To tell my husband to stop eating?!

[HungryHungryHubby]

Okay so long story short, my DH is a secret eater.
Every morning I’ll go downstairs and he’s stuffed crisps and chocolate packets in the bin in the hopes I won’t see them.
His BMI is in the obese range and I have absolutely no qualms about how he looks, but I do worry about his health. He’s already had a heart problem in the past and this constant eating surely isn’t going to do him any good.

I went to bed early tonight and went back down for a glass of water. On the coffee table was an empty packet for one of the big sharing chocolate bars and an entire microwave popcorn packet all finished.

We had a big, balanced dinner (meat, grains, vegetables, more than enough for a dinner) and then a small chocolate pudding each for dessert. He also takes two sandwiches and some snacks to work for his lunch.

I’ve just snapped tonight and said I’ve had enough of this constant eating. I’ve tried everything now - if I stop buying snacks, he’ll just buy a load on the way home. If I buy healthy snacks, they just get ignored. If he doesn’t take snacks to work, then I’ll find McDonald’s wrappers in the car.

AIBU to have told him to stop bloody eating so much?! I’m worried about his future and our kids being without a father if he eats himself to a heart attack.

Eating disorder

Certainly disordered eating and the secrecy and solitary nature of it is so familiar. I actually have zero interest in eating junk in company. It's a relaxation thing. Please dort send him to slimming world.

Slightly similar in our house so sympathise. Lockdown helped us weirdly enough as due to home working I put on a bunch of weight (and I was no sylph to start with). I did Noom over the summer and lost 10kg. An unexpected benefit was that tracking all my food and being careful about what I ate got DH slightly interested so I have been able to improve our diet a bit and he's started exercising again - he's not that much slimmer but is fitter. Noom was helpful in understanding the emotional side of over eating, although that's not actually my issue, which is portion size.

I don’t think that you are at all unreasonable.

Why is this your problem to solve? Why are you being encouraged by other posters to enable your husband, or at least to keep quiet and never criticise him because this poor, poor man whom they have never met OBVIOUSLY has an eating disorder and mental health problems, which you are apparently making worse by challenging him on his behaviour?

Somebody upthread even had the neck to suggest that you yourself have an eating disorder and that you are the problem. Christ.

This man is supposed to be your partner, equally responsible for your family, not an extra child. He’s an adult. He has young children. He is voluntarily killing himself. Why should you pussyfoot around him? You’ve tried the reasonable, kind approach already and it hasn’t worked.

A PP in a similar situation posted this:

unfortunately he loves food more than our son and me

She is bang on.

Another poster also nailed it:

I love how people say it's his choice, like you don't have a responsibility to look after yourself for the good of your family.

Why don't I just start hammering the booze every day then ? It's my choice ? Fuck the kids.

Even if he is suffering from some sort of mental health problem (which appears to cover a spectrum from ‘feeling a bit fed up every now and again’ to schizophrenia), that doesn’t mean that he has the right to do whatever he bloody well wants whenever he wants, and hand you the consequences.

It's now known that sugar is highly addictive, as are carbs, which get turned into sugars in the digestive process.
They are incredibly hard to give up.
There is some really useful info out there.
Can I gently recommend looking up Zoe Harcombe and Dr Robert Cywes?
There is a particularly good podcast with the pair of them discussing carbohydrate addiction.
They do point out that carbs aren't 'bad' but some bodies (particularly older ones) can't cope with them.

Sorry, meant to add, that they give good advice on learning to manage your carb intake and lose weight (and the addiction) in a sustainable way

He has a carb addiction.

So many of us do but it’s not spoken about. If he was eating 2 ribeyes after his meal then ok, he’s just hungry. But he’s not, he’s eating carbs. Carbs are addictive for many people. He needs addiction support.

You shouldn't have snapped but I understand why you did.

When you have a partner and a family there is a responsibility to take proactive steps to resolve personal issues or health issues. I'd not he annoyed over a partner having an eating disorder or mental health issues because that would be a horrible thing to do, but I'd be questioning a relationship if they were dismissive of my concerns and didn't take steps to improve the situation.

I have suggested disordered eating because I recognise the description of that mindless gorging and the total shame associated with it. I'm not letting him off responsibility at all but just giving op my view of where he's at. She's not responsible but has said herself she wants it to change and she's willing to support.

Sugar is not that physically addictive but psychologically it's a killer. The Allen Carr series tackles that.

Get him to go through family insurance and finances with you, just to be sure that if he has a sudden and catastrophic health issue, you and the DC will be fine.

You could, if you want, apologise for snapping but it comes from a place and worry about his health.

also in your shoes I'd quit buying the snacks unless you want them. Just let him get on with it.

I agree, I wouldn't buy the snacks at all.

I’ve tried everything now - if I stop buying snacks, he’ll just buy a load on the way home

From the OP’s first post. Her buying or not buying snacks makes zero difference.

Is he on medication at all? Some of them can make you overeat frantically.

As for the posters saying, oh, you telling him to get a grip will only make him worse: why? Because he’s a big baby who can’t face up to his own behaviour?

The thing is, OP, most people hate being called out on their behaviour, and the majority of those will react like sulky children. They will attempt to seek revenge or will persist with the behaviour that’s causing the problem, to show the person who criticised them who is boss. In both cases, they will find ways of rationalising their own conduct.

In this example, note how people who eat to excess have rationalised what they do over the past century (when sugar started to become easily affordable and available).

Years ago it was big bones. Problems with glands. Feel hungrier than anybody else. Slow metabolism.

Very few people will say, “I just love eating sweet stuff and crisps and I like that more than being fit and healthy” and “I prefer a drive through McDonalds to making chicken and vegetables for myself”.

Now it’s “I’m too busy to cook” (hence the endemic use of the word ‘grab’ when people describe what they eat. I ‘grab’ a latte and a muffin). Or it’s stress, or some other reason that takes the responsibility away from the individual. No, it can’t possibly be their fault.

Of course there are some people with genuine eating disorders. Some. You’re not telling me, as some posters have attempted upthread, that everyone who overeats has mental health problems. The OP’s husband might simply be selfish and greedy and good at lying to himself, not mentally Ill or a carb addict.

YANBU he's being selfish and gluttony is vile to watch. However, overeating Ian usually a deeply embedded psychological response related to stress/comfort etc. so snapping at him (though I don't blame you) will most likely have the opposite effect you want.

I'd give him an ultimatum. Either he seeks trained help with his overeating or you want him to leave as you and the DC can't watch him put himself in an early grave.

Do some people not realise that sugar and food addiction is absolutely real? The issue is you cannot live without food but can live without alcohol or drugs. Some people have very little compassion for others.

Some people have very little compassion for others.

I’ll say. The OP’s husband appears to have very little compassion for his own wife and children. Plenty for himself, though, eh?

His body/brain is craving sugar, that's why he can't control the impulse to snack.

A low carb diet would help him, but he would have to go through the withdrawal process which is hard.

@iamthewombat

If he is anything likeme or any of the numerous people I know who are addicted to overeating and bingeing the opposite is true. He most likely is suffering very much and unhappy no one feels happy and satisfied after bingeing like that, they feel shame and disgust and self loathing.

Who said that he felt happy afterwards? He likes eating that stuff more than he cares about his health and his family, that’s his problem.

As for sugar and carb ‘addiction’: give me strength. Yes they taste lovely. Does that mean that we should eat them to excess daily because it feels good in the moment? No.

Some of the responses on this thread are akin to “don’t take the sweets off the baby or he’ll cry and throw his toys out of the pram”.

It's clear you have little understanding or knowledge on the subject.

Do some people not realise that sugar and food addiction is absolutely real? The issue is you cannot live without food but can live without alcohol or drugs. Some people have very little compassion for others
I do see it is real.
I don't think it is acceptable to be dismissive of your partner's entirely valid concerns and make zero effort to do something about the situation.

OP's husband is the one lacking in compassion because the message he is sending is "I'll do me.. don't you worry your pretty head... I don't see why I should do anything and you should suck it up".

He probably is just greedy.

So if he was anorexic as an example, he should just have a sandwich and stop being selfish?