Binge eating disorder

[AtLastEarwax]

Hi all,

I suppose this is a bit misplaced in the sense of age and who it relates to. My hubby has a binge eating disorder and buys LOTS of rubbish. He has an addiction on fizzy pop and ice creams and really is bad. Last night he bought 6 cheesecakes, 12 chocolate bars, 3 bags of sweets, packs of treat size chocolate bars. Today he has gone out and I've chucked all of it. I feel awful, I know it's what he likes. It's a waste of effing food and I know when he gets back he's going to be pissed off as hell.

Has anyone got any advice on how to handle this? I feel he needs treating like a child. There's even been times where he's gone to the toilet in a supermarket and eaten sausages rolls etc because he's seen them.

He isn't getting any professional help at the moment because of covid

Thanks

Professional help is defo the way to go. Like any addiction the person themselves had to decide to change. We can’t do it for them. Sadly.

Hopefully his GP can refer him to an appropriate service to provide telephone if not face to face help.

He will obviously go mental at the waste of food, as he was probably looking forward to it. And he could well go out and buy even more in revenge.

Or see you as being the enemy and start hiding stuff from you in future, storing family packs of crisps and choc in the shed or his car boot so you don’t know he is still binging.

Or it may help him understand how silly he is being risking his health.

Professional help is his first step if he will take it. And addressing the problems in his life as he is clearly not happy. Something needs to change, job home life whatever. He needs to let go of the things that are controlling him which make him sad and comfort eat.

Thankyou that's made me look at it in another way.

Hiding food worries me to be honest but I don't want to accuse him of it and give him the idea if he isn't if you know what I mean??

I hate it, I know it makes him happy and I want him to be happy but I'm scared.

Before when we had arguments about it (before we pinpointed the binge eating) I told him not to get attached to our children. He'll never walk our daughters down the aisle or see our son in the nativity etc. I said awful awful things but I wanted him to see the reality that one day food might actually kill him.

I'm waiting for the back lash now when he opens the fridge - wish me luck

I went through binge eating and at the time it felt like a horrendous need as your body can’t deal with anything other than that craving. It’s awful. I had CBT which helped massively. In reality it’s all about your mental health and I beat it by dealing with the areas in my life that were making me unhappy.

It’s likely that throwing his food away will make him hide it from you. I certainly did. He does need to talk to his GP about this to figure out why he binge eats.

"I hate it, I know it makes him happy and I want him to be happy but I'm scared"

Trust me. It doesn't make him happy.

He more than likely knows there's an issue he's trying to distract himself from and he's eating instead.

Ok so he got back. Was extremely pissed off with me and had a rant but has now taken himself off to do diy. I said I know your unhappy, why?

I think it may be his job, he knows he needs a job. He is the breadwinner and we both want nice things in life. To us if you want a nice car, 4 holidays a year etc you have to work for them!!! Where else do you get money from? At the moment though he hasn't said that. I think a talk maybe needed but he shuts me out.

One minute he's pro active and saying he's going to stop the next he isn't. I don't know what to say tbh

So if it’s his job what can be done? Is there a different job he could do? Is he qualified for anything else? What are you doing, would your situation allow you to work part time or anything to take some of the financial burden off his shoulders?
Could he work part time?
Could you reduce all your outgoings or have cheaper holidays?

He only has one life. He is not happy. We all deserve to be happy. Help him? ( no offence if you already do more than him, I have no idea the situation, just suggesting you tweak things basically )

Hi

No I appreciate that, all opinions are helpful. He applies for jobs, he got invited to a couple of interviews but then they got cancelled due to covid. Now not many places are advertising.

As for part time I don't think he can. He is on shift work. So he does two days 6am-6pm and then two nights 6pm-6am and then is off for four days. It's not a bad routine. He only actually works half the year but I think the job is tedious for him. He's well over qualified for it but when he was offered it it was a permanent contract in hand so it thought it was the best option. I will get him to ask about part time though just in case. I'll also look at finances with him when I have a chat with him about it. I don't want to approach the subject tomorrow as he is on nights and always (understandably) is in a foul mood. We do need to get to the bottom of it though.

Maybe I should jot down some categories like
Work
Parenting
Self esteem

Etc and see if he opens up about specific things?? Like prompting him??