What should I expect from him?

[UtterlyUnimaginativeUsername]

I'm very overweight. I lost 3 stone last year but put some of it back on over the winter. I've been trying to lose the rest because it's affecting my health. DH is overweight too, and we're both diabetic.

I was feeling upset and discouraged this morning because the weightloss hasn't been going well, and talked to DH about it. I said I'd like to go back to eating very low carb (I know it's a faddy diet but it's good for my blood sugar, and it's what worked last year). He agreed. I've been struggling a bit emotionally lately, which he knows; my GP mentioned increasing my antidepressant dose but was reluctant because of the risk of weight gain as a side effect. I'm still perfectly functional but emotionally raw, if that makes sense.

DH made me lunch while I was showering after the gym: a packet of pancetta, fried and put in a brioche bun. I asked him what about the conversation we'd had this morning about carbs? I've been asking him for help with this for years and I swear, it feels like he's actively sabotaging me. He brings piles of chocolate and sugary crap into the house, if he cooks he adds masses of fat to everything and today he got angry, started banging things around, and said I was being ungrateful by not eating the pancetta sandwich.

I have this fantasy of him being interested, maybe asking whether I stuck to my calorie goal for today, maybe smiling and saying 'well done' if I did. But it seems that mostly what I get is complete lack of interest, with the occasional bout of actively making it harder for me. What's a realistic expectation of a spouse in a medically important weight-loss situation?

Now that the kids are in bed, he's pointedly avoiding being in the same room as me.

FFS.

And well done for not eating the sandwich!

Do you like him OP? I'm not getting any sense that you do.

Not as much as i used to, to be honest.

Urgh. Is he like this about other goals you try to achieve as well?

It's a horrible thing but I've known more than one man who prefers to be with a larger lady because he believes that will = gratitude and also make them more likely to put up with bullshit and less likely to leave. Which is a horrible, horrible attitude on so many levels.

Your husband sounds as though he is one of these people - which is doubly insulting because it A. presumes you cannot be happy and confident as a person whatever size you are and B. that your goal towards greater health is less important than his need for you to stay unhealthy for his own selfish ends.

I don't really try to achieve much so it's hard to say! I have found that he gets annoyed if I tackle decorating, and will invariably come along after I've finished and undo bits of it. For instance, he sanded around the window reveals in the sitting room after I had painted, because he didn't think I had done a good enough filling and sanding some holes, but he never painted over it, so the reveals are mostly white with splodges of the previous hot pink. Something like that happens with every decorating project I tackle, to the extent that the house isn't being looked after because I'm reluctant to get into the arguments involved. He won't do it (or if he does, he'll get incredibly cranky and stressed about it and it'll take months and drive us both insane) but he doesn't like me doing it, either. So the place is a hodge-podge of half-done DIY.

He lies about all sorts as well. Big things (he once got me to sign a joint loan application, then increased the amount on it by 2,500 before submitting it) and little things (one day the kids weren't hungry for dinner and I found a load of Crunchie wrappers in the car; he said he had eaten them all, but the next day DS mentioned that he had had one just before dinner). We've had so many arguments about it and he knows I detest it, and every time he says he's sorry and he won't do it again and he understands why it upsets me and then as soon as it suits him, he'll do it again.

When DD was born, I used to lie awake all night thinking how miserable I was, and that I was a terrible mother for being so unhappy. I used to mentally catalogue all the pills in the house, to reassure myself that overdosing was an option if it came to it, though I couldn't bring myself to bring DD into the world and then immediately abandon her. One night when she was about 6 weeks, I suddenly remembered that post-natal depression existed, and I thought maybe there was a chance that I had that, and that I wasn't actually a shit mother, I was just sick and could be treated. I woke DH and explained how I'd been feeling and asked if he thought it could be a medical problem and not just me being crap, and he just sighed, rolled over and went back to sleep (he had definitely been awake and listening). I took that to mean he thought I was just crap, and it wasn't till 5 years later that I pulled together the courage to tell the GP. I did ask him a couple of years afterwards why he hadn't said anything and he just said 'I didn't know what to say'.

That really sums up our relationship. He doesn't know what to say. We live together, we raise the kids, we go through the motions of it all, but I've learned to be emotionally independent because he doesn't understand the concept of emotional support. He doesn't understand what's missing. I ask him why he loves me, what he gets from the relationship, and he says 'companionship' and I'm 'intellectually unchallenging'.

If it wasn't for the kids, I'd be gone, I think, but I don't want to do that to them while I could just stay. He's not abusive.

I feel I must stress to you that low carb is not a fad diet and increasingly is accepted by many health professionals as the best way to eat for diabetes.

(Make sure it’s low carb, high fat though. Otherwise it’s likely not going to be sustainable.)

Your husband does not sound like a nice man. If someone was going around continually sabotaging me like that, I’d be cutting him loose.

Op he is abusive - just because he doesn’t hit you doesn’t mean it’s not abuse- it can be emotional, physical, sexual or financial and it sounds like he is abusive across a few categories. Have a look online about this abuse looks and feels like. I couldn’t put up with this behaviour.

I think you ought to think about what your relationship is modelling for your children. What are you both teaching them about relationships and love?

Wow. He sounds pointless to be honest. And are you sure you want your kids growing up thinking that ignoring/undermining and positively sabotaging their mother is the way a healthy relationship should work?

I couldn't stay with someone who openly called me 'intellectually unchallenging.' How bloody rude. It's up to you if you stay or not, but if you're emotionally independent anyway, why not just boot the lazy, unpleasant git out?

But OP why is it good enough for you and your beautiful children to be around someone who is at the least unsupportive, not nurturing and who does not have your best interests at heart?

Who drags you down and makes life and you trying to make life better for yourself and the kids so much harder?

Isn't it better for the kids to have a mother around who is free to make healthy choices for herself? Right now it's like you're dragging around a weight and trying to achieve a positive change while doing that. Takes up so much more energy. How much more energy would you have if you freed yourself from all that?

It's better for the kids if you don't suffer health-related issues from diabetes. It's better for your kids to be brought up in a house that you feel comfortable in and isn't a hodge-podge of half-done jobs. Even that will bring you down more than you realise because it's a constant visual reminder day in and day out about how he resents you even making the house more pleasant for you all - because it somehow takes something from you.

You might not believe he is abusive - but how is he healthy to be around when he will even sabotage you decorating?

Sorry! That should have read because he seems to think that somehow takes something from him.

Another person saying that LCHF is not a faddy diet and in fact is recommended for diabetics. Although if you use insulin you need to discuss it with your GP or specialist nurse first.

However it sounds like you don’t know much about LCHF so you need to educate yourself, there’s plenty info online that’s free. Then you will understand that you could in fact have taken the panacetta out of the roll and eaten it with your salad. Assuming that it was in fact a green salad and not a pile of pasta and mayonnaise with a sad lettuce leaf wilting on the side.

I think it’s unreasonable for you to expect your partner to have no snacks in the house because you don’t want to eat them. It’s not unreasonable for you to ask him to put them somewhere out of the way where you won’t see them every day.

And it’s not realistic for you to start expecting him to support you in your weight loss - he’s not going to suddenly have a personality transplant. So look elsewhere in RL on online . There are lots of good support threads here on MN.

You might also think about getting some counselling for yourself to help you decide if you want to stay with him in the long term.

*Another person saying that LCHF is not a faddy diet and in fact is recommended for diabetics. Although if you use insulin you need to discuss it with your GP or specialist nurse first.

However it sounds like you don’t know much about LCHF so you need to educate yourself, there’s plenty info online that’s free. Then you will understand that you could in fact have taken the panacetta out of the roll and eaten it with your salad. Assuming that it was in fact a green salad and not a pile of pasta and mayonnaise with a sad lettuce leaf wilting on the side.*
I actually know quite a lot about LCHF, it's just that in the support forums I usually use it's generally dismissed as faddy (because people there tend not to be diabetic and believe more in CICO). I did it very successfully last year. And no, I don't eat pasta salad. Mayonnaise and lettuce, yes. I didn't want to eat a whole packet of pancetta because I understand that eating low carb can't make you lose weight if you eat more calories than you use.

Please can we not make this thread about what I eat, that's really not what I need advice about.

BIWI runs a great lowcarbing bootcamp here on MN with lots of support, extremely clear advice and lots of resources on the science behind it. It runs for 10 weeks and we’re in the last week now. But we do a chat thread between official camps, and if you want to join us you’d get lots of help and support and would benefit from some very knowledgeable posters and a lot of inspiration from others who have lost loads of weight. There are a few posters that are diabetic so you wouldn’t alone in that either.

Here is the current thread, if you want to come and have a nosy:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/low_carb_bootcamp/3638375-Week-10-Summer-Low-Carb-Bootcamp-almost-the-end

Oh okay then, never mind! Sorry for thinking you might appreciate some support since you’re not getting it from him. Please do feel free to consider my offer revoked.

And just to answer the actual question you asked (I guess it’s pretty annoying when people focus on other things instead):

You should expect from him exactly what you get from him now, since that is who he is. He’s not going to suddenly become different.

A good, decent, thoughtful person would support you in trying to get your weight down, would listen to you and at least try to be helpful in that goal, and wouldn’t pick apart everything you do, or constantly sabotage you. But I don’t think that’s who he is.

I'm sorry, @Ninkaninus, I didn't mean to sound like that.

@UtterlyUnimaginativeUsername i just want to say I’m impressed. Getting the salad was very strong willed of you.

I had to lose 3 stone on medical advice and it was not easy with a very supportive DH. We had a junk ban in the house.

i just want to say I’m impressed. Getting the salad was very strong willed of you.
I really want to lose the weight, you see. More than I've ever wanted anything in my life, to be honest. I feel that if I can do this, I can do anything.

@UtterlyUnimaginativeUsername good for you hopefully you will feel better when you achieve your goal even without your husbands support.

I am sorry i have no advice on how tour husband has treated you other than you deserve better. I guess you know that.

Would marriage guidance help?

I’m sorry, I reacted in a shitty way!

Well done on persevering, it’s hard enough with full support!

Don’t discuss food/diets etc with him. Buy and cook your own food. Every time he offers something else say no thank you. He will eventually get the message. He has no intentions of taking this serious and losing weight himself or supporting you for that matter. Don’t waste your time and energy on someone else. Don’t get upset about it. Focus on yourself and your health. You can do this. Good luck x

So on wednesday when he accused me of being ungrateful, I told him not to prepare food for me any more and he agreed. Yesterday he brought me lunch at my desk in work; I said 'I thought I was looking after my own food in future?' and he said 'yes, but did you actually do it?' and I said I had, so he walked off with it.

We haven't spoken to each other at all aside from that.

I don't know what to do at this stage. I don't want to apologise for wanting to look after myself, but he's sure as hell not going to. Or if he does, I won't believe him; he has admitted (as recently as a few days ago) that he has apologised for things just to fob me off, when he doesn't actually believe he was in the wrong. In any disagreement, rather than believe he's done something wrong, he'll insist that I'm just always determined to make him admit he's wrong. To be honest, I'm not sure he has any respect for me at all.

Anyone? Am I being ridiculous?