Overweight partner...he obviously doesn't care?

[Sarahisthename]

My DH is overweight, BMI 30 or more . He knows I want him to lose weight. Occasionally he tries ... Maybe eats less for s couple of days ... Goes to the gym a couple of days. But really no real effort. Excuses sometimes such as stressful work , but usually just says yeah I will but doesn't. He knows how I feel. He could if he wanted but chooses not to. This is the only thing I ask of him. He does work hard (as do I). We have children, he's hands on, but I feel it's such a bad example to set them.
He likes me to make the effort to please him in the way I look (clothes /make up etc) when I make comparisons he says it's easy for me to wear something- much harder to lose weight . I feel so bitter sometimes .

Op you said he brings wine home every night. Is he drinking every night? If so how much?

While it's obviously well meaning, it is not up to you to see a dietician, or arrange a health check or a personal trainer for him. He's an adult and is capable of doing these things himself if he wants to. His weight is his responsibility. You are not responsible for it.

Have you told him that you no longer want to have sex with him? I would not suffer unsatisfying duty sex any longer. His response to being told this will tell you everything you need to know. If he knows this and isn't bothered it's quite likely that actually, it's him that is no longer attracted to you.

I don't believe anyone who is fat is not bothered by the fact, I was a bit overweight but have managed to lose
Being fat is rarely about food and eating, it's just a way of self medicating, you eat when you're sad or lonely or depressed, you stuff down your emotions with food
I don't know what the answer is, he has to find the strength within himself to able to do it, the one thing I can say is you getting onto him about will have the opposite effect, I also sympathise with how frustrating it is from your viewpoint, I spent most of my life watching my mum basically digging her grave with her knife and fork, she died at 58 from weight related illness
There's no easy simplistic answer I'm afraid

Sarah I get you totally.
I'm amazed at the suggestions he should leave you !!

However I'm a fatty and I'm struggling to catch a grip

I would start of with the drinking forget the weight for now. You have to take small steps with him. I would challenge his alcoholism he could end up with gout. There is roughly 500 calories in a bottle of wine. Use stories about alcoholics and if he says I'm not like that then tell him but you drink every night. You have to make him think about what he is doing without sounding like a nag. I hope he sorts himself out for your sake and you don't end up pushing him in a wheelchair. People tend to sort themselves out after they get the diagnosis.

Alcohol is a depressant and if he's drinking every night he can't be feeling good at all.

For some people, food is like an addiction ( the scientific community haven't come to a definitive conclusion as to whether it is an actual addiction yet.) Just because he seems upbeat and cheery, doesn't mean he isn't addicted.

You seem very concerned that he might not love you as much as he loved his other partners, on the grounds that he stayed thinner for them. But did he have children with them? Having a family changes the whole dynamic. If he felt comfortable with you, maybe he relaxed, the weight went on, and now, like many others, he's discovered just how hard it is to lose. You say he has made some efforts, but gave up. Maybe he found very quickly, that it made him unhappy, so he stopped.

For whatever reason, he currently doesn't feel weight loss is a priority. That seems obvious from what you have written. You can't change him. Nothing you say will help. My husband used to drink. He wanted to drink for all kinds of complex reasons, and if I tried to comment, I was just dismissed, despite the fact I too had some genuine concerns with regard to health and potential impact on children.

I think you have to treat it as you would with any other addiction. Start from the point of accepting you can't change him. Stop focussing on whether he loves you or not. I think that's a red herring. Not only that, it's become a stick to beat yourself with.

Start to focus on you and what you want. Accepting you can't change him, is this a deal breaker for you? If yes, then I think you have to put a plan in place that will allow you to leave.

If not, you have to work out a way you can live with him, as he is, which satisfies you sufficiently. I don't think, for example, you should stop dressing up for him, if that makes you happy. But if it doesn't, then stop. Not as a retaliation, but because you are putting your needs first.

If you don't enjoy sex, then stop. Again, not as retaliation, but because you are putting yourself and your needs first. If you feel that a life without sex is a deal breaker, then you need to think about how to leave.

It may be, that if you change the dynamic (sounds a bit like he is treating you as a nagging mother figure) then he might realise it would be sensible to lose weight, all by himself. Or he might decide your relationship isn't right for him.

Act to make yourself happy. Don't just decide the situation is hopeless and give yourself up to a life of moaning until you are both so unhappy something breaks. You can't change him. Change the way you deal with it.

Good luck OP. Life shouldn't be so damn complicated.

On that note, Lost -

Food Addicts Anonymous

FA prohibit flour and sugar because these are the (overeater*) food addicts drug of choice - literally an uncontrollable addiction due to a physiological allergy. Flour and sugar are like heroin to a food addict. The process is exactly the same as eg alcoholicism (

Gruffalo

Oh and ignore the nasty 'I think your husband should leave you' comments. They are probably fatties themselves, also in denial!

Comments like this really remind me of how much MN has changed recently. It's somehow acceptable to be derogatory to a whole chunk of society and minimise a very complex issue that they share down to the simplest form. It shows an astounding lack of empathy when slim people can't see the complexities of weight problems simply because they haven't had to live through it themselves.

One of the first comments on this thread was a poster telling OP 'I would leave you too, I wouldn't want to be with someone like you. You sound horrible'.

I don't consider this comment any less twatty than the twatty comment about 'fatties'. Doesn't this comment show an astounding lack of empathy for the OP?

It's not ok to disregard nasty comments to OP but think MN has changed because of a fattist comment. (Which are also unacceptable).

crazy dog lady is on the button. Speaking as an overweight person myself (who lives with a very fit person). It's a complex complex issue and the way you are acting will just depress him more - and he is depressed - people overeat to fill an emotional hole. Leave him alone and try loving him more, he may surprise you and decide to do it for himself.

I think his defensiveness when you bring it up eg "ok I'll just stop eating then you'll be happy" etc, show that he is very unhappy about it but doesn't know how to deal with it.

Christ on a bike. Don't show him this thread. "No good will come if it". Never a truer word said. If I read this thread, if it was about me, I would be mortified and hurt, and it definitely wouldn't make me 'spring into action'!

Agree with posters above - whilst you might be concerned with his health, continually telling him/ prompting him to do something about his weight will only have a negative impact - damaging his confidence & making him defensive. If my husband commented on my weight I would be devastated.

Sometimes people don't overeat to fill a void, poor eating patterns just become a pattern. Regular exercise and healthy eating is a mindset you have to get in to rather than the lazy greedy mindset (having cookies or a large sandwich just before dinner when you are surrounded by your family is greed and poor self discipline not eating to fill an emotional void).
I would ensure you aren't enabling poor eating habits in any way by your shopping and cooking habits and don't let him overfeed the kids and get them out exercising.

Preparing to be flamed for this...

My exh's obesity was the catalyst for the end of our marriage (20 years together, 16 married, 4 DCs). It wasn't simply the weight, the secret eating that he would collude with the older 2 children over (the 2 little ones were too young at the time), the sweating and smelling (despite daily showers), his changed appearance that I could not find attractive - huge livid stretch marks (yes, i have them too from pregnancy but they have faded), varicose veins, the apron of overhang at his belly, the constantly hanging out butt crack etc. and the lying about what he had eaten.

It was also the extreme grumpiness and emotional abuse of the children (he was very hands on but he became more & more short tempered as the weight & effort increased). The the lack of motivation, passion for life and drive. The broken promises to himself (and everyone else) that "this time" he'd get healthy.

I know this is brutal but I could not face having sex with him but was too scared to end my marriage, eventually he sought it elsewhere & quite honestly, I was relieved. It gave me a way out. 4 years, 1 divorce, 1 degree (studying for my masters now) and 1 lovely DP (healthy weight, driven and motivated) later my children and I are much happier.

It has left a legacy with the 2 oldest children (were teens when he left, both young adults now) who struggle with food issues. esp the oldest who has developed many of the same secretive habits and body image issues (won't eat in front of anyone & is currently about 3.5st overweight as binge eats in secret) but she is having CBT & joining SW to try to deal with it.

I'm not saying LTB but from my experience I wasn't able to change my ex-H despite my best endeavours, I'd cook a healthy meal but unknown to me he would have had food on the way home too (several sandwiches, pastries, fast food - I found his stash of hidden rubbish behind the shed after he moved out, it was obscene).

I hope it works out for you, and only you can decide if this is tolerable.

I wish I had been brave enough to leave years earlier, I thought staying married was the best option for my children, but actually in hindsight (wonderful thing so it is) the best thing for them was to not be exposed to such a poor role model.

Obesity is a health epidemic, I'm not talking the odd bit of middle aged chub - my ex-H put on 10st during our marriage, he was 23.5st when he left & is even bigger now. We shouldn't be scared to call people to task on it. I get it's an addiction (tried to get him to go to EA but he refused) but it's one that needs addressing just like smoking, alcohol, drugs.

Hope you find the answer for you & your family OP.

FatalKittehCharms, is your point that I should have scrolled back in the thread to C&P all the comments that I took objection to with the content of rather than just the one I was reading at the time?

Seems to me that in the main if you have spent a significant amount of time being significantly over fat there is slim chance of escape...

Overeating has been hard wired into you, it's not that you are lazy or greedy, more that this way of being has become deeply entrenched physically, metabolically and psychologically

Of course people deserve help and understanding but if you are married to someone who is severely dysfunctional then the wellbeing and happiness of you and the kids is sacrificed, like an alcoholic the food addict takes everyone else down with him

You fell for the guy you met, not his future overweight self.

You are allowed to be miffed he's now overweight & doing nothing about it.

I told my ex from day one, if he lost too much weight, I'd struggle to find him attractive, he told me the same however the opposite I.E too much weight.

We both agreed we got into the relationship on the pretence that he didn't lose too much weight & I didn't gain too much.

Well! I put on a good 2st & he lost a st, I noticed his weight loss however he didn't notice my weight gain, well, he says he didn't! I wonder if that's why he left me he did call me a fat fucking tramp during an argument once!

However back to the subject in hand!

You are right to discuss his weight, it's not healthy & can lead to health issues especially if HA's run in the family!

Is he happy in his job for him to be eating and drinking every night there has to be a problem. All you can do is give him a gentle nudge and if you can go on the diet with him. If you do it with him you may feel what he is feeling.

Don't focus on the addiction you have to sort out his issues. Why is he unhappy for him to want to eat and drink so much. Once he has dealt with his issue then the addiction will start to stop. He will take pride in himself when he starts focussing on his own needs. Before kids and marriage we were once people in our own right believe it or not. We all have our own needs and perhaps weight aside he is not fulfilling his and I don't mean sexually I mean mentally.

I completely disagree with this idea that everyone who overeats and overdrinks is depressed and unhappy. Some people are just greedy and are very bad at denying themselves anything and eat and drink because beer and chips are nice and easily available. Plus when you have a large stomach it takes more to fill it, and your satiety mechanisms are broken from years of not stopping eating when you are full that mucks up leptin levels.
Fat = sad is a huge oversimplification.
Some obese people are depressed, but many aren't, and overindulging in something doesn't turn it in to an addiction.
Sometimes bad habits are just bad habits.

I can't understand why anyone would think there's only one explanation for anything.

What many are trying to promote is open mindedness in trying to discover what the reason is and tackling that to make a sustainable difference.

The focus only on diet and exercise often misses out the cause and only deals with the effect.

My ex was very overweight by the time we split up.

When I met him he was very slim, and he put weight on so fast he had a belly full of bright purple stretch marks.

He used to pick on me for being fat when I was a healthy size 12 with a BMI of 23.

I left him in the end. I cared about him to worry about his health, but he didnt, and him taking his insecurities out on me made me insecure in the end too.

I am now a lot happier and healthier without the 17 stone ex.

Rebecca you could say the same thing for drugs and cigarettes it's a bad habit that they formed themselves. Some people enjoy smoking weed does that make it a habit or addiction. Regardless of what it's doing to their health and overall mental well being. It's the same with food and alcohol it's a legal addiction. If someone over eats and drink it will affect their mental health eventually and their health. Their is so much information about food, drink, cigarettes and drugs it's only when a person gets a diagnosis that's when they change and follow the advice. If a person was to give up drink and change their diet they would have to fill their time with something else that is positive. It's very easy to regress back and start eating and drinking again it's the same with drug addicts.