To sometimes resent my relationship with overweight person?

[PurpleProseStinkinRose]

Sorry... this could trigger a lot of venom but please read what I am saying very carefully.
I don't resent the weight itself. DH was overweight when I met him and physically this was not a problem in the least for me. But I hate the attitude that goes with his lifestyle. It's not about dropping a few pounds or being a bit healthier. It's all about pie, mash, and chips and the rest of us should be ok with this. I really enjoy cooking from scratch and authentic dishes as well. My DH enjoys my cooking too but before I feed him and after dinner, he'll eat an entire bag of crisps and a pack of biscuits. He justifies this by saying he doesn't love fish, for example. So if I serve fish, I always have a bit of a heart-sink because I know it won't be a big meaty dish he can sink his teeth into and he'll be a bit sulky about this. But then when I do serve a big meaty dish and he eats a pack of crisps before dinner, it's like "Oh well, I didn't have lunch today." I never nag him about his bad eating habits because I'm not his mum and he should know better by now how to look after himself. It's his body, not mine.
But I hate the example he gives our kids. I can't stand how he sits there munching and polishing off a bag of crisps and I'm telling him, "don't give any to the kids, dinner's in 10 minutes". When he's home it's just about eating in front of the TV or falling asleep in front of it. I find it really depressing. It was ridiculous. We were on holiday and from the beach to the seaside restaurant was a 5 minute walk. He drove the car from one end of the beach parking lot to the other end of the beach parking lot while the kids and I walked. It took him longer to move the car and go down the stairs to the restaurant than it did for me and three kids to walk!
I'm a bitch aren't I? :-/ I sound like a really intolerant bitch of a wife. But I find it so depressing. Look, I'm not Gisele Bundchen frolicking in my invisible bikini on Brazilian beaches, but I'm quite a healthy, outdoorsy person- not to the max. But we're quite opposite with regards to our approach to healthy living and I am finding it a real silent strain on our marriage. I hazard a guess he is too. :-/

Sorry, X-post with you OP.

I definitely think you need counselling to sort out your feelings for him. You could do this with or without him.

Honestly? I grew up with a man like this as a father and it was and is a huge issue. The rest of us never really have had weight issues (the usual few pounds etcbut never obese), and it has severely effected my relationship with food.

For example, I like crisps, but having watched my father stuff them into himself, I can't really eat them. Same with many other "obsession" foods that he has gone through.

He is now severely obese, diabetic, with ulcerated legs and STILL eats minstrels and digestives for breakfast and has disgusting amounts of sugary food shortly before my poor mum serves a home cooked meal.

In short, sort this out now.

Interested to hear he was in AA, OP. It sounds like he is still in 'recovering alcoholic' mode. While he doesn't drink and doesn't smoke, he does still have an addict's mentality, except that his substance of choice is junk food not alcohol or drugs. And it's the behaviour and mentality that goes with the addiction that damages the people living around the addict, as much as the effect of the substance itself. Does that make sense? It's that whole thing of the pursuit of the substance being more important than family, relationships and work. You might want to look up co-dependency and check out your possible (unconscious) role in enabling his behaviour.

You poor thing. I would struggle massively with this.

Yes, it's not really him being fat, is it, it's him wanting everything his way and making no effort with family life. Sadly it sounds like habits he will be very reluctant to give up too. What's your situation like regarding house ownership/name on the lease, who works or doesn't work, all that?

Will be brief as these are unusual circs & may out me so I can't give details.

My ex husband was an alcoholic with a drug addiction to go with it. He did change but I divorced him & moved away with the children before the change was made. Too little too late but I made the right decision & have not once regretted it.

My cousin was 37 & weighed nearly 30 stone. He died last year, At fucking 37!

OP you need to think about whether you wish to live like this for the next 20 years

Sorry am writing in the car , scrub out that normal in the second sentence.

From what I learned in my counselling days is its very easy to roache one addiction with another.

You've got to fill that vacuum drinking leaves with another activity to another addiction.

Good on him for giving up booze though. Would he go to counselling with you.

op ive been where you are. Although my DP had a sporting injury years ago and it stopped him playing and he piled on the weight and was gorging on shit and take aways.

I didn't mind that he had put some weight on but I thought it was t fair that he was now getting obese, because he want like that when I met him. His health went down the pan, he was high risk for heart attack ect...
Every year his clothes size went up and up till he reached XXL and was nearly twenty stone.

I didn't fancy him more because his whole attitude to his life, eating and laziness really turned me off.

We talked quite a lot about his health side of it but in his mind he wasn't ready and was still eating shit (full on lamb curry rice and chips can of coke ect..) at work.

I told him at the beginning of the year he loses the weight or he loses me because if he has a heart attack he is being selfish on me and DD and that seemed to be a wake up call.

He joined a gym and slowly it's coming off he has lost 3 stone and I'm just starting to see his lovely handsome face come back. He also has a meeting with a personal trainer today to try and keep him motivated as he is starting to struggle a bit.

You have to make a stand on what you are going to put up with. He sounds like he is in denial.

Roache? Replace. As a previous poster said.

Keyed up OP was a good expression to use and I know exactly what you mean.my relative was the same. We were meeting them for a meal at the restaurant next door to where we were staying. He was so eager for his next fill up, he couldn't wait for us to walk across the car park. It was a carvery and he was tucking in when we got there . I was quite shocked. He was as high as a kite.

If you left anything on your plate. He would eat it. He ate 12 rolls with his salad at the harvester be fore his main meal and dessert. Then he would go on to lose a stone in a week by eating meat only then he would put it on the next week :-(

Lovely guy too

Is your relationship back on track Tequila? I hope do. Tough love but I hope it works.

That was another thing we never went to a nice restaurant. There just wouldn't have been enough food on his plate.

We did go to an Indian where he had his 'usual'. This. Was a starter , 12 poppa doms a full on naan bread and his main with lashings of rice.

At those all u can eat buffets like Cosmo,or red hot there would be plateful. After plate full of desserts.

He was a lovely guy . He was as generous as his appetite.

Channel 4 had a programme on the other night about two morbidly obese people trying to work on their weight. Normally, these sorts of programmes are a bit grim but this one was different. There was a lot of focus on the behaviour of the people and the impact on those around them, also on the whole relationship dynamic. The overweight guy was a a bully to his wife at the start, angry and sorry for himself. The world revolved around him and his needs. The overweight woman used a different tactic reverting to babyish behaviour. In both cases it was clear that the eating was a symptom of something else.
www.channel4.com/programmes/shut-ins-britains-fattest-people

Your DH's behaviour around food suggest a deeper problem that needs solving. He isn't eating out of hunger, food has a different place in his life. It is providing some sort of pyschological boost or comfort for him.
If he is getting angry if you don't feed him what he wants or ask him to make a change then it seems to me that food is feeding something other than hunger.

Maybe he doesn't like walking because he is self-conscious about his size and slowness especially compared to you and the DC. And of course, if he feels uncomfortable about something he will react badly then make himself feel better by eating.

OP I think you're a saint. I had to really make an effort to restrain myself from killing being arsey to FIL when he covered his entire meal in salt without tasting it.

I couldn't put up with what you are day in, day out.

I know you say he was overweight when you got together and it's not all about his size, but did he always have these habits or are they new? Has something triggered them?

And yes, I think his addictive nature is extremely relevant.

"He's a recovering alcoholic, sober for longer than he was ever a drinker. I don't know if this additional info is helpful. He is, I suppose, a food addict."

He still is an alcoholic, he just isn't drinking at the moment. And I think you're spot on about him being a food addict. It sounds as if he hasn't tackled the fundamental things that made him drink, he's just transferred the addiction to another substance. And whereas you can, with an enormous amount of effort, stop drinking alcohol so that you avoid your addiction, you can't stop eating food.

"I just wasn't the right person for him. I know this in my heart."

That's very sad to hear for various reasons. Perhaps you're not right for each other or perhaps he isn't right for you? The way you've phrased it it sounds as if you're blaming yourself, when you're trying your best in a very difficult situation.

getting someone to stop eating crisps and have more healthy habits is difficult without that person agreeing there is a problem. adults can buy crisps whenever they want.

he's got to agree there is a problem.

and no I don't think you are a bad person. Weight or not, it sounds like he is out of shape. 5 minutes of walking shouldn't be a difficult task.

What if he likes himself as he is belly and all, likes eating food and enjoying life, and expects that you love him for who he is now as you did when you met?

What then?

Unless he gets to the bottom of why he eats the way he does then even if you get him to change his eating habits the probablility is that another addiction will surface.

I remember an ex alcholic saying that he had become addicted to exercise instead. Great? Not if they become utterly obsessed with their new activity and eating regime and you become a running /cycling/ gym widow, who is still having to cook to his menu or risk sulks.

dowser yes it is. He is such a handsome bloke and it was horrible to see him so swollen. One of the worse things was seeing him having to play for crap teams and then be a substitute because he was so unfit when actually he is a very talented player and was known for it. The lowest point was some one calling him a 'fat cunt' and every one laughing during a game.

Hopefully the PT he is meeting today will spur him on.

Good luck op

Is it new behaviour? I don't really understand why you'd marry someone with such a different lifestyle outlook.

YANBU
It is hard to reconcile this sort of thing, especially in terms of the example he is setting the children

I'm the same as you in that I don't believe what an adult eats is any of my business, but I would be asking him to consider the children. He might not mind though, if he thinks his lifestyle is fine, it naturally follows that children taking it up won't bother him.

I am curious about the car park thing. Did he do that because he really couldn't walk the distance that you and the children were walking? I would honestly find that a worry and it might even be one I'd comment on because I'd be concerned about their health in other ways e.g. mobility and joints. I do take the view that we've all got to die of something and I'm not one of these people who wants to live to 90 but being unable to manage a short walk takes lots of fun options out of life too, doesn't it?

YANBU.

Having been through AA myself and also having had an eating disorder, the two go hand-in-hand and cross addiction is very common. Would he go to OA which works the 12 steps in the same way that AA does? It does sound as if he's a dry drunk - brilliant news that he has managed to stop drinking and that it's had such a lasting effect, but the black hole that he used to fill with drink is still causing him pain, hence the need to fill it with food. As someone above said, many AA ex-drinkers become addicted to another drug of choice - for some, it's food or exercise or even just about attending as many meetings as they possibly can.

You refer to the last year as though things have changed, and not for the better. It's very difficult if he's happy with the way everything is and doesn't want to change, so the focus being your DCs and the example he is setting is the only line to take - but I'm not surprised that you sound fed up.

Sending you and hope that you can reach a resolution.

YANBU you want him to lead a healthier lifestyle and set a better example for your kids. Totally understandable and I can definitely relate.

OP the thing is hes got to want to change. And its a long term lifestyle change. Ive lost ten stone going from a size 28 down to a 14.

Then i gave up smoking. Put 4 stone back on but have now lost that too and got back down to a size 14.
All this has happened from 2002 to now. So its never a quick fix.

I also believe its up to any individual what they eat. Its the example hes setting the kids which is worrying.

And i think the media encouraging crash diets and saying you can lose this weight or that weight in a matter of weeks just isnt realistic. Ppl then get fed up and give up.

My DH gave up smoking after a heart attack in 2006 which left him partially disabled. Hes not that overweight and some of it is down to medication. He eats cake jaffa cakes victoria sponge biscuits etc but the thing is he doesnt have an apathetic attitude like your dh seems to have and i think its this thats the real problem.

I get cross with DH for scoffing a family size bag of crisps just before dinner, as basically it is rude/disrespectfull o the person cooking.

It is also a bit pathetic to not be able to wait 30 or 20 mins for a meal.

So I get cross with him, but he still does it sometimes.

As I am the main shopper, i find simply not buying crisps/junkfood at all really helps though.