I was about to get hitched a few moons ago and right before we were about to meet each other’s families for a formal introduction, I had to break it off – well, he pushed me to and I’m still content with my decision.

For some context, I was in a long-distance relationship a few years ago. We met through a common friend when we were in school and became friends. Later, he went abroad and I started preparing for college.

After some time, he sent me a friend request on social media. I instantly remembered him and hence, accepted the request (ah, the regret). We started talking and he mentioned that he was coming back for a month and suggested that we meet. I agreed and we met.

Before I knew it, we were talking long after he went back and soon, we were in a long-distance relationship, which is something that I always found very difficult to manage – but, that’s what being in love makes you do.

It was all so, so amazing in the beginning like it always is.

I would like to highlight that I have been on the chubbier side since childhood because a) it runs in my family and b) I never felt the need to change myself.

In the beginning, my ex really liked the fact that I was ‘chubby’ – he would make sweet comments and tell me that he would never want me to change myself because I looked just fine. And, for obvious reasons, I felt safe and at ease because he made me feel good about me and my body.

He was four years older than me and he wanted to get married soon. I, on the other hand, was reluctant because I had just finished college and I was looking for a stable career at that time. Nevertheless, he started feeling ‘territorial’ and possessive, and after several fights and arguments, I gave in and agreed to get hitched because, again, it’s just one of the things you often end up doing when you are trying to make a relationship work – notably, this was the first red flag I ignored. 

We decided to meet each other’s families the next he was in the country and he, all of a sudden, started pushing me to hit the gym. Now, I would have been fine with it but I had just started my first job and I had a lot on my plate. Nevertheless, he kept pestering and I, again, gave in – another red flag.

Needless to mention, it was getting hard for me to manage both – to prove my worth at work and working out after I was dead tired – and, it was time to take it slow. Surprisingly, my ex started getting furious about this and one fine night he said, “I can’t make you meet my parents if you look like this.” And bam, I cracked out of my dreamy world blinded by ‘love’.

I realized that the only and only reason I should be working out or doing absolutely anything about my body is when ‘I’ want to and not when someone else wants me to. It took me several weeks, sleepless nights and buckets of tears to break it off. I knew I had to, I owed it to myself.

I put love in quotes because it was never the we-will-get-older-together love, it was the I-need-to-get-married-to-a-trophy-girl love for him. Later, I also found out that he cheated on me and was getting married the next week.

It’s almost unbelievable that if I had kept ignoring his red flags, I would have been married to this man and would have been struggling every single day. I really feel like I dodged a bullet there.

No matter how confident I feel now, I will never forget how humiliating and disheartening it was whenever I looked back at this entire incident. His words and the fact that he wouldn’t marry me unless I got slimmer haunted me for months. I started believing that maybe I ‘have to’ change for men for a short while.

However, I slowly gathered the courage to believe otherwise because I knew in my heart that a single man cannot bring my confidence down. I had family and friends who loved me for ages and a guy, whom I barely knew for a short while, cannot define my worth according to my body weight. 

No one, absolutely no frickin’ one, can destroy anyone’s identity and break their trust unless they don’t give them that power. However, I know this is easier said than done.

In the end, I would like to tell every man or woman out there that love is not about physical appearance and if someone makes you feel like it is, you might want to break off now than 5 years later.