You Made Me Hate My Body — A Wife’s Explosive Discovery at the Gym

It was a Tuesday in October, around seven o’clock, and the place on Colón Street smelled of rubber from the treadmills and that cheap deodorant that all gyms in the world use.

I knew I had left the jacket in the women’s changing room, but the receptionist told me they had stored it in the personal training room.

“At the end of the hall, ma’am,” he told me without looking up from his phone.

I walked with the towel over my shoulder, tired from the day, thinking only about getting home and having dinner that Javier would tell me I shouldn’t eat.

The living room door was ajar.

And through that crack I saw my husband kissing Lucia.

Lucía, the trainer he had introduced me to in January, smiling: “This girl is going to get you in shape, Teresa.”

Lucia saw it first.

I would swear to it, because she looked at me over Javier’s shoulder, suddenly turned away and pushed him away as if he were burning her.

I stood in the hallway, towel in hand, looking at that thirty-year-old woman with the firm body that I no longer had, and then I looked down at my own belly, unable to stop myself.

Javier turned around and saw me.

—Teresa, it’s not what…

I laughed.

I didn’t want to laugh, but it came out that way, a broken laugh, while tears began to run down my face without asking permission.

—You’ve been telling me I’m fat for a year now.

—Teresa, please—he lowered his voice, looked towards the door, towards the hallway—.

Don’t make a scene here.

A little act.

There, at that moment, my fear ended.

—You’ve made me feel like shit, damn it!

I shouted it so loud that my throat hurt.

I ripped the towel off my shoulder and threw it at his chest with all the strength I had, which was more than I thought I had.

Then I opened the door wide.

Those training nearby turned around: a girl with headphones on the treadmill, an older man on the pulley machine, two boys with weights.

Everyone saw Javier, the serious husband in the sports jacket who was coming to pick up his wife, with that same wife’s towel tucked against his chest.

“The jacket,” I said, pointing to the coat rack.

I’ll take it.

I picked it up, put it on my arm, and left.

Javier didn’t follow me immediately; I heard him say something to Lucia, something I didn’t understand, and that doubt stayed with me all the way down the street.

I cried like I hadn’t cried in years, those ugly cries that ruin your face, but no longer in a low voice, no longer hiding so as not to embarrass him.

I walked home along the avenue, with the lights of passing cars, and I realized that I could still smell of his cologne.

The towel.

He had given it to me years ago, in a gym where we both went, when he still told me things that one tells to people one loves.

I stopped at a corner, looked at it folded in my hand and thought one thing, clear as cold water.

Lucía had seen me before Javier.

Lucia knew who I was.

And I wondered, with my heart pounding in my ears, how long Lucia had known everything Javier thought about me.

Chapter 2 – The year you taught me to hate myself

I wondered how long Lucia had known what he thought of me.

And then the whole year came crashing down on me.

It wasn’t just one comment.

It was a voice that settled in the kitchen, in the bedroom, in front of the bathroom mirror.

—Teresa, those pants fit you better when you were thinner.

He said it one afternoon while I was getting dressed to go to dinner with his friends.

He didn’t look at my face.

He looked at my waist.

I changed my pants without saying anything.

That same week he found a photo of our wedding in the living room drawer.

—You really looked beautiful here.

She left it on the table as if it were a test.

I saved the photo again, but every time I saw it, my face from back then looked like someone else’s.

The comments continued into the spring.

—Aren’t you ashamed that people see you like this?

—That was a vague way of saying it that always meant the same thing: fatter than before.

I started weighing myself every morning.

Then every night.

Then I stopped looking at myself in full-length mirrors.

Javier introduced me to Lucía in September.

—She’s the best trainer in the gym.

—You should go with her.

Lucia smiled professionally and shook my hand.

—Let’s work together, Teresa.

—You’ll see how much better you feel.

The first session was tough.

Lucía corrected my posture, set the pace for me, and encouraged me when I got tired.

Javier stayed in the engine room, but every few minutes he came to check on him.

—How’s it going?

Lucia was responsible for me.

—Good, Javier.

—He’s doing a great job.

I was sweating and smiling because it seemed that someone was finally helping me.

After a month, Javier started staying after my sessions.

—I’m in too.

—That’s how we keep each other company.

Lucía designed a separate routine for her.

He trained in the private room while I finished in the main one.

I didn’t suspect anything.

Yes.

But I preferred to think it was a coincidence.

One day, in the kitchen, Javier told me that he had seen old photos of me.

—Teresa, it’s not that you’re doing badly.

—It’s just that you don’t take care of yourself anymore.

I asked him what he meant exactly.

He did not answer.

He went to the living room to watch football.

That’s when I started going to the gym alone, without telling him.

I wanted to recover something I couldn’t name.

Lucía greeted me with the same smile.

—Today it’s lower body time.

—Let’s give it our all.

And I went, and I sweated, and in the end I felt a little more alive.

But Javier continued.

—Have you weighed yourself again?

—Are you still eating the same?

—Teresa, the effort must be maintained.

Each sentence was a small push towards the same hole.

I remember one night when I looked at myself in the mirror after showering.

I didn’t see my body.

I saw his words written on my skin.

I put on my pajamas and went to bed without dinner.

Javier didn’t even notice that I didn’t go downstairs.

Another day, at the gym, Javier approached while Lucia was correcting an exercise for me.

—Do you know?

—That’s how it should move.

Lucía looked at Javier.

Then he looked at me.

And he said something that I didn’t understand at the time.

—Javier, stop comparing her to anyone.

—She’s doing her thing.

Javier shrugged.

—I’m just saying he used to move better.

Lucia did not answer.

But he wasn’t surprised.

As if she already knew what he was going to say before he said it.

I kept that moment without knowing why.

Now, walking with the towel in my hand, I understood.

Lucía hadn’t corrected Javier for me.

He had corrected his tone.

Like someone warning an actor that they’re going too far.

I kept walking.

And for the first time in a year, I didn’t try to make myself small.