speaker 0 00:38:45 You know, that's, yeah. You built
Speaker 2 00:38:46 A lot of credit. You know, though, it's a slippery slope.
Speaker 0 00:38:48 Yeah. But if I look back and wonder when, how we started to turn that around, you know, when I was diagnosed with ra, rheumatoid arthritis in 2019, you said to me, I want to cook for you and I wanna help you get well. And you started reading low inflammation books and doing research on that. And you did start cooking for me these low inflammation foods when you were home. And, and ever since then, you've become like the household chef and that for me. And as a result you started focusing on me being well as well. And, and that was it. That was your, like nothing was more important than me being well, and there was no more real talk about weight or looks or anything. That was what was most important. And that really started to rebuild my sense of self, self-worth in that space because I could see that what you valued most of all was my health.
Speaker 2 00:39:40 Yeah. And I think what, what it, what it also was doing was saying that I'm here to support you on your health journey. I'm not here to support you lose to lose weight. I'm not here to support you to, you know, tighten up your rigor or anything like that. <laugh>, you know, oh my God, there's so much editing work required on this podcast so already. Um, but you know, I think, you know, I came at it from a perspective as like, you are who you are and I love you and I love this. This is a bit of the, um, Stan Tatkin, Dr. Stan Tatkin talks about this. And he, he says that we should love our partners waltz and all because that's how you provide that, that area of safety. So if they've put on weight, if they don't look how they used to inverted commerce, so what you, you love them, you, you, your job is to make them feel safe and protected. And, uh, you know, by, by judging their body, by making comments about it, you are creating an environment that isn't safe. And so they're constantly going to be in a state where they're like, does he or she still love me? Does, does he or she, um, still find me attractive? Will he or she leave me? Or are they're looking af at other people? And that can, that can start to break that connection between two people. That was part one of body image and relationships. Please stay tuned for next week's episode, part two.
Speaker 2 00:41:07 You are amazing. You've just spent quality time on your relationship.
Speaker 0 00:41:10 Feel like you're on a roll. If you want more living, the team life, relationship, insights and conversations, head over to kim and rod.com where you can find all the show notes as well as tons of other relationship
Speaker 2 00:41:20 Goodies. And if you like today's episode, please hit subscribe or let another couple know where they can find us. It'll make them happy and it'll make us really happy.
Speaker 0 00:41:29 Until next time, keep on living the team life.
