Stephanie Berrocal tried just about everything to make her husband notice her again.
She transformed her body, losing an astonishing 150lbs through dieting and a gastric bypass, before spending a further $10,000 on surgery to remove 17lbs of excess skin.
Once weighing 341lbs, by the end of it all she was almost unrecognizable.
Newly confident, she even commissioned a private photo book as a gift for their wedding anniversary, posing in lingerie and his favorite Philadelphia sports jerseys in the hope of reigniting the spark that had vanished between them.
But none of it seemed to work, she said.
By then, Stephanie was slimmer, fitter and more confident than she had been in decades. Friends did double takes and strangers struck up conversations in the street. Yet while everyone else seemed to notice her, the one person whose attention she longed for most appeared not to care.
‘I thought if I could lose the weight and fix myself, maybe it would help,’ Berrocal, now 38, said. ‘I thought maybe he’d be more attracted to me. But it wasn’t true.’
A year later, after a comedy-club date that felt to her more like an evening with a roommate than a life partner, she sat him down in their bedroom and told him it was over.
Stephanie Berrocal, now 38 years old, pictured above before and after her massive 150lbs weight loss. She is thrilled with the results, but said that – despite her expectations – it did not save her marriage
He agreed and moved to the sofa that night. Four months later, he was out of the house for good.
‘In the end, I couldn’t fight for our marriage by myself anymore,’ she said. ‘I had to let it go.’
Berrocal’s story, while not a happy one, is also not uncommon – and it touches on a little-discussed reality of dramatic weight loss.
Millions of people embark on diet plans, take weight loss medication and even undergo bariatric surgery believing that a slimmer body will improve not just their health, but their confidence, careers and love lives.
And while weight loss has profound physical and psychological benefits, experts say it can also place an unexpected strain on existing relationships.
‘People don’t realize this, but losing weight changes a lot about you,’ said Gabriela Reyes, a relationship expert at Mindful Wellness House in Miami. ‘Your confidence, your self-esteem, your energy levels and even the way you act and the clothes you wear can all change.
‘For some couples, particularly if one loses weight and the other does not, that can be a difficult adjustment to make.’
This phenomenon has been confirmed in research, too. A major Swedish study published in 2018 found that people who underwent weight-loss surgery were significantly more likely to divorce or separate in the years after their operation than similar people who did not have the procedure.
Researchers also found the greater the weight loss, the more likely a person’s relationship status was to change.
They found that partners of individuals who have lost large amounts of weight report ‘feeling jealous or no longer needed.’
However, they also noted that ‘patients who have undergone bariatric surgery might be empowered to leave an unhealthy relationship.’
Poor family relationships prior to weight loss ‘was the strongest predictor of increased incidence of separation and divorce’ afterward, they added. ‘Hence, separation or divorce after [weight loss] should not only be interpreted as an adverse effect.’
These findings are no doubt all the more relevant today, with newer weight loss shots such as Mounjaro and Wegovy offering lasting results on par with surgery.
Certainly, in the early days of their relationship, Berrocal believed she and her husband-to-be were a perfect match.
She had ‘always’ been overweight, she said – a legacy, she said, of the maternal Irish side of her family, who were always encouraged to ‘finish everything’ on their plates.
Her partner – whom she requested be referred to by a pseudonym, Mark – was ‘larger’ too, she said, but carried his 270lbs ‘better’ on his 6ft 2in frame.
They met at work, where Berrocal worked on the front desk and Mark was employed elsewhere in the building. They flirted, timed their lunch breaks together and found excuses to spend more time with one another.
Their first kiss was at a colleague’s promotion party and seven months later, they moved in together.
Those early years felt effortless, Berrocal recalled. They were forever finding reasons to be together – lingering over breakfast, heading to the movies or taking drives with no real destination in mind.
In the evenings, they would slow dance around the kitchen, talk for hours and make time for each other no matter how busy life became.
She brought three children, aged eight, four and two at the time, from a previous relationship – and her new partner was more than happy for them to call him Dad.
‘We always made time for each other,’ she said. ‘That was the difference.’
Berrocal said Mark never once said anything about her weight, good or bad – but food was a big part of their relationship.
‘Most of our dates revolved around eating,’ she recalled.
Stephanie is shown above before and after her weight loss
Stephanie embarked on weight loss after her marriage started to fail, hoping that it would turn things around. She is shown above in the gym
There would be bags of pretzels, popcorn and chips in front of the TV on nights in, and take-out meals became a regular occurrence when work and childcare became all-consuming.
‘I let myself go,’ Berrocal admitted. ‘I ate fast food frequently because I didn’t have time to cook.’
In May 2015, nearly a year after moving in together, Berrocal discovered she was pregnant. Mark, she said, was ecstatic.
Shortly after, he unexpectedly took her to a jewellery shop and told her to pick out a ring. A few days later, Mark proposed, on a bent knee, at their favorite spot by a river.
‘I’d always wanted to be a wife,’ Berrocal said. ‘I was just so happy.’
The baby arrived eight weeks early, in January 2016, on Mark’s birthday.
Throughout it all, she said, Mark never left her side, holding her hand as their son was delivered. But once they brought the baby home, she felt the dynamic between them began to shift.
Berrocal, already a mother of three, slipped naturally into the demands of caring for a newborn. For Mark, however, parenthood seemed to be more of a challenge, she said.
Stephanie is pictured before and after her weight loss. She is thrilled with the results, although it did not save her marriage as she had hoped
‘I knew what to expect, and how to stay calm,’ she recalled. ‘But he’d get frustrated by small things you have to do as a parent, like taking a screaming baby out of a car seat.’
Life quickly became a cycle of diapers, feeding schedules and sleepless nights. The rituals that had once defined their relationship gradually disappeared.
‘He would come home and make his own dinner,’ Berrocal said. ‘So instead of eating together, it was always him eating first while I had the baby and was exhausted from my day.’
At night, she said she felt like she was the only one getting up to look after him.
The resentment slowly built. Sometimes Berrocal would burst into tears, pleading for a few minutes to herself.
‘It should have come out like a calm conversation,’ she said. ‘But it came out like anger. After a few weeks, I think I just yelled out of exhaustion.’
Today, she sees that period as a turning point.
‘I think that was the beginning of the end, really,’ she said. ‘Everything just started to go downhill.’
Stephanie said she was a ‘relationship girl’. After she lost the weight, she said other people started to notice – but her husband just kept treating her the same
Despite the cracks that began to appear, the couple pressed ahead with their wedding plans.
By then, Berrocal had reached her heaviest weight of 341lbs.
They married in March 2018 at their local Catholic church, with a reception at the fire hall opposite their home. Berrocal’s daughters served as flower girls, while her sons were ring bearers.
‘It was one of the happiest days of my life,’ she recalled.
There was no honeymoon. Money was tight and, with four young children, the idea was quietly shelved.
‘I would tell [Mark] I wished we’d been able to go on one,’ Berrocal said. ‘Before, he would have talked about it with me. By then, I felt like all I got back was a grunt.’
By that time, they were rarely intimate.
‘I was still attracted to him, but whenever I tried to talk about it, he just seemed to ignore me,’ she said. ‘I didn’t try to initiate anything, because I suppose I was scared he would reject me.’
Stephanie is shown above with her loose skin. She had 17lbs of skin removed during surgery in Miami and was thrilled with the results
She said attempts to talk through their problems usually ended the same way: with both of them shouting.
One night, after a particularly bitter row, Berrocal drove aimlessly through the dark before pulling over at around 2am and crying alone in her car.
‘I remember sitting there knowing my marriage was failing, and not knowing what to do,’ she said.
As she searched for an explanation for the growing distance between them, Berrocal became convinced that changing her appearance might somehow save the relationship.
‘I just thought, I’ll make a change and see what happens,’ she said. ‘I thought if I could lose the weight, maybe it would help our marriage.’
The next morning, she began looking into weight-loss surgery and booked an appointment at a local clinic.
When she told Mark, he simply replied: ‘Whatever you want to do, you should do.’
While weighing up surgery, Berrocal threw herself into changing her lifestyle.
Divorce rates in the U.S. have hit a 50-year low, declining to 1969 levels
At the same time, people are getting married at a lower rate now than they ever have before
She started following the keto diet and began attending Zumba classes twice a week, which she described as ‘loads of fun.’ By September 2021, she had lost 70lbs.
There were signs that things between the couple were improving. Intimacy returned, she said, albeit sporadically, and the pair began having sex again.
But for Berrocal, it still felt as though she was the one driving it.
‘It was never exciting,’ she recalled. ‘It was always when we were in bed, the lights were off and the kids were asleep. It was very normal. Very boring.’
Later that year, she underwent gastric bypass surgery. Mark drove her to and from appointments and looked after her during her recovery.
Yet the deeper problems in their marriage remained much the same.
Over the next 11 months, she lost another 80lbs, bringing her weight down to 190lbs. She had also started working out, getting up at 5am to go to the gym while the rest of the family slept.
In February 2022, Berrocal travelled to Miami for a $10,000 body lift to remove the loose skin left behind.
The recovery was painful, but Mark supported her throughout. When it was over, however, she found herself facing a difficult truth.
Men complimented her physique and struck up conversations in supermarkets and on nights out. But to Berrocal, Mark seemed unmoved.
‘I was getting all this attention when I left the house,’ she said. ‘Then I’d come home to this man who didn’t even look at me.’
Hoping to bridge the growing distance, Berrocal planned a surprise for their wedding anniversary.
The gift was a professionally shot photo book featuring a more confident version of herself in lingerie.
‘When I gave it to him, he smiled and said the pictures looked great,’ she recalled. ‘But I don’t think he looked at it again after that.’
On March 28, 2024 – their sixth wedding anniversary – she decided she’d had enough.
And, despite all their issues, Mark seemed surprised when Berrocal said she wanted to separate, she said: ‘He cried, but I didn’t. Up to that point, I’d been determined for things to work. But I was just exhausted by then.’
In the months that followed, before he moved out, Mark became more attentive, texting her ‘good morning’ every day from the sofa and even trying to organize dates.
But, for Berrocal, it was too late.
Today, they are separated, although not yet divorced. Their son lives with Berrocal, but stays with his father every other weekend.
There are no more arguments, but Berrocal said Mark will occasionally say something sharp like, ‘you were my biggest mistake,’ which she admitted hurts.
Berrocal has been in a new relationship for the past year.
‘He treats me well,’ she said. ‘He sends flowers to my work and takes me on dates.
‘You only have one life to live, and you have to be happy. Sometimes, if things don’t work out, you can just move on and create your own happiness.
‘I don’t regret losing weight – it was the best decision I ever made. But don’t think that, just because you do, it will fix your relationship. It didn’t work out like that for me.’
