"But encouraging healthy weight-levels doesn't mean persecuting fat people, just like trying to encourage people to quit smoking doesn't mean smokers are second-class citizens."

It does quite often mean persecuting fat people. Because assuming that fat == unhealthy gives license to people to make snap judgments about fat people, often vocally. It's considered an acceptable form of prejudice. A friend of mine (who happens to be very fit, healthy, AND fat) overheard one of her new managers grumbling to a co-worker about how she must cost their health insurance premiums to go up regularly, because she's so fat.

Hello??

"Healthy weight levels" are different for everyone. There are some people that will look very fat to others but still be healthy and fit. There are people who will look thin and fit, and be that way. Just like there are people who are thin who are unhealthy, and people who are fat that are unhealthy.

People who are fat tend to live longer, have better sex, and also tend to be just as healthy as their thin counterparts when they exercise regularly and eat lots of fruit and veg. Fat DOES NOT equal unhealthy. And yet no matter how many medical studies come out explaining this fact to the public, the IMAGE of fatness is so abhorrent in our culture that it won't matter. Did you know that in ethnic groups that accept fatness, there is NO increased mortality due to weight? None at all? Researchers have been finding more and more that it's the stigma attached to obesity that is the real problem.

Yes, I think everyone should strive to be healthy and exercise, eat well, etc. But losing weight is not a health goal. It's an image goal, nothing more.

It's legal. Religious ideology should not play a part in determining health care coverage, which would constitute an establishment of religion. Sigh.

I have seen this situation again and again, from the inside and the outside. Cary's advice is good, if you can follow it. You absolutely have to make him move out, or move out yourself. And no amount of platitudes or "I can change!" pleading should deter you from your course. Resolve to live apart for one year. If he can get his finances together (as in, totally together), then you can reconsider whether you should have a future together. If a few months go by and he's still not doing anything, then you know he won't at all.

What this is, is a basic lack of maturity and refusal of basic responsibility. He needs the equivalent of a parent to take care of his finances at the moment - do you want to be his girlfriend, or his mother? If he refuses to talk about it or acknowledge it's a problem, that reflects his lack of maturity. However "emotionally intelligent" he may be, he is not very mature. And it's not good to contemplate marriage with somebody who is immature.

Think about it - and I say this as a very happily married person - marriage is a legal contract. Once you marry him, your finances and his will be tied together. His debts will be your debts. Including to the IRS. Is this the kind of life you want? The life where he may feel a sense of a need to rebel or control through finances, thus hiding financial things from you, with potentially devastating consequences? Because that's the road you're traveling down.

These days, most bills can be paid easily online. There are online tools for managing finances effectively, and for filing taxes. There is really no excuse other than laziness or rebellion, neither of which are good.

I'm not saying he CAN'T change. But he first needs a major, life-changing wake-up call, and it sounds like you do, too. Because this isn't just about his life, it's about yours - not just in the future, but right now.

Is it possible that we're too quick to blame our problems on our partners, rather than taking the time and responsibility to work out issues that may have nothing to do with them?

Yes, yes, yes.

But not only this - we live in a setting where men have to keep their fears bottled up. They're accused of not being "man enough" if they admit that they're scared, that they feel inadequate, that they're worried their life is going to fail.

Women by the same token have their own set of issues they're supposed to keep pushed down.

People can forgive, if both partners can find reason to. And someone who is patient and who has a deep sense of long-haul love for their partner can do this.

That being said, I don't think anybody should stay with someone who is truly abusive, whether that abuse is emotional, physical, mental, financial or otherwise. Personal safety is important. But that being said, sticking with someone who's just having a midlife crisis speaks not only of patience, but also compassion.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!