What happens when your partner is overweight and you’re not. The conundrum happens often in relationships, sometimes causing strife that can manifest in emotional distance and latent anger.

In a seemingly open interview, popular NBC weatherman Al Roker said he remembered what it was like to be on the hefty side of his relationship with his wife, journalist Deborah Roberts, who was a size 4 at the time.

“My wife is a size 4; she runs, she works out and it became a problem in our marriage,” Roker said in a first-person piece on Today.com. “On a Saturday she’d get up, get dressed to run and I’d be sitting on the couch or making breakfast for the kids and was quite happy about our choices. She, on the other hand, was not. “Unless you communicate that, it’s going be a problem.”

Living with a sedentary partner when you’re a passionate exerciser can lead to mixed feelings. Usually, the love for your partner will lead to more exploration into the reasons for his/her lack of enthusiasm for working out and eating healthy, but sometimes, as with the Rokers, it can lead to resentment.

“She thought, ‘Why don’t you care enough about yourself and why don’t you care about me and our relationship enough to change?’” he said. “And I said, ‘Look, it’s not about you. It’s about me.’”

Fortunately, Roker, who had ballooned up to 340 pounds, took the initiative to seek medical advice, which resulted in his gastric bypass surgery and subsequent dramatic weight loss.

Considering the stigma weight carries in America, talking to your partner about her weight should never be a conversation rooted in appearance. Most of the time, if a person does not like his weight, the problem goes much deeper than the way he looks to others, so placing the emphasis on why the person emotional, spiritual, or mental pain has shown up as weight gain would probably be the best way to engage a partner.

How would you approach the subject of weight loss to your partner?