Does your attitude towards fitness change when you’re in a relationship?
The classic story goes something like this: you meet someone new, you wine and dine together in a flurry of excitement, and then you settle into a comfortable relationship that consists of takeaway, jogging bottoms and begrudgingly spending weekends with the in-laws.
The trope is that couples lose both the time and the need to try and impress each other, so out go the health habits you created when you were single and, instead, you ‘let yourself go’.
Research suggests this might be true. A paper in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that those who have always been single exercise more than any other relationship status: in women, that’s five hours 25 minutes a week, compared to four hours 17 minutes for the divorced group and four hours for the married group.
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But is it really true that we let someone waltz into our life and mess up all of our exercise and nutrition habits? It was for writer Alice Barraclough, who says: “Personally, I think my relationship has changed my fitness for the worse. When I was single I would easily fit in eight hours a week of exercise, but being in a relationship has made me so much more complacent and less strict on myself. Maybe it’s because I had more time to do my own thing when I was single?
“I get a lot of guilt when I don’t rack up high mileage weeks and I feel less body confident now. But I’m also way happier than when I was training all the time and dating arseholes – so I guess it balances out.”
Couples who train together stay together
On the other hand, we all know the CrossFit couples or runners whose love language is a joint jog on a Saturday morning. For many people, their partner has supported (or even kickstarted) their fitness journey. As such, being in a relationship can help you have the confidence to try new things and prioritise exercise, rather than ditch it.
“I married a man who had always played sports. He helped me see I’m not ‘not sporty’, I just hadn’t been taught,” says Karen Laing. After he encouraged her into exercise and showed her the benefits of moving more, she became a pilates teacher and “now plays tennis, runs, lifts weights and we run a fitness business together.”
Confidence coach Victoria Spence’s partner was also crucial in her fitness journey – but for a different reason. “When I first met my now-boyfriend Mike, I had literally just finished competing in a round of bodybuilding shows, maybe three or four days before. If I didn’t meet him at that time, I probably would have ended up competing again,” says Victoria Spence.
Her time in the bodybuilding world was, she says, “an eating disorder in disguise. And even though Mike’s a personal trainer, his relationship with food and exercise was just so normal.
“I was in a world where food and exercise were regimented, and I had never really experienced the side of fitness where it was a part of their life, but it wasn’t their whole life. Being with Mike at that time and seeing him just enjoying a workout and enjoying foods that were nutritionally balanced while having a really normal life was important.”
Not only was being in close proximity with someone who had a more relaxed approach to things that consumer her helpful, but Victoria also knew that she couldn’t maintain her disordered habits around him. “I knew that if I was weighing my food out or saying no to spontaneous weekends away because I needed to go to the gym he’d think I was so strange. So I started saying yes to things, and I challenged myself and my eating disorder,” she says.
While Victoria says that Mike never explicitly called out her disordered habits, he “had the maturity to hold space for me to grow. I was gaining weight quite quickly at the beginning of the relationship, and when I would say things like, ‘Oh my God, I feel so fat’ he would be there to remind me that my changing body didn’t matter.”
In a world of independent self-care, where we are constantly told that ‘you can’t love someone else until you love yourself’ and there’s a strong focus on doing things alone, it’s a nice reminder that sometimes other people need to be part of our journeys.
Fitness comparison in a relationship
Yet, for some, the close proximity with other people’s habits can be pressurising. For Lottie*, having a partner who “absolutely loves fitness” comes with a lot of comparisons. Rather than feeling as though she can relax into a routine synonymous with ‘letting yourself go’, she feels as though she should move more than ever.
“For the most part, I feel very triggered by her relationship to fitness. On the one hand, her having paid for a Peloton has definitely encouraged me to exercise more – just because it’s there. But I find her incessant running, HIITing, spinning, walking and protein smoothie-ing difficult, particularly as somebody who has struggled with their body image in the past.
“It’s something I only noticed when we started living together, but because we moved in during the pandemic, I couldn’t escape it. She doesn’t put pressure on me to follow her routine, but I feel like it’s a direct reflection on what I should be doing because we otherwise do the exact same thing all day.”
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How to make time for exercise in a relationship
Relationships undoubtedly alter the flow of our lives. Our morning wake-up calls for the gym aren’t as easy when your partner has snored through the night, or your usually active evenings may turn into wine-fuelled date nights.
But the myth of ‘letting yourself go’ is rooted in the idea that exercise is simply a tool to change what we look like in order to impress other people. That’s clearly not true. It’s not bad to move your priorities away from the gym, especially given how important fostering healthy, supportive relationships are for our overall health.
A good relationship with exercise is one that allows you to tone it down and dial it up depending on your changing priorities. Equally, a good relationship with your partner is one in which you’re relaxed – if that means reducing your training or finally building the confidence to swan into the gym, so be it.
For those who want to prioritise their physical needs while also maintaining a relationship with someone else, Victoria has advice.
“In a relationship, you still love your partner even when they’re doing things that really piss you off. Yet, when we aren’t acting perfectly we get infuriated with ourselves. So I always ask, how can you hold that same space for yourself as you would for them?” says Victoria.
“For example, showing up for your partner – even in things that maybe you don’t really want to do – is important. Sometimes, making sacrifices to show up to your workout or even just to move your body is such a strong act of self-love.” And know this: a relationship is never going to heal your relationship with exercise, whether you fear the gym or obsess over it. That has to come from yourself.
Images: Getty
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