A mum with postpartum depression says her husband calls her "Miss Piggy" to motivate her to lose weight.
In an anonymous post on Reddit, the 32-year-old woman said that since she gave birth, she's been struggling to shift the stubborn baby weight, "mainly due to [her] postpartum depression."
"I get next to no sleep attending to my children and most mornings, I can barely get out of bed, much less drive to the gym. It's been a dark few months for me," she admitted.
After she broke down to her partner, who she refers to as 43-year-old 'Dave', about not being able to lose the weight, he told her he would push her to do it "because he loves her".
Since then, he's started calling her "Miss Piggy" and has instructed all of her friends, family, and even her kids, to do so.
"I hate this nickname, but he says it’s supposed to motivate me to lose weight. I think he really believes it's going to help me, but I feel really undermined while parenting because of this nickname," she said.
Things got even worse one night recently, when she and her family were eating dinner at the table, "he started oinking at me", and out of frustration, she started yelling at him.
The mum explained: "We have a rule not to yell in front of the kids, but we’re almost always in front of the kids during quarantine and I feel so dismissed.
"The kids started crying and Dave says I’m to blame."
She asked her fellow Reddit users whether she really was to blame as her husband told her, and people were disgusted by his behaviour, not hers.
One person said: "Teaching your children to humiliate you into losing weight is so beyond f***** up."
Another wrote: "Wait, he says he's calling you demeaning names because he loves you?
"No. When you love someone, you use terms of endearment. Honey, Sweetie, Darling. Not Miss Piggy."
"He is also teaching his kids to be bullies," said a third.
Whilst someone else suggested that she talk to her kids about why their behaviour is hurtful, apologise for yelling, get all the help she can get with therapy, support and childcare and "make a plan to leave your emotionally abusive, cruel husband."
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