How can I help my partner?

[mum1993]

My partner was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes back in 2021. He’s on several daily medications and has been to numerous appointments with dieticians/nurses/doctors to try and get it under control.

To cut a long story short, he’s been told unless he loses weight and controls his diabetes he will die early, yet he still hasn’t changed his ways.

We have 3 small children and it’s killing me knowing that I’m just essentially watching him kill himself. I’ve tried everything I possibly can to help him but he doesn’t seem to want to help himself and if he does make changes, it’s very short lived and he goes straight back to his old ways.

I have told him how I feel in a calm way but he just shuts it down as I know deep down he knows the outcome. I’ve even suggested trying counselling for food addiction as this is something he has mentioned he is struggling with but he hasn’t been proactive in following this through.

How can I get him to listen? I don’t want to lose him 😭

Disappointed to see you haven't had any replies to this as I'm in the same boat. I read a similar thread a while ago with replies along the lines of "it's not your responsibility, you're his wife not his mother" etc which whilst not untrue aren't very helpful when you're after practical advice on what to cook.

I'm pretty sure my dh is in denial but also that he genuinely doesn't know what he should/shouldn't be eating beyond the obvious sugary things so is too overwhelmed to start making changes.

Hopefully this will pop up in active for people who might be able to advise where to start!

I just don't understand people who aren't affected by this. I've just found out I'm t2. My parent had it and I watched the decline. I'm gutted, ashamed of myself and very scared. It's really woken me up to losing weight and to respect my body. Something I've never done.

From heart attacks to heart bypasses to pancreatitis, eye sight issues affecting driving, mental confusion, cancers and eventually pancreatic cancer. This was due to weight and poor diet.

T2s are lucky, we have choices. It's really really hard. I could murder hot buttered toast and cake right now but nothing is as hard as putting your kids through the worry of the later medical complications.

It's very scary and I just hope for their sake they wake up and smell the coffee. Diabetes is no joke, it needs managing.

Michael Mosley is your man. Lots of books about managing T2 with diet - or making big steps towards it. He was diagnosed with t2 himself. DD has t1 and lots of the Mosley stuff is great for her, too. In short - low carb. Do it together / ad a family. Good luck!

Does he have access to a dietician?

Would he be open to discussing ozempic with his GP or endo?

Should say - Michael Mosley was diagnosed with t2 and has it in remission I.e. he's no longer considered diabetic as a result of the changes he made.
@mum1993 can you scare him by watching 'Supersize v Superskinny' - disordered eating at both extremes. They often visit the USA to show you just how bad it can get with uncontrolled t2 diabetes.

As a diabetic albeit Type 1, scare tactics don’t work. I struggled when all I was told was I’d got xyz complication if I didn’t do ABC, but no real support to enable doing ABC. If it’s diet, or exercise they need, can you do it together. Beating it into people doesn’t work for some personality types, they need to get into the habit of doing it and finding the motivation can be hard when you feel like you are doomed anyway so what’s the point.

Can you get out together for a walk each day. This will eventually hopefully become a habit, then can you coax other things out eg buy less snacks. I don’t mind if my DP eats a big slab of cake, it’s not for me on the regular, but at the start when I’d had that ability taken away I’d not have been able to sit with a group with them all eating chocolate brownies and I was having a couple of rice cakes because it highlighted my issue.

The medical profession in particular are very good at telling you all the things that you are doing wrong, and will go wrong, but not very good at celebrating what progress you have made and this can be really demeaning and discouraging. You want to try and encourage with positivity and enthusiasm, which might suck short time for you but you’ll win in the long term if he can crack the cycle.