AIBU over DHs increasingly unhealthy lifestyle

[Namey32]

I am prepared to be told that IABU but would like some opinions as ultimately I'd like DH to live a long and healthy life with me, the DC and hopefully the DGC in time. However I accept that ultimately it's not up to me to 1. Parent my husband 2. Pester him to be more healthily, also he is not an unhealthy weight/shape and I may also be being swayed by MIL and SILs extremely healthy lifestyle - think clean eating, running etc.

DH has been smoking since we met, although has been 'giving up' at various points. He had some success for 2 weeks over Christmas once. He's tried all sorts of vapes etc but doesn't have much self control. He was asked by the midwife to give up when I was pregnant with DC1 but nothing happened there. I don't have high hopes for this time either (I'm pregnant with DC2).
To be fair to him, he doesn't smoke in the house or around me or DC and will go in the garden or along the road or smokes outside work. I can smell on him though, but I suppose that's neither here nor there.

His eating habits are getting worse. He's not a fan of 'healthy' food and left to his own devices would always opt for the junk food. He doesn't eat fruit and only eats veg in/with whatever I serve for dinner. He doesn't eat breakfast but for example will have a packet of biscuits mid morning. If I don't make him a packed lunch for work, he will go to the shop and buy a packet of sausage rolls (and something else - chocolate/sweets/biscuits etc) which is then lunch. He works shifts so often isn't home for tea. Sometimes I do cook properly and leave his in the fridge and he may well eat it, but then other times (at least once a week) will have a takeaway with the people at work.

My other concern is his energy drink intake - I'm very sure there are several being consumed per day. He tells me he only has one, but his car is full of empty cans - definitely more than 7 per day. Ultimately they're just caffeine and sweetener surely? His nod to 'healthy' is the 0 sugar ones.

He also does no exercise. All he does really is whatever walking we do at the weekend - that sometime is a long country walk but can just be pushing the pram to the park and around town.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting him to live on greenery and water. We do enjoy a chippy tea together at the weekend and we'll have a drink and some cake or chocolate or something in front of the TV at the weekend when DC is in bed but for DH it seems beyond a 'treat'.

I do try to keep him on the better choices e.g. at the weekend when we're both around I'll ask him what cereal he wants while I'm doing mine and DCs so all he needs to do is eat it, but AIBU in if I don't want to cook that night and me and DC have beans on toast for example, expecting him to have something other than a pack of doughnuts for tea? (He does not consider something on toast to be adequate dinner for him - but a pack of cookies or similar is fine).
AIBU in wanting DH to be a bit healthier without me having to patent him In the way I do with our toddler? Should I just leave him to it and accept that he's not going to be in a physical condition to travel the world in retirement as we had planned?? (We're early 30s now).

Remember that we are all going to die of something, at some point so we might as well enjoy life while we have it.

This is such total crap. Spouted by people who are in denial and supporting bad choices.

You can actually enjoy a healthy lifestyle! It's not a punishment to eat lovely food that is also good for you, enjoy exercise and look after yourself.

The fact is that living an unhealthy lifestyle doesn't always shorten life (though it can do) it often means decades of poor quality of life with never ending surgery, treatment and drugs with side effects from late 40s onwards.

How anyone can defend making bad choices over lifestyle on the basis 'we all have to go one day' is just crap. I thought we'd got beyond all that now as the evidence on cancer and heart disease and diabetes was so clear.

I agree jingling

FFS. Leave him alone. Better a happy partner than a nagging, whining, lifestye-bore orthorexic who demands you cook 'healthy' (ie expensive, difficult and faddy)

FFS stop posting Crap. All of this ^^

Healthy food does not have to expensive, difficult and expensive. Try a tin of sardines ( less than £1) mashed into jacket spuds with a portion of veg. Or wholegrain pasta with homemade tomato sauce and canned tuna. Or frittata with eggs and veg.
All as cheap as chips, but better than chips.

He won't be happy when he's got diabetes, and has a leg chopped off, or lung cancer and sitting tied to an oxygen tank in the lounge. You don't just DIE with all this stuff- you live with it ( we are very good at keeping ill people alive...just) and their partners and kids have to watch it all.

Is that the life you advocate for this family?

Shame on you.

I don't think I could possibly find a man like this attractive. A smoker who eats junk and is unintelligent and irresponsible about his own health, necessitating his wife to cook for him as though he was a child. Yuk.

“Healthy food does not have to expensive, difficult and expensive. Try a tin of sardines ( less than £1) mashed into jacket spuds with a portion of veg. Or wholegrain pasta with homemade tomato sauce and canned tuna. Or frittata with eggs and veg.
All as cheap as chips, but better than chips.”

Be realistic though if he drinks 7 cans of red bull a day and eats sausage rolls biscuits and take away all day he’s not going to be on the tinned sardines and whole grain pasta anytime soon

He must literally stink.

The thing is OP, even the healthiest people can be struck down with cancer and heart attacks and any manner of killer diseases such as diabetes.

And the perceived 'walking heart attacks' can trundle on into their 80s and beyond.

That's not just anecdotal and it goes some way to make those who don't want to give up or cut down on their junk food/no moving policy, will just quote that back at you.

Set your children a healthy example and don't join in with your husband's 'behaviour'. The best thing you can give your children is choice to actually live better, feel great. That's what people who don't eat well, don't exercise - don't get to experience.

That old trope about growing out of it and men developing a love of cycling is just annoying too.

I think there’s a school of thought that your DH shouldn’t even be holding your baby if he smokes due to increased risk of cot death.

Vaping isn’t much better and is on the verge of being banned in America, due to some nasty deaths.

Personally I think when you have children you have a responsibility to grow the fuck up and set a good example.

Not sure why you are being mocked for planning to retire and travel the world either; that’s great idea. DH and I have just started doing that. DH is 55 and did an Ironman last year. I’m unfortunately disabled (not from poor health choices) but I’m healthy and fairly slim. DH jokes he’ll be pushing me up hills in my wheelchair well into his 80s.

Jingling, I've just seen your post. I don't disagree with it but ranting about it won't get it done. Adults behave as they want to and, even though OP isn't buying this junk food and drink, he's still facilitating that.

Even if OP were to leave him (and she hasn't suggested that she will so better that we all shut up about that), he will always be her children's father and they will watch the consequences of his lifestyle choices (or not) because he's their dad.

OP needs support and for that, she's not being unreasonable at all.

What are his friends like OP? Men are often quite tribal. If all his mates started a health kick, chances are that he would. They seem to do a lot of bonding while running or cycling. Can you not push him into the path of a sporty acquaintance or relative?

You're not unreasonable to WANT him to change. I sympathise with you. That sort of not taking care of yourself by making actively unhealthy choices day in day out would really bother me too. I know, as someone who eats healthy and enjoys exercise, that I would find eating junk all the time and being sedentary quite lazy.

However, if he's always been like this then I think part of you has to accept he's a grown adult. If that sort of lifestyle was going to be a deal breaker then the deal was broken years ago.

You would be unreasonable to chivvy him, nag him, monitor his food and generally mother him over this.

I can't stand the silly lines of "heart attacks and cancer happen to anyone, I know someone who ran 90 miles a day and keeled over dead but I smoke 70 a day and am still going". It's a bizarre mindset to me, but that's a mindset people have.

I'd focus on the smoking to be honest and get some proper commitment to kick it for the kids. Everything else is second to that.

You've got one life, one body, you might as well look after it.

I’ve never smoked but BIL does. He was addicted to heroin and beat it. He says nicotine is more addictive than heroin. For this reason, in OP’s shoes, I would work on diet first and once that’s done, work on the smoking.

Annoying as it is, Lola, it happens sufficiently often to - for some - negate the scare-factor because they want to carry on with their lifestyle as it is.

Agree with you about the smoking but again, if he doesn't want to stop, it won't happen.

Vulpine, that one short sentence ought to be taught in primary school and followed up with 'how to do it'.

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe OP has my support 100%. I suggested she offers to go with him to drs to stop smoking - get NHS support. I suggested or rather said what I'd do- which might be leave as I see his behaviour as totally selfish.

It's fine not to give a fuck about your health if you are single, but if you have dependents and a partner, you are supposed to care about the impact of your choices on them.

OP I voted YABU and I’ll explain why.
My mother passed away a number of years ago (I’m in my 30s). That just leaves my Dad. He has an awful lifestyle. Eats a horrendous diet. Very little exercise. Lots of beer. I used to nag him about it. It got to the point where it was our only topic of conversation. I eventually said he was being selfish in an attempt to shame him into changing.
It was a step too far. He told me in no uncertain terms it’s his life. He would rather eat and drink what he wants and live, say 10 years less, then eat healthy, reduce his alcohol and exercise and live say an additional 10 years.
I responded, even if that means your GC don’t remember you because they will be 10 years younger when you die? His response was yes.
Honestly doesn’t make any sense to me, but he is right. It is his life and his decision.
I don’t mention it anymore.

Again, I don't diagree with you, Jingling, but just because people have children doesn't mean that they put them first or think of their best interests. Not everybody does that, sadly.

OP's just go to instil as many good things as she can in her children because her husband isn't doing 'his bit' by actively setting a good example too.

I'd struggle to get the fanny gallops for someone with those habits tbh.

The smoking is the big one for me, he's risking your children's lives.

He would rather eat and drink what he wants and live, say 10 years less, then eat healthy, reduce his alcohol and exercise and live say an additional 10 years

Sadly more often than not, lifestyle affects your quality of life, rather than the quantity. Nowadays they can keep you alive long after you would wish to be dead.

Much better to drop dead of a massive heart attack after walking your daily couple of miles in your late 80s, after a long and healthy life, rather than spend the last 20 years enduring diabetes and leg ulcers and constant heart disease procedures and basically being stuck at home with carers.

My uncle smoked and ate like that but was outwardly very slim/healthy looking.

He had a massive stroke at 50 and has spent the past few years recovering.

This was the same pattern as his mother/my nana.

Both thought they were fine and healthy because they were those annoying people who couldnt put weight on and looked fit as a fiddle.

Dont let him get that far.

lying
I agree with you. It's almost like people who continue to make bad choices actively cling to anything they can find to justify why they don't have to change.

E.g. David does triathlon and eats healthy (but part of that still means enjoying a social pint, cake etc). He had to have a triple bypass and I haven't so I'm just fine.

Even though, I've had a cough on and off for years, I get out of breath doing the smallest amount of exercise, my ankles and back ache from the additional weight, my cholesterol is probably high and not doing me any good. I'm probably pre-diabetic or diabetic already but if I don't go to the doctor then I'm technically not. I can be even more sedentary and avoid having to acknowledge that I'm overall in a worse state.

David has his triple bypass and goes on to do his physio, take it steady and has a full, healthy life.
I don't really enjoy all that exercise stuff (because doing it would force me to realise the state my body is in) so I'll decide I'm quite happy watching telly all day.

Have you seen the video on Facebook of the effects of energy drinks on the heart? Try and find it and send it to him! They would be my biggest concern (apart from the smoking obviously)

I have similar concerns with my partner. He has a sedentary job and is gaining weight. He used to smoke but doesn't anymore (but that doesn't mean it won't still have damaged him) and he's awful for eating. We both have to go out (different places) two nights a week, and even if he's had his dinner before he goes at 5pm, you can guarantee he'll be arriving home at 11pm with a kebab or a McDonald's.

I try not to nag, but I'm just scared of the fact he's probably going to get so unhealthy as he gets older - he's older than me anyway, so I sort of feel like being healthier would even things up a bit!

Except that many of these 'healthy' fads are either just as bad for you as 'unhealthy' food, or just as unethical environmentally as junk food. Exclude-everything attention-seeker diets can damage your kidneys and bone density, for example. All that stuff about low-fat/low-sugar foods being 'better; for you turned out to be harmful bullshit, with the fat/sugar substitutes actually being worse for you than what they replaced.

And eating disorders, which can be triggered by excessive bullying/shaming/nagging, are far more dangerous than a few pies.