Um, yea, that may also be your perception. Like Rivka, my clothes fit. Ditto for my mom, and she did use to get bad cramps and all that, but her clothes still fit. Same for the other few women where I knew a bit about their periods. Most of them, their clothes did fit, and had no such thing as monthly fat pants.
Yeah, my clothes always fit too, even during my worst periods. I don’t like wearing tight clothes in general though. Maybe that has something to do with it?
As I said earlier, “bloated” means too much beer too fast. Nothing a couple of good belches and a trip to the bathroom won’t clear up.
On the other hand, any man who ignores his girlfriend’s warning that she’s “crabby” is either terminally stupid or has a martyr complex.
Mmmmm crab!
Let me parse this man-style, so that you may understand next time:
He thought “She is saying not to come over, so I had probably better go anyway. It’s probably like the ‘I don’t want anything for my birthday’ ploy. Reverse psychology. I’m so freaking smart to have finally figured that out!”
He thought “Why would she say that? OH! She wants me to come over but there may be a slim possibility that we will not be having sex. Another test. I will pass, failure is not (yet) an option!”
Then, while snuggling, you unbuttoned your pants.
He thought “I KNEW IT! Because I showed my sensitive side, cleverly passed all of the tests and came over in her time of need despite the slight possibility of no sex, she has now become uncontrollably horny and wants me like a Wall St banker wants a bonus - large and often! Woo hoo!”
Then, you said (paraphrasing) " Idiot, I do not want sex!"
He thought “Wha-???”
I should write a book.
See, what I was going for there, is that a lot of women wear clothes that fit as snugly as possible, and are borderline too small. It’s the fashion, it sucks, and not all women follow it, or at least, some women may have a couple of form-fitting outfits for dress-up thing they get invited to, where looking good trumps feeling comfortable, for whatever reason. But their regular clothes allow them to be menstruating, have eaten too much salt the day before, be having a mild IBS umm, situation, or even be three months pregnant, and not need to choose from an entirely separate section of their wardrobe.
Me, dress-up is usually broomstick skirts and nice sweaters, because my waist is so long, I can’t wear dresses off the rack anyway. I have a couple of expensive things I bought from the kind of stores that do tailoring, and that’s it. I had them tailor them loose so they’d be comfortable, and I could sit back in them without worrying about ripping a seam.
No monthly, noticeable Violet-Beaureguard-symptoms here, either.
I don’t even “feel bloated” when I get a little bloated. I only notice because my bra band feels a bit tighter, but certainly not tight enough that I can’t wear my regular bras. Otherwise I feel normal.
Why would you listen to some woman that thinks all women experience the same thing she does and expects men to read her mind? She’s obviously a. mistaken, and b. delusional. Hopefully this thread will cure her of these problems, but it hasn’t worked so far.
The rest of us are saying it all varies and that men shouldn’t be expected to just “know.”
Yes, he should not have ignored that. He should have either stayed away or asked for clarification.
Or perhaps he just has the praying-mantis-gene?
The list of period symptoms women can experience is HUGE. Generally speaking, each woman doesn’t experience every single one (although I’m sure some do or come close) but instead a random selection from the list.
Jane gets awful cramps, lower back pain and feels exhausted. Her friend Susan gets exhausted, too, but luckily doesn’t really deal with cramps; instead her breasts hurt at even the lightest touch. Nikki has a ridiculously heavy flow and her lower back KILLS, she has some light cramping but not bad and it only lasts 3 days.
And so on. I guess it’s like looking at the people who shop at Trader Joes: There are tons of neat foods there, so there’s a wide variety of what each person buys, but you’ll still find that a bunch of people get cookie butter like you, but not all of the cookie butter buyers will also get the garlic aioli mustard you love. And you don’t understand how anyone would voluntarily get the frozen naan.
applause
Frankly that’s all I want or expect from my husband. That I can tell him what I need and he will respect that.
Really, frozen naan? Do they have peshwari naan? Because I might go for that. One time, anyway.
I suggest using your words so there is no confusion. Try to choose words he actually knows. He might get it then.
I no longer have parts that would cause this monthly calamity, but I concur with the esteemed Rivkah, Karl and Skara. I never got so bloated during my periods that my clothes didn’t fit. That must be some industrial grade menses that other women are having.
My ex was incredibly in tune with such things.
When we started dating, our “first time” happened the day after my period ended. A little over three weeks later, he actually broached the subject and asked “We’ve been together for a while now and you haven’t had a period yet”. Is everything OK?".
I think I replied “Any minute now”. But he always had a sense of where I was in my cycle.
He was making sure you weren’t pregnant.
Not to mention it’s in Midol’s interest to convince you that it’s happening, and that it’s a very bad thing, so you will buy their expensive product, which is just OTC pain medicine with caffeine, a mild diuretic. Makes you pee a lot, so you retain less water. Unless you just make up for it by drinking more. I don’t consider Midol commercials to be evidence of anything.
< nods >
Damn Midol.
Well, it depends on how you define ‘‘fit.’’ I gain as much as 4 pounds when I’m PMS-bloated, which makes certain items of clothing less desirable to wear than others. I guess technically I can fit into them, but they are uncomfortable, so if possible I go with something cut slightly larger.
But I can tell if I’m bloated even before I try to fit into my clothes. I wake up and feel like a fat cow. I probably don’t look much different but I certainly feel different.
I suspect, though I have nothing more than anecdotal evidence for this, that part of the bloating and how severe it is may be determined by a change in diet. When I’m hormonal I want to EAT ALL THE THINGS. So then when I have processed food in my system it probably contributes to feeling bloated.
I am so outa touch, that my lady had to tell me she wasn’t having periods anymore. Here, I thought I was rolling sevens over and over for roughly two years.