"Might Mounjaro save me from my bad marriage?"

First, I want to ask you all to be incredibly gentle in response to this piece. I know you will be, but like: extra gentle? L is in a heartbreaking, painful and intensely difficult position - and she’s still very much in it.

She’s trusted me with her story, and now, I’m trusting you lot with it. I asked her if she wanted me to turn the comments off, but she said no.

And I know you are historically very compassionate in your comments. It’s one of the things I love most about you, and this dynamic we’ve created between us. But… just a reminder, go as easy as you have ever gone. This is a strong story, and it’s an as-yet unfinished one. L needs all our support.

THANK YOU.

Though actually - I already know you’ve got her back.

OK.

So.

L got in touch with me after I published this piece, asking if GLP1s are turning women into “cool girls”. IE not merely women who eat less, but women who are, in general, less chaotic and hot messy, more contained, more measured; less at the mercy of their stronger, and not-entirely-helpful, whims.

Some of them - us - are reporting that we are.

There’s some decent science on why this might be happening, science which also suggests these effects are more pronounced again, when people take the freshly approved Wegovy pill, as opposed to traditional jabs.

“I think this might apply to me,” L messaged. “Wow.”

She went on to explain that, she’d felt stuck in a truly difficult situation for years – decades – one which overwhelmed her, broke her heart, gave her hope, then took it away again, in turns.

Previously, she’d sort of muddled on, hoping things might improve, but not feeling able to do anything herself about it…

UNTIL she started taking Mounjaro.

And now?

“I’ve suddenly got this ability to see things at a remove, and - try and make myself the main character in my own life, something I’d not had before,” she explained. “I’d never associated this with GLP1s…” L’s been on Mounjaro for the last eight months, she’s lost around two stone. “…I thought it was an accumulation of last straws. And yet - it kind of makes sense [that it IS Mounjaro].”

Would you want to tell me about it, I asked her.

She agreed.

L and I meet, a few days later, in a quiet caff - where she tells me everything.

L is mid -forties, very chic, very clever, contained. Quizzical. Really not at all ordinary. You’d like her immediately. I did. And she looks like a naturally slim woman to me, long-term slender.

OK, I say to L, once we’ve settled. Why did you contact me? I mean, I’m delighted that you did… But why?

“It was a bit of a whim, really. I’d read your Cool Girl thing. And it spoke to me. How weight loss drugs are changing people’s brains. And the women you talked about… Their situations are very different to mine, but that sense that they had a sort of… hold on themselves? That story about your friend who was having an affair, but the drugs gave her a certain amount of detachment? How she’d always needed him to want her, but then…”

She took the jab, and didn’t, any more… Six years of infidelity, suddenly ended.

“Yeah. That really spoke to me. That feeling of suddenly being detached from it. Because I’ve reached this point where… It’s as if something coalesced in me, so I knew something needed to change - rather than wishing it would.”

L, you see, is married to an alcoholic.

“We met in 2008, married in 2012. We’ve been together for 18 years.”

How did they meet?
“Online, but this was pre-app. My Single Friend. It was actually still a bit embarrassing to have met online, then.”

She liked him, immediately. “It was easy and nice. There was no game playing.”

It took her around six months to realise he had a problem with booze.

She understood this, through a sort of gentle accumulation of awareness. Gifted bottles of booze were drained, without explanation, in mere days - that kind of thing. But:

“I was in my mid- to late- twenties; everyone was drinking too much. I don’t think I fully understood what it really was - what it was going to mean. He didn't drink all the time. He was never abusive or violent. The times he and I drank together, we had a nice time. The times we didn’t drink together, we had a nice time. Things were good.”

And anyway, L was in love.

Can we talk about your body, your weight? It’s part of the story, after all.

“Yeah. I’d been big since my university years. I think I was probably about 16 stone when we met.”

Considerably bigger than she is now.

I’d assumed her partner must have either not cared, or actively liked her shape, when they met, but:

“And… oh, he isn’t going to come off well, here, but… He has always let it be known he’d like it if I were thinner.”

Ah.

“Yeah. I think, when we first met, he really liked me, but I don’t think he thought WOW. But we were having lots of sex, so I assumed he was attracted to me. Now, I think that was the excitement of wanting to have sex, rather than the sense of, he actually really found me attractive.”

Based on this understanding, L struck a deal with her then-boyfriend, now-husband: his drinking, for her losing weight.

L had realised he’d acquired the habit of drinking on his lunch break from work; “going to the pub, doing a crossword, drinking a glass of wine…”

So, she said:

“‘If you stop drinking a glass of wine at lunchtime, I’ll go to Weight Watchers.’”

Right so: you could raise the issue of him drinking, with him?

“Oh, yes.”

She lost a lot of weight, first on Weight Watchers, then on a super restrictive, ultimately unsustainable low carb diet. By the time they got married, in 2012, L was a size 12.

And things were good.

“We enjoyed each other’s company. We’ve got the same sense of humour, we play board games, we go to exhibitions, the theatre, day trips. We have a really good time, when times are good… “

Do you have kids?

“No. We tried. It didn’t happen. I was OK with that.”

For years, L’s husband just about seemed to have a lid on his drinking. “He was always very functional. If I was out for the evening, he would drink on his own, at home, and be in bed by the time I got back. There were walls, between what he did in front of me [and what he did on his own].”

Does L think she was ignoring the problem, a bit?

“Oh, I’m sure. And I’m sure I was enabling it, as well. I like to have a drink. Yeah, we had fun together. That’s part of what our relationship was. I’m not blameless in this situation.”

But they got by – more than got by – for some years.

Then, in 2020, Covid struck, lockdown was enforced, and everything suddenly got much, much worse.

After the paywall, L’s husband’s drinking spirals out of control. She gets him to rehab, Alcoholics Anonymous, she gets him on experimental ketamine therapy trials, anything that’ll help… Nothing does. Until she starts taking the weight loss jab.