I Feel Unattractive in My Relationship After Gaining Weight (And It’s Changing Everything)

I kept texting first. Every single time. I'd wake up and check my phone before I even got out of bed, like my day couldn't start until I knew if he'd replied to that meme I sent at 11pm. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't. When he didn't, I'd convince myself he was busy, asleep, his phone died anything except the obvious thing I didn't want to think..

The double texts happened slowly at first. Just a "??" or a "you there?" like I was checking if he was alive. Then it got worse. I'd send a whole paragraph about my day, then another one two hours later when he hadn't answered the first. I'd screenshot our conversations and send them to my friends like "what does this mean??" like they were archaeologists decoding ancient text. They'd say "he's just busy" and I'd cling to that because it was easier than the truth.

Nothing changed. He stayed exactly the same. Distant when he wanted to be, warm when it suited him, always on his terms. I was the one doing the emotional labor, the planning, the waiting. I was the one making myself small so he'd have space to maybe, possibly, hopefully want me.

I remember this one Saturday. I'd sent three texts morning, afternoon, evening. Nothing back. I was supposed to go to dinner with friends but I cancelled because what if he finally replied and I was busy? What if he wanted to see me and I wasn't available? So I sat on my couch, phone in hand, watching some show I wasn't even seeing. At midnight he posted a story from a bar. Didn't text me back. Just... existing, living, not thinking about me at all while I was destroying my own evening for him.

Something cracked that night. Not in some dramatic movie way. Just... I got tired. Genuinely tired. My thumb hurt from scrolling. My chest hurt from hoping. I looked at my phone and felt this wave of exhaustion, like I'd been running after someone for months and I finally realized they weren't running from anything they were just walking away slowly and I was the idiot sprinting.

So I stopped. Not as a trick. Not because some article told me "make him chase you" or because I was playing some game. I just... stopped having the energy. It was like my body made the decision before my brain caught up. I didn't delete his number or block him or do anything dramatic. I just... didn't text first anymore. Didn't check his stories. Didn't ask my friends to analyze his "k" versus his "okay."

The first few days felt wrong. Like I'd quit smoking and kept reaching for cigarettes that weren't there. I'd type out messages and delete them. I'd open our chat, stare at it, close it. My phone felt heavy in my pocket, this object that had become a portal to rejection and I was trying to break the habit of using it that way.

He noticed around day five. Just a "hey what are you up to" out of nowhere. I saw it and felt this weird mix of relief and anger. Like, oh, so you DO know how to text first? You just... chose not to? I didn't reply for three hours. Not strategically I was genuinely busy, living my actual life, and when I saw it later I didn't feel that rush to respond immediately. I said "not much, you?" and put my phone down. He answered in ten minutes. I read it and didn't answer until the next morning.

Something shifted in him after that. Small things. He started asking what I was doing on weekends instead of assuming I'd be available. He'd send me things during the day a song, a stupid video not just at 11pm when he was bored. One time I was out with friends and didn't check my phone for four hours. When I looked, there were three texts from him, the last one saying "you alive??" with that worried emoji. I laughed out loud. My friend asked what was funny and I said "nothing" because how do you explain that this man who used to ignore me for days was now the one wondering where I was?

He started showing up differently too. Remembering things I said, asking follow-up questions. One night we were talking and he said "you seem different lately" and I said "different how?" and he couldn't explain it. Just that I seemed "busier" or something. I didn't tell him I'd just stopped making him my full-time job. I didn't explain how to stop chasing and make him chase you because honestly, I didn't know I was doing anything. I was just tired.

I kept thinking it was about sending the right message... turns out it wasn't. I spent all that time obsessing over what to say, when to say it, how to be interesting enough to hold his attention. I thought there was some magic combination of words that would make him want me the way I wanted him. I even read stuff about it there's this piece about what to text him to make him fear losing you that I found later, after everything changed, and it made me laugh because by then I wasn't texting him anything strategic. I was just... living. Turns out that's what actually worked.

The funny thing about learning how to make him chase you again after pulling away is that it stops being a strategy when you genuinely stop caring as much. He pulled away, I pulled away harder because I had nothing left to give, and suddenly he was the one reaching across the gap. Not because I was playing hard to get. Because I actually got hard to get — my energy got expensive, my time got limited, my attention became something he had to earn instead of something I threw at him for free.

I figured out how to make him miss you badly without texting too much by accident. Just... not texting much. Going days without contact because I was genuinely occupied with my own stuff. He'd ask "where've you been?" and I'd say "around" because I didn't need to give him a full itinerary. The mystery wasn't manufactured. I just had a life again, one that didn't revolve around his responses.

People talk about how to become high value woman he can't lose like it's a costume you put on. Like you buy the right clothes and say the right things and suddenly you're this prize. That's not it. I was the same person. Same face, same job, same messy apartment. The only thing that changed was I stopped auditioning for him. Stopped trying to prove my worth in every conversation. Stopped making his approval the thing that determined if I had a good day or a bad one.

At some point, I remember reading something that hit me in a similar way not about texting or chasing, but about how you slowly lose yourself without realizing it:

And weirdly, that made me seem... I don't know, more solid? Like someone who could actually be lost, because I wasn't clinging to his leg begging to stay.

That’s also when I started noticing other patterns not just in texting, but in how I showed up in relationships overall. I ended up reading this too:

Not even for this situation specifically, but because it explained how these slow shifts happen without you realizing how you lose yourself first, and everything else follows.

Learning how to increase your value in his eyes wasn't about being more impressive. It was about being less available for his bullshit. When he took three days to text back, I didn't mention it. I just... matched his energy. Took my own three days. Not to punish him. Because I genuinely had other things to do and other people who actually wanted to talk to me. He felt it. The dynamic changed because I changed, not because I was pretending.

I don't know if this is how to make him obsessed with you again. Obsession sounds unhealthy anyway. What happened was he started paying attention. Started putting in effort. Started acting like someone who actually wanted to be with me instead of someone who was tolerating my presence. The first time he planned a date actually planned it, restaurant reservation and everything I almost didn't know how to act. I was so used to "wanna hang out?" at 9pm on a Tuesday that a real plan felt like a foreign language.

It's not perfect now. I'm not going to lie and say we're some fairy tale. He still has his moments, I still have mine. But the power shifted in a way that feels... breathable. I don't wake up checking my phone anymore. I check it when I check it. Sometimes he texts first, sometimes I do, but it's not this desperate race where I'm always losing.

Funny how things changed when you stopped trying so hard. I spent months, maybe years, performing for love. Running after it, chasing it down, convincing someone to want me. And the moment I genuinely stopped not faked it, not played a game, just literally ran out of energy for that nonsense everything turned around. He came toward me. Not because I was doing some technique right. Because for the first time, I was actually going somewhere without him, and he either had to catch up or get left behind.