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?

I’m in a similar boat and, long time reader, registered to chip in.

my husband is much bigger compared to when we met and married. He’s Asian and it seems accepted culturally so it’s a difficult conversation to have and not my place to question.

He is 6ft and 100kg - there is practically no intimacy and I’m not sure I’m going to stick it

OP's husband is 10kgs more.

My husband is 5ft 7 and 14 stone and he struggles a bit so I can totally imagine that someone 2 stone heavier and with untreated sleep apnoea would really be struggling. It does depend on build and fitness as well. My OH was 9 stone when I met him so he has a really small frame and can't cope with carrying this much weight.

Your husband is not going to have a stroke at 100kg at 6ft ffs! 🙄🙄🙄🤦🏼‍♀️ Just because he has a bit of a belly. Don't dress up fat shaming as 'I'm concerned for his health'

Sleep apnoea, high risk of diabetes, increasing weight gain - he needs to go back to the doctors anyway. But the constant exhaustion also needs investigating. If he refuses to even take this first step to help himself and have a better quality of life, then I'd certainly be reassessing the future.

CHECK OUT HIS HEART, GET ECHO SCAN ASAP

This happened to my sister, partner creeping up weight, breathless but not huge, turned out his heart was in failure. He now has heart device and lots of heart failure drugs but is a different man, active and prognosis is years rather than months if he had carried on un-aware of the condition.

Heart failure manifests itself exactly like the symptons you describe, fatigue, breathless, the weight comes from a build up of fluid as the heart doesn't pump properly . Hope this is a false alarm, but tell him to get checked, for your kids sake.

I weigh more than that and it hasn’t impacted me like that at all!

It's massively disrespectful! This is supposed to be the man she loves!

Nice to think there are people out there that would actively encourage my husband to leave me over my grotesque fatness, despite my doing everything short of having my stomach stapled to try and lose weight. PCOS and genetics are against me, to be even slightly less fat I would have to spend my entire life fighting.

I have logged everything I ate in days, weeks, months for various GPs and specialists, who all throw up their hands and say 'Well that's not a bad diet at all, maybe you should move more' despite knowing I have two small children who require me to move constantly.

Also FYI, if you have severe postnatal depression there's a very good chance you will be put on multiple medications that make you gain weight like crazy, and prescribed to you when you're not in a state to consider that side effect, you just want to stop wanting to die. So you take the medication and you notice the sun shining more, while your arms get softer and your waist rounder. And when you're out the other side you're in a body you don't recognise. Would you say that a person who goes through that is thoughtless, disgusting and worthy of being dumped.

Lovely.

FYI Mumsnet admins, ableism extends to fatphobia, which is rampant here.

Your husband is not going to have a stroke at 100kg at 6ft ffs! 🙄🙄🙄🤦🏼‍♀️ Just because he has a bit of a belly. Don't dress up fat shaming as 'I'm concerned for his health'

It's not fat shaming to say that someone is overweight.
Being overweight is not aspirational whatever Lizzo et al are constantly promoting

I do recognise he is ill and the obsessive eating is a compulsion but I’m running out of sympathy with it

I completely understand your frustration and appreciate why you’re getting fed up with the situation. It’s not fair on you at all. However, you married him. You vowed to love him in sickness as well as in health. And his life revolving around food is an illness that he needs medical help to resolve. I understand why the thought of surgery terrifies him, but would he be willing to speak to mental health professionals and/or join a group like Overeaters Anonymous? If he’s addicted to food, the problem is just as much in his head as it is his body.

If he refuses to engage then, no, I don’t think you’d be wrong to leave him. But I think you need to give him that chance.

Come on now, this is all bollocks isn't it? His weight is not so much that it would incapacitate him to the degree you've described unless there are other mobility issues which you haven't mentioned.

He's checked out of parenting and that's pissed you off, fair enough. So leave him.

Is he willing to have counselling.

It's very difficult for practical reasons and energy levels.

I've given up saying anything about his weight there is no point.

It's all on his stomach, he looks pregnant on twins sometimes.

I realised the other day that I haven't had sex in the missionary position in 17 years, tbf I don't have much of sex life lately.

I love him, he is a good father but I'd prefer him to be slimmer and less tired.

He wasn't leaving with the children though. Or wanted to answer questions around 50/50 co-parenting. So his reasons had nothing to do with her ability to join in family life.

OP I'm really surprised how physically affected he is. I'm 5'3" and I've been 16 stone. I didn't need sleeps, or was ever refused on rides, I also saw people a lot bigger than me on them. The only thing I couldn't do was horse riding. I'm now 13.5 stone and if I feel myself putting on weight, I do something about it. Because I agree that you can physically feel the weight, but at those weights it doesn't stop you doing things. I do childcare for my GC and used to do full days out, I've probably got at least fifteen years on your DP. I'd say it must be other reasons, health and possibly what he is eating/drinking. Have an honest conversation because he needs this checking out.

Looking after children isn't the same as lifting massively heavy weights in the gym,

My DH weighs that, he is a couple of inches taller but not much, he goes on rides, plays football twice a week, runs, weights and gym, will walk for 16 miles with no issues, and is pretty fit. I sleep far more than he does.

He could do more at that size, he just needs to get into the habit of exercise.

I don't understand comments like this, why is ableist for someone to want their partner to make better decisions to live a healthy life and actively contribute to their family in a positive way?

It's not ableist, nor fatphobic.

I weigh 101kg and am the same height as your DH. I used to weigh the same but have lost 9kg. I get out of breath, but I hold down a high pressure professional job and run my kids around for all their activities.

I would say the potential diabetes and sleep apnea are more of an issue than the weight, although that will contribute to the other issues.

having said that, lack of desire to parent will have the greatest effect.

For Christ sake, unless it was exactly the same people posting, it’s not a double standard. This post is about OP and her partner, not some random man who posted a while back and we all now need to feel sorry for 🙄

He was actually!!!!! I am doing my best to find it.

Come and watch my disabled child for me while I lift some weights then @shortfrench - he will probably freak out and hit you repeatedly, but if it helps Mummy be a bit less gross then it's worth it, no?

I would say the exhaustion is caused by his sleep apnea. Before I got a cpap machine I would fall asleep anywhere or anytime. Sleep apnea can cause high blood pressure and a very high increase in heart attack.

I have no idea what a lizzo is but to be "worried he's going to have a stroke" because he's 100kg is ludicrous and frankly, a passive aggressive insult to her husband

That’s shit OP because at that weight he really shouldn’t be near disabled (and I understand what others have said about how weight is carried etc because that can make a huge difference) but he would only have to lose a few stone vs others who have 10+ stone to lose to make a huge positive impact on his life!

It’s hard OP. I have a relative who skirts dangerously close to the disabled line due to weight (they are a lot heavier) and I know how frustrating it is. I have created some distance to be honest, which isn’t really easy for you to do, as it was getting me down. I was very supportive for years but ultimately there has to come a time when they want to change. I have even given tough love on a few occasions which has been received well at the time but there’s nothing else I can offer now.