Parenting with an obese partner - exhausted

[user1471462428]

I know I’m going to get flamed but AIBU for finding it hard to co parent with a obese person. He can’t go on rides or inflatables as he is over the weight limit. He can’t play football/netball with our kids as he is breathless and has no energy. His days are oriented round food and when he can next sleep (he struggles exhaustion I guess due to moving around with his weight). I’m so tired of being the active parent and feeling like I’m dragging him about. I’ve talked to him about diet/bariatric surgery but he is not ready for this. Im sometimes scared he’ll die in sleep and the kids will find him.
I do recognise he is now at the stage where he is essentially disabled but I’m just so fucking tired of him. I do recognise he is ill and the obsessive eating is a compulsion but I’m running out of sympathy with it. Is awful to leave him?

Is he of South Asian heritage as you mentioned Diwali? If so, he is at higher risk for diabetes so he really needs to get it checked out
www.diabetes.co.uk/south-asian/

If lots of people are saying it to you, perhaps you should consider talking to your doctor about it.

OP - it is difficult for people to understand that body composition varies.

110kg comprising mostly fat in a male is different to 110kg comprising mostly muscle.

Males and females have different body compositions and cannot be compared.

What is your husband's body composition? What percentage of fat is he carrying?

Some info: According to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, there are healthy body fat percentages based on your age. For people aged 20 to 39, women should aim for 21% to 32% of body fat. Men should have 8% to 19%. For people 40 to 59, women should fall between 23% to 33% and men should fall around 11% to 21%. If you’re aged 60 to 79, women should have 24% to 35% body fat and men should have 13% to 24%.

www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/what-is-body-composition

That aside, if he is unwilling to care for himself or seek change then you are not compatible. Perhaps he would consider seeing a therapist who specialises in disordered eating to try and get to the bottom of this behaviour. That would not require exercise, dieting or surgery.

yes this didn’t ring true with me. Surely parents nights just happen once or twice every school year? Even if he tired surely he could muster up energy to attend?

that said I’m sure many of my friends partners -one that I know for sure - have never been to any of their kids parents nights either and they’re not overweight or disabled in any. I think some men just leave a lot of things to the mothers because they know they can unfortunately, unless the woman is forceful about it.

OP, I think by all the responses you can see it seems unlikely that it’s his weight that’s causing him to opt-out of parenting. You mentioned he has left before so I think that’s very telling in the context of things. Did he come back because he missed you all dearly and was sorry…or did he just come back reluctantly and therefore doesn’t really want to be back?

There is definitely something going on here beyond weight. I was 13 stone and 5ft 2 at one point and I did have some issues but I wasn’t glued to my bed or anything.

It’s an anonymous forum so what does it matter

I’m 125kg, starting on a weight loss journey as I need an op. BMI 45. I have a really busy full time job, walk the dog every day, swim twice every weekend and generally fly around. This sounds more like a health issue. Has he had recent bloods?

Dear OP, as the partner of someone with Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) which is successfully treated with nightly CPAP machine, I can tell you that his tiredness and habits are classic symptoms. It is a medically urgent matter, I cannot stress this enough.

OSA is aggravated by obesity but obesity is not the sole cause of OSA. OSA can affect anyone - my OH's specialist mentioned treating children, skinny people, old people, in fact people of all shapes, ages, sizes. One risk factor in developing OSA is having a short neck, regardless of body size.

I would suggest that the actual cause of your husband's issues (and hence your problems with him) is OSA with or without obesity! And when he gets successfully treated, you will find he is a 'new man'! My OH certainly was.

He needs to see a GP ASAP, and be referred to a sleep clinic, where he can have a take-home monitor or a one-night monitoring in a local hospital. Insist on him going - it is literally a life-or-death matter as OSA is a killer - and not just from people falling asleep at the wheel of vehicle - it can directly (over a period of time undiagnosed) cause heart attacks, strokes and other vascular issues.

There are many makes and models of CPAPs and several ways of wearing the facial 'mask' bit, it's important to try them out and find one that works.

I would suggest your husband starts reading books about nutrition and gut microbiome etc and try adjusting a few things in his diet (add veggies for example) and make small tweaks rather than huge changes. Professor Tim Spector is coming up with a new book “food for life”. Perhaps a good idea? A psychologist would also help him with the compulsive eating. He needs to get out of this vicious circle or he will go to an early grave. It took two very tough years for my brother to deal with his alcoholism and we all thought him lost (4 stints of rehab) but he made it through eventually and is now completely clean. He realised how much hurt he was causing around him. It’s possible, but family support is very much needed! I wish you the best of luck !

I'm 5-11 and about 17 stone .I can still do things.

Watch the ButlersEmpire channel on YouTube with Martin and Sharon. They are mid 50s on diets but worth watching as they show all meals being cooked, tested and tasted. It's family videos and vlogs and he gives really good info about what food does to your body. He's just an ordinary bloke who does cars up for a living, not a dietitian.

Please stop this. I’m not underweight. I have a small frame but I am well covered, I eat well and am very fit. What precisely are you insinuating about my weight? Are you suggesting I have an eating disorder? I don’t. Have you personally seen my build? I suspect not.

Also flyweight bracket is 48-51kg, so you don’t know anything about boxing either.

It all depending how and where the weight is distributed. It might be all fat on belly and moobs.
Obesity has different criteria according to gender age and height.

No one in real life says it to me. Only on here when I dare to put my head above the parapet. Your sense of entitlement in commenting on my body, which you’ve not seen, and insisting I am dangerously underweight and inferring I am somehow deluded or suffering with an ED, is astonishing.

Are you overweight? I am not sure why you’ve fixated on to me.

Haven't RTFT but I think your DH needs to urgently go to GP re sleep apnoea, and also get his thyroid checked out. Tiredness and putting on weight can be associated with hypothyroidism which is very common and treatable. He needs a fill checkup, blood work etc. It's possible his weight is a symptom rather than a cause of his problems.

I gave you the stats for MMA flyweight, but okay, let’s do boxing. 48-51kg, also about 5’5” on average, so also within the healthy weight range for their height. You are not.

I am not suggesting anything. I am stating, quite clearly, that you are very underweight, possibly even in dangerous territory. This is medical fact. I do not need to see your build to confirm this and your protestations about how fit and ‘just not fat’ you are and that you don’t have an eating disorder (which I never mentioned) are really worrying, at this point.

I’m no longer comfortable talking to you about this. I hope you have some support in real life.

You’re ridiculous.

If I posted a photograph of myself you would realise what a total fool you are. Bodies do not come in one size.

What’s your height and weight? Perhaps you’d like it if I discussed at length your body shape and told you repeatedly how fat and unhealthy you are and asked if you have real life dietician support? Except that wouldn’t be ok, would it? Apparently I t’s only ok to bang on and on about smaller bodies.

FYI my brother is a doctor. My sister in law is a doctor. My other brother in law is a doctor. I’m surrounded by opinionated family members who would talk to me if I was ‘dangerously underweight’. I run marathons with my brother. We are both slightly built people and both perfect weights for our body shapes.

But of course you know better.

And you need to stop googling weight brackets, it’s patently obvious you don’t have a scooby.

Sure. Good luck.

He is obviously overweight and definitely in the obese category but he doesn’t weigh THAT much - you say he’s boarding on disabled? I’ve previously been that weight and I am short - I worked full time, lived a busy life, did everything with the kids, and I could hike and run? If he just isn’t working for you that’s fine but I find it hard to believe his weight alone is that disabling

It would definitely be a very good idea for him to get his thyroid tested. Underactive thyroid if left untreated can make you very unwell indeed and feeling very unfit and generally dreadful mentally and physically, as well as leading to weight gain, aches and pains, and extreme fatigue. (Eventually untreated underactive thyroid can lead to death... it's actually really serious if left a long time, and the patient needs to take levothyroxine for life and getting free prescriptions.) If he does have underactive thyroid, it is likely helping to cause at least some of the problems and then making everything else worse. Not saying it is this but checking it is a no-brainer. Didn't RTFT, sorry if this has all been said.

Yes also agree regarding the sleep apnoea, it's urgent. I know someone (no not my partner, a friend) who has a CPAP machine due to that. Not great to get used to at first, and sleeps in a different room to partner as it makes a noise* BUT he feels so much better and is not at risk now. And of course if you sleep better, that also helps with losing weight itself and doing all the other things related to that and getting healthier overall.

*Gentler and more regular than awful snoring though of course. Not sure if this friend had the snoring though or just the stopping breathing and then sort of gasping thing.

He incidentally is very judgmental of women who gain weight, I always stayed on top on my weight.

Id dump him for the sexism and hypocrisy

Quite.

Maybe he looks heavier than he actually is?

This can happen. eg if the fairground hasn't got actual scales; shorter people often have a different look when carrying an okay amount of weight too that some people think looks "fat" (think about how some short size 8-10 women on Strictly get hounded for being overweight when they are emphatically not but have shorter muscular limbs). Not withstanding the discussion about this man and how he really needs a GP work-up to get to the bottom of things for his benefit.

It can go the other way. I look lighter than I am (apparently). Doesn't mean we don't then talk about my weight and health obviously. It's just that I myself often have to point out with a different nurse or GP what my BMI roughly is, whether we should weight me today, what it was last time, what I am and should be doing, etc. well if I feel like it.

at 105kg for a man of 5ft7 he isn't so obese it restricts him this much. Obese on BMI, sure but it sounds like he has several other health issues that contribute to tiredness. You can leave him for whatever reason you like and you don't have to fancy him but reading your op it sounded so dramatic I thought he must be weighing 200kg and over.

As a morbidly obese parent myself, I feel awful for you. I have comorbidity and chronic pain issues which prevent me from exercising, but my weight had already been an issue throughout adulthood. Multiple diets had initially helped but I always plateaued then regained the weight, despite sticking to the same food as when I lost it. Only recently it has been explained to me by a consultant at an NHS weight loss clinic, that some people's bodies will react to weight loss as a negative and try to reverse it to what it deems as their 'normal' weight. This explains a lot. The frustration in failing despite your best efforts is difficult to bear.

I once lost quite a bit on the fat binding pills, as not only do they reduce the amount you store but you have to reduce the intake of fats, or there are not very nice repercussions with bowel movements.

At present I am having weight loss injections weekly, with a view to being referred for bariatric surgery. I'm told that due to the regain of weight each time, the only permanent weight management tool open to me is surgery. I've already lost over 3 stone in a few months and am tolerating the injections well. I would suggest your DH speaking to his GP about the jabs, as you don't necessarily need to follow them with surgery. It's by far the easiest weight loss tool I've used to date. You inject yourself at home with a pen, just as diabetics do with insulin, so he won't need weekly GP visits.

Regarding the sleep apnea, my husband suffers from it and the cpap machine was a godsend to both of us. As with most referrals, appointments for the sleep clinic can take many months, so it's a good idea to get the ball rolling ASAP.

I hope some of these comments help him see there are easy changes he could make to ensure he gets to see his children grow up. Wishing you all the best.

I weigh roughly 80 kilo. A vast difference from my 53 kilo as a young woman. I'm 78 years old. I don't binge. I find breathing very hard and walking. I may have sleep apnea but as I only sleep 3 to 4 hours a night I could just be tired. I've with my ex husband. I weighed less when i divorced him 30 years ago. He does everything for me. Not because of my weight bit because of my back. I dieter 6 months ago and lost 17 kilo. I then broke my shoulder so I put on weight. I think all you woman larger than me are excellent that you're able to do what you do. Maybe OP's husband is like me and is incapable of doing more.
They won't operate until he tries to lose weight by diet.