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Lisseth Exposito, 25, used to consider her wedding to her husband, Jose, the best day of her life.
A few years later, when she became pregnant with their daughter and started gaining weight, their marriage suddenly started going downhill.
Lisseth began to gain weight – and continued to gain even more weight even after she gave birth to her daughter.
As Lisseth’s dress size went up, Jose began to tease her. At first, they were quiet taunts, liking calling her “fat” underneath his breath. Over time, they turned into cruel jibes that tore away at Lisseth’s self-esteem.
When the taunting first began, Lisseth tried to repair their relationship by trying to show more affection in bed. “But he’d turn over and go to sleep,” she explained. “I repulsed him and cried myself to sleep.”
The longer this spurning carried on, the more Lisseth felt her self-confidence waning away. She turned to food – even more than she already did – for comfort until she became a size 24 in dresses. “I’d catch Jose looking at me in disgust. As I ate my dinner on the sofa, I’d hear him mutter ‘fat girl,’ as crumbs bounced off my belly,” she remembered.
It wasn’t long until she realized the terrible truth: Jose had been cheating on her.
Lisseth discovered hundreds of incriminating texts on Jose’s phone and confronted him with all of the evidence. “He didn’t deny it and told me it was my fault as I was so fat. He told me I’d always be ugly,” she said.
But Lisseth was finished with her husband. “I was devastated, but determined. This man would never hurt me again.”
Immediately afterward, Lisseth filed for a divorce and completely overhauled her diet and lifestyle to transform her body – to the curvaceous hourglass figure that Jose had always so admired.
“The weight started to drop off me. I felt great, my clothes were so baggy I had to buy smaller sizes,” she explained. A sense of pride came into her voice when she mentioned her ex-husband: “Every weekend, Jose would pick up Lissmar and do a double take as he looked at me. Then one Friday he told me I was looking hot.”
“I closed the door on him,” she said. “I would never let him back in my life. I am a role model to my daughter and I proved him wrong.”
