Refusing to eat as a means of control??

We don't know what the DB is like during arguments. If he, like many men, is shouting, unreasonable, aggressive, insistent, etc., it's an understandable trauma response if SIL can't eat — internalising the attacks on her.

Lots of people (men more than women, but women too) don't realise how aggressive they're being when they argue, so it might be something he's unaware of.

I agree it's unacceptable if the children are seeing this pattern of not eating modelled. The couple should try relationship counselling.

Salary also not so irrelevant because whilst obviously not always the case, but young women who are perfectionist, hard-working, very discipled and self-critical are often more prone to anorexia-type eating disorders.

It is an involuntary way some brains cope with stress. Some people turn to food and comfort eat. Others simply can't eat to save themselves. They are both almost reflex responses and difficult to overcome.

It very rarely happens, as we wouldn't be in a relationship if we had bad arguments often!
It would take a pretty unpleasant person not to understand when someone is deeply distressed and traumatised by their behaviour, though.

Load of balls. Come back when you actually experience a proper mental health issue. When I go into a low I feel awful and suicidal and wish with everything I have that I didn t feel like that. I’ve often said to my husband I would rather go my whole life feeling nothing that feeling that mental pain. Your generalisation and assumptions are embarrassing and damaging.

Because we’re the one with the illness?? If someone had cancer you’d never say it’s harder on the partner than the sufferer?

Part of an ED can be the euphoria and sense of achievement in 'achieving' certain goals. In the depths of an ED (clearly deep in mental illness) the sufferer may be entirely oblivious to how unwell they are.

I can’t know my c section recovery was harder for me than my husband but I’ll take a pretty good guess…

Exactly. Someone with an eating disorder is usually feeling shame and denial and is secretive.
Your partner backing down on an argument and asking you to eat after a couple of days isn't consistent with EDs

Maybe the SIL has a history of an ED. A recovered person can easily slip back into that mindset in certain situations. There's something else going on though if OP is right in thinking the SIL is using it as a tool to manipulate others. nb I realise EDs can manifest differently in children living at home where parents are involved.

I'm very sorry for your past.
I presume your DH is aware of your trauma and that you find yourself unable to eat he understands that you are not using it as a tool to manipulate him so that he 'backs down' on any argument.

Again, it’s a MH issue and I trauma response, it’s not a bloody choice. If it was a choice obviously I would choose to be able to eat and communicate effectively. Honestly people will you please think of what you’re posting before you press post!!

I wanted to highlight your post, you said it well. My DH eats, all the time, if I’m upset I can’t physically eat. Even if I’m hungry. DH doesn’t get it. He would be upset if he couldn’t eat. Food for him is a priority. It isn’t for me.

Im not a happy eater either, where as he is! If there’s food he’ll be there. He could eat a big lunch and a big dinner - I could only eat one and would probably skip breakfast the next day.

I wonder if there’s any research on this?

This is bang on and a very important distinction between where the abuse is being inflicted

That’s different though that’s making a scene about it and purposely trying to generate physical side effects. For people like me it’s a genuine mental health issue and we feel unable to eat and do it quietly.

I’m talking from experience. Trust me however it’s hurting the partner, it’s hurting the person who can’t eat more. It’s mental anguish. I know it hurts my husband that doesn’t mean I can stop the feeling that I can’t eat. The same way if I cut my hand and it bleeds on a white carpet; I know the damage it’ll do but I can’t make it just stop bleeding because of that.

If it's a mh issue as in anorexia the person would do everything to AVOID people noticing them not eating. "See how upset you made me, now I won't eat!" The latter is manipulation and has nothing to do with mh. Well, it affects the other person's mh negatively that's for sure...

I’m really sorry to come back to this, but again your words are giving it away.

Loads of people on the thread have repeatedly said that they have experienced the dynamic, have found it upsetting and manipulative, and in some cases part of a pattern of abuse.

With those three words you have utterly dismissed their experiences as (a) wrong in their perception of their own lives and (b) inconsequential.

It is so beyond unreasonable that you presume to get to control the narrative, and limit the words people get to use to describe their own lives.

In the spirit of assuming best intentions I think you mean something closer to “I hadn’t realized the extent to which others find this dynamic very upsetting to be around, or the extent to which they experience it as coercive. Notwithstanding that, I do recognize that it is unhealthy and am actively working to stop.”

It does come across that you don’t really understand why this is a problem, or even truly believe it is one.