to think it's quite mean of my DH to give me looks when I eat food he thinks I shouldn't be eating and to tell me I lack self control?

[beestings]

Here's the background, sorry this is so long but didn't want to drip feed. Thanks for opinions and advice.

I'm not anywhere near overweight according to BMI and never have been and have three children.

In my early 20s I was very slim and fit and I managed to get back to being relatively healthy after DC1.

When DC2 was born he was very ill and I spent the first year worrying about him and spending no time on myself. Just when it became clear he would be fine and I thought I might get fit again (exercise and eating well) I found out that I was pregnant with DC3.

In that pregnancy I let myself go a little and ate lots of rubbish and did little exercise. I had a horrific birth injury with DC3 (and have an ongoing issue). I felt pretty shit about myself and felt quite fat and unattractive (and stretch marked). Even at this point I was in the middle of the BMI normal range. Around this time DH went on a fitness overdrive. He's always been slim, but he started working out a lot, and controlling his diet and he started to see good results. This is when he started telling me I ought to get to the gym and eat healthily and every time I ate too much or not the right thing or too little of the right thing in front of him he would give me looks or roll his eyes. I was still breastfeeding and was in no fit state mentally given all I'd been through in the previous 2 years to really get myself to the gym and to eat healthily. I was very upset with him.

Around 6 months later I finally got up the courage to get back into exercise and I lost some weight and got fitter again. A month later I was pregnant again though I had a late miscarriage at 16 weeks. I ended up putting all the weight I had lost in the summer back on and felt pretty shit about myself all winter. Cue DH giving me looks and telling me to get into the gym because he's 'concerned' about me. We eventually had it out and he agreed that what he was doing was not nice or helpful. A few weeks later I got back into gear and started exercising again and got fitter but didn't manage to shift any weight.

So today I'm 5 weeks pregnant again and trying to be careful but am starving and quite nauseous when not eating. At a children's birthday party this afternoon I ate a small sandwich and was standing next to DH and saw a look from him. When we talked about it later he finally admitted that he is being judgemental and that he thinks that I have no self control. He also said sorry and that it's not really any of his business.

What do I do with him? I really don't know anymore. I feel pretty shit and all his looks are making me feel worse, but I'm pregnant again and hoping to stay that way so can only really try to eat healthily. (He's fitter than ever and looks pretty good (on the outside, though I think he's pretty ugly on the inside)).

(I can get plenty of help with the kids so this is not really an excuse.)

Not wishing to defend his behaviour but do the two of get any time alone? Perhaps he feels like he has 'lost' the person that he married? His behaviour is shameful but perhaps he needs learn that even though you are now a mum (congrats on your soon to be 4 brood) you can still be his wife? Hope this makes sense.

I think you must have a massive amount of self control just to be able to prevent yourself from wanting to shove that sandwich up his smug backside!

I'd tell him to go fuck himself, because I certainly wouldn't be fucking him again. Seriously, you're pregnant, it was a sandwich, he sounds like a total arsehole.

Health/exercise obsessive can be a real nightmare.

Fine if that's what you as a person want to do with your body. But do it for yourself and don't try to come tell others. That means no eye rolling and nasty bitchy comments.

Why is there the need to even do it? It's judgemental and nasty and controlling.- you see a really nasty side of people when they start like this.

Surely you exercise and eat well for
Yourself not to make you feel better than others and to judge them!

OP- your husband is being a nasty person. I think you need to really lay down the way it makes you feel and let him Know the real consequences if he continues to treat you so badly.

You need to sort it as it'll be your children he does it to next.

Some of the responses on this thread are awful. The OP's not asking for comments of her desire for a large family, or if eating a tiny kids sandwich is disgusting.

OP I think only you know if he makes you happy. It sounds like you've had a really hard time with poorly babies, loss and birth injuries. Was your DH supportive at all through these times, it was he more interested in going to the gym? Agree with pp who said that right now he should be wrapping you in cotton wool.

It sounds like you have a lot to discuss, and food probably has very little to do with it but is symbolic. Congratulations on your pregnancy.

He is an Arsehole! of the worst king!

I'm so sorry about your Lo that you lost.

We have 5DC and we lost what would have been our 6th DC when I was 16 weeks pregnant,we were all devastated myself,DH and all 5 of our DC.There is no way my DH would have been making me feel awful for eating if I'd fell pregnant again.

You need to have serious words with him,he really needs to back off and change his attitude.

worst kind * Sorry.

Plonky she hasn't already tried to discuss it with him, it seems to go in one ear and out the other. She now needs to consider the the future and what to do, yes it means no further children with this arse, concentrating on herself and her kids.

Sorry you are married to such a horrible cunt of a man.

I very much doubt he will change. I wasted many years of my life thinking an utter arsehole "didn't really mean it" and "was lovely in so many ways" and trying to understand his dreadful behaviour. I can report that it is an utter waste of time.

Is has shown you very clearly who he is. Believe him.

Being of a healthy weight and pg again you can eat a whole tray of sandwiches if you wanted to OP.

All your H should be doing is passing them to you and providing tea to wash them down.

He would be out the door if he treated me like that, seriously, kids or no kids I wouldn't have someone attacking my self esteem like that. I would also worry that he may treat the children the same as they grow up and give them a food complex. Tell him firmly it is not on.

He sounds awful. You should never feel self conscious in a relationship! Converts to things are always the most annoying preachers- fitness/dieting/giving up smoking etc. If you were obese then his worries would be justified but he still shouldn't do it in that way. He should be making you feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.

Forgot to add, I have a friend who said this to me recently about her partner.. She now secret eats when he's not looking.

My DP did this. He's now my ex-DP. I cannot stand this kind of controlling behaviour.

If your DH's body has been through a tenth of the kind of physical trauma your body has been through, then I'd bet he wouldn't be so judgemental about himself as he's currently being about you.

Oops and another one! We bumped into my MIL once in a shop car park around the corner from where she lives, quickly eating a magnum. We asked her what she was doing and she said she doesn't like eating treats in front of him. They've been married 40 years! So sad.

OP, from what you've said, you're not overweight, so that's not a problem. As you're pregnant again, you need to look after yourself - that's the really important thing. And it sounds to me as if that's going to be quite hard with three small children, particularly if you have other anxieties relating to a birth injury that's still causing problems and a late miscarriage last time.

So if I were you, I would eat normally - or whatever feels right for you in your current condition. Would it help you to some yoga or something like that rather than going off to the gym? I'm just thinking in terms of an exercise that might improve your sense of wellbeing (mentally and physically) rather than something that gets you fit.

As for your DH, he does sound completely and utterly obsessed and he hasn't, by the sound of it, grasped the reality of what multiple pregnancies do to a woman's body, let alone the impact your particular experiences have left on your mental state. Is there someone you're close to who could talk to him about this? He needs a reality check but it might be better coming from someone else rather than you.

That is sad MrsT, that will be the op if she stays with this arse. It's telling how op has felt the need to say several times she is within the healthy BMI range

"I had a horrific birth injury with DC3 (and have an ongoing issue). I felt pretty shit about myself and felt quite fat and unattractive (and stretch marked). Even at this point I was in the middle of the BMI normal range. Around this time DH went on a fitness overdrive."

So, your body was taking a right hammering at this point, and his (unconscious?) response/reaction was to suddenly take even more care of his own body. There is an underlying selfishness there, but I wonder if there is also a fear? Maybe even a denial about the possibly-inevitable effects of the desire to have a large family?

He is being a complete dick, especially as he continually returns to his eye-rolling despite being told that his behaviour is hurtful. But he is also being incredibly ignorant on physiology, given that he's such a gym bunny. Your body's 'fluctuations' are necessary if any family, let alone a large one, are to come into being. That seems to be inconceivable to him. As for 'letting yourself go'; no, you were prioritising the wellbeing of your child over your own. Selflessness, in fact. That, alas, also seems to be inconceivable to him .

Bair*'s gym-nut DH says "tell him to do double his current workout on half his usual intake. As that's how pregnancy looks from the outside to him." I think that's a really good point. Your DH's blind ignorance of the demands you are BOTH placing on your body needs to be corrected. He needs to accept that he is being unreasonable, not just unfeeling, about his eye-rolling dickishness. He needs to stop denying that there is nothing more constant than change, and that the years cannot be held back.

And he needs to be aware that there are consequences to his eye-rolling. By that I do not LTB. I do mean that your respect for him would be chipped away day by day, and that a relationship with someone you can no longer respect cannot be a loving relationship. And that the person responsible for the death of your love would be him.

"I have been feeling quite uncomfortable and pressured in the last few years but used to be quite feisty."
Sorry, just re-reading, I missed this comment of yours OP. Can you expand on what is making you uncomfortable, and what pressure is being applied?

What will you do when he starts targeting the kids?

Not good, OP. He clearly doesn't respect u or even care about u that much :( . I would be seriously questioning this relationship.

Like Glasto up thread my first instinct would be to tell him to go fuck himself. YANBU.

quietbatperson - I absolutely agree. He WILL start on the children. I too had this kind of childhood and of course it all becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they ever said anything of this nature to my kids I stopped them dead with the "Die you cunt" look - but it didn't stop them trying.

OP you do need to think about your future with this man - and I use the term 'man' in the loosest possible sense - because unless he has some fairly radical thought re-processing treatment it's not going to go away. You say he stops for a couple of months then starts again? This is because he actually cannot stop - he can halt it for a while, but he cannot stop it.
I feel for you, I really do.

What an arse he is.

I am also seriously unimpressed by some of the above posts. The OP was not inviting comments on her family planning ffs. I have reported one post.