Do I have to tell my partner that I have breast implants?

This letter, which appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer on January 28, 2015, caught my attention. I can’t resist offering my two cents!

Dear Abby,
I have been dating a wonderful man for two years and am in hopes of getting a proposal soon. We are both committed to staying pure before marriage and have not been intimate.

My question to you is: Do I have to tell him, now or ever, that I have had breast implants? I did it several years ago, and it greatly improved my self-esteem. I’m glad I did it.

Since he has never felt any breasts, if I tell him, my fear is he will get hung up on the thought, “I wonder what real breasts feel like.” On the other hand, if I don’t tell him and sometime in the future he finds out, he may be, like, “I can’t believe you kept that from me.”

What would you advise?
Reticent in Kentucky

Dear Reticent,
Many women have breast enhancement surgery so their figures will be more balanced. For the reason you have mentioned, you should tell your boyfriend. It should make no difference to him.

However, if it does, it’s better that you know now before you spend any more time on someone who measures the worth of a woman by how “real” her breasts are.

P.S. If he wants to know what “real” breasts feel like, tell him to go hug his mother.

I agree with Abby. If “Reticient in Kentucky” candidly explains why she chose to get breast implants and her boyfriend can’t be supportive, he’s not the right guy for her. If he truly loves her, he will likely be satisfied with what she has – real or not – if she is happy.

Maybe Reticient can take inspiration from Amanda. She had been with her boyfriend for more than a year and had met him after her augmentation. When he complimented her on her “perfect breasts,” she simply said thank you. He didn’t find out until he looked through one of her old photo albums and saw a picture of her at the beach – before her surgery. He still thought her breasts were perfect.

More than half of my patients bring a partner with them to their consultation. Though the exact words vary, the essence of the communication is that he loves her just the way she is. He doesn’t need her to do this. He’s there to be supportive and will let her know if anything is too crazy. And when the woman chooses her implant size and looks at her partner, she’s thinking, “Can you live with this choice of mine?”

After breast augmentation surgery, many women tell me that their significant other doesn’t notice much of a difference between their natural and augmented breasts – other than the size. That’s because when implants are placed behind the chest muscle, they look and feel natural. When you feel the augmented breast, you are feeling natural breast tissue. When women lie down, their breasts could still fall to the side, like they did before the augmentation.

Most women look natural and proportional after their breast augmentation and can keep it a secret if they are so inclined. Nicole, in her late 40s, didn’t tell her family that she was getting implants. Afterward, she emailed them a photo of herself in a tank top and then called to ask if they noticed anything different. “New hairdo?” her mother said. “Are you working out now?” her father asked. “Keep looking,” she prodded them. After hearing her no responses to her parents’ questions, her brother guessed: “Boob job!”