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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Different Health Values have driven us apart

24 replies

Icametogetdown · 07/01/2021 13:21

When I met DH, he wasn't particularly slim (neither was I), but not hugely overweight either.
We met at a holiday camp we were both working at one summer and he would try to convince children during meal times, to eat healthily and always seemed to be eating well and healthily himself. He played sports and was a lover of nice food (like me).

Just before we married, his mother told me he had struggled with his weight around 5-10 years before and that he had been quite big. I didn't mind at all when she showed me some photos of what he used to look like. I remember feeling proud of him for turning things around. Just to point out at this stage, I'm not a skinny mini myself at a size 14.

We had our first DC and then something changed. He began binge eating in the evenings, would make himself whole pizzas and half a bag of frozen chips even if I'd prepared healthy family meals. I wanted to lose some excess baby weight myself so went on SW and he seemed to follow suit,losing around 1.5 stone each.

We then had another baby and I put a little weight on myself, but he has ballooned. His BMI is 38.8.

Last night, he ate a 300g bar of dairy milk when I was in bed, a piece of fruit cake and crisps.

He's obsessed with chips and will order them with a chinese or indian takeaway in addition to bread, rice and starters. He doesn't really exercise.

For the past 5 years, I've been on a mission to improve my own physical and mental health after being diagnosed with an autoimmune condition. DH has sunk further into unhealthy eating and is clearly depressed by it but refuses to stop. He will no longer take DCs swimming because of his size, has issues with constipation, fissures, snores loudly and he has body odour caused by a fissure which keeps getting infected. We don't have sex and I've moved into the spare room.

Whenever I broach health with him and offer him one of my books, he declines or changes the subject. His sister has since informed me that he seemed to have a food addiction as a child. He binges every evening, staying up late by himself, watching netflix.

I know that there is absolutely nothing I can do to help him or get him to be more healthy and that he needs to do it himself. I thought he was depressed but SIL has told me that the way he's behaving around food is the way she always remembers him behaving.

I'm terrified of his relationship with food rubbing off on the DCs and I don't know what to do. If I leave him, I'm worried it will get worse and that he'll feed the DCs junk food when they're with him.

It's even the way he eats, so fast and mindlessly. DCs are currently very active, slim and healthy, but this could change if they begin to copy him.

What should I do?

OP posts:
teenytrees · 07/01/2021 13:27

This is a mental health issue but only he can tackle it - could you encourage him to talk to hisGP about seeing a specialist to get to the root of it?
Maybe talk to him about how you don't want to see your children left fatherless because of the health problems he's storing up?

Icametogetdown · 07/01/2021 13:30

He says there's nothing wrong with him mentally and just shrugs when I mention his eating behaviour around the DCs. It's like he doesn't care.

I forgot to mention that his mother had bulimia so I think it has been learned.

OP posts:
Eckhart · 07/01/2021 13:33

How does he feel about the example he's setting his kids?

teenytrees · 07/01/2021 13:33

Then he's in denial, of course it's a mental (and physical) health issue, this isn't normal behaviour.

If he won't change or seek help, sadly you have to ask if you want to continue with this relationship and the harm it's going to do to your children.

Icametogetdown · 07/01/2021 13:34

@Eckhart he says he doesn't believe he's setting a bad example because "most of the time" he eats his junk away from them.

He honestly has an answer for everything.

OP posts:
Eckhart · 07/01/2021 13:41

But he knows that his lifestyle is causing his issues, and the kids can see he has issues, right? Does he just deny that they have any knowledge that anything is wrong? Or is he trying to say that nothing is wrong?

How old are the kids?

I think there's an issue with responsibility here. You might have to sit the kids down and talk to them about it whether he likes it or not, given that he won't take responsibility himself.

What's your relationship like aside from this issue? Do you communicate well? Does he support you when you need it? Are you a partnership in the ways that you'd like?

Icametogetdown · 07/01/2021 13:51

No, I don't really want to remain in the relationship as it stands, but feel like the DCs may suffer and have issues around food when they're with him. He's a very loving father (in other ways) and they adore him, so he would want to be hands on.

OP posts:
Icametogetdown · 07/01/2021 13:52

No to all of your questions in your final paragraph @eckhart

OP posts:
Eckhart · 07/01/2021 14:00

Sorry OP. Sounds rubbish for you. I think the sooner you separate the better, because then your DCs will have an example of a healthy household as well as the (unhealthy) example they currently have.

It's a different issue, but my brother an I were poorly parented. My brother is a brilliant father, now, and says it's because our Dad showed him exactly how not to be a father.

Your DH being unhealthy doesn't mean your DC will be unhealthy. It may work in their favour, in fact, as long as you provide them with the knowledge that they can choose from other options too.

AmberItsACertainty · 07/01/2021 14:03

A friend has one of these. It was as if as soon as they married he thought 'great I've got you now' and let himself go.

I think his mother was trying to warn you before marriage and his sister is telling you there's no hope.

The children would most likely be with you for the majority of the time. So any bad habits they pick up from him you'd most probably be able to nip it in the bud, although it could be a constant battle to keep on top of it.

Loseweightanddeclutter21 · 07/01/2021 14:13

Op ask your DH to watch the You Tube video Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. It's made by an Oz blokey bloke and the message is very much directed at men like your DH. It follows the fast food loving film-maker as he travels across America for several months (I think) drinking nothing but juiced veg and fruit. I'm not saying that is the ideal way to lose weight but the overall message of the film changed something in my head and I have found it easier to lose weight since watching it.

As others have said, this is a mental health issue and your DH needs support. I know you are worried about his health and about your DC, but if you still love him and want to help him, you do this by positive methods, building him up, not putting him down. He needs professional help; something like overeaters anonymous by the sound of it?

It sounds as though you hold some resentment in that you feel deceived that he never brought this subject up before you were married (although his mother did shortly before the big day). Did you not discuss it together then? Maybe you need to go on a long walk together , if possible, and have a heart to heart about this and (if you do) tell him you love him and are worried about what he is doing to himself.

If this all started when your first DC was born, maybe this is a reaction to stress. And if he stays up watching Netflix as well as eating, this very much sounds like depression or at least avoidance or reluctance to face problems in his life head on, whatever your sil says, just like alcoholics or drug addicts. Maybe some talking therapies would help?

I know you are frustrated with him but I feel a bit sorry for your DH reading this. He sounds a bit lost. Not good at all for you either that he is almost disengaging from life through food. In addition to therapy, it sounds as though he might need a hobby, or a group of men friends (not easy currently) or just something to get his spark back. I hope things work out for both of you Flowers

Oh and please don't talk to the DC about him behind his back, I don't think that would be very respectful.

Icametogetdown · 07/01/2021 14:35

I'm frustrated and resentful because he refuses to help himself @loseweightanddeclutter21 I'm not perfect myself but I'm open to change. This is the primary issue.
"Ask your DH to watch this video"
Isn't going to work.
He isn't interested in watching, reading, listening or talking about anything to do with his unhealthy relationship with food. He'll just laugh and tell me I'm overreacting as he usually does.

He has a group of male friends who he zooms with every week if they aren't meeting up for games of snooker. This isn't the issue.

OP posts:
Eckhart · 07/01/2021 14:40

He'll just laugh and tell me I'm overreacting as he usually does

The fact that he minimises your feelings in this way is more of a relationship issue than his eating problems, in my opinion. It's so disrespectful to put you down like this, with your very valid concerns about your own children. What a selfish man.

Loseweightanddeclutter21 · 07/01/2021 14:55

He isn't interested in watching, reading, listening or talking about anything to do with his unhealthy relationship with food. He'll just laugh and tell me I'm overreacting as he usually does

That's such a shame op. Particularly as the film is aimed fair and square at bolshy people like your DH who are in total denial. Could you put the video on when you are together? Or would he walk out of the room? Tbh my DH wouldn't have wanted to watch it had I not just turned it on.

I guess you can't do any more then. It is up to him to change. But you can change how you react to his behaviour. It's a very hard one. Flowers

Dontweallfeelthiswaysometimes · 07/01/2021 14:59

I'm so sorry. I don't think there's much you can do, any more than if he was stuck on conspiracy theories or an alcoholic.

If he had a good male role model who showed him it was possible to change, then maybe.

Why is the fissure not being treated?
It's a vicious downward spiral at the moment. He has not much left to lose if you left. If he got the fissure sorted and got a bit fitter would your sex life stand a chance of resuming?

It's so sad. He smells. He's likely to die 6 years earlier. He's not even sleeping in the same room as his wife. He can't take the kids swimming. Is this really what he wants his life to be? Really? Really?

If you get out the old pics of him and pics of how he is now and do nothing but weep silently at the kitchen table and say you can't discuss it, you're too upset would he just sulk?

What would happen if you died? Could he cope with the kids or would they end up being brought up by grandparents or aunties & uncles?

What would happen if he died? Has he got enough life insurance?

I would like to say something helpful but the only couple I knew like this - the marriage didn't survive. He WFH and ended up as primary carer but the kids all seem healthy - I don't think he was in as nearly as bad a shape as your DH though.

Flowers
DuchessofDerbyshire · 07/01/2021 15:12

Of course he's minimising it because he doesn't want to accept he has a really serious issue.

This is the same as someone dependent on drink.

He's addicted to food and the 'fix' it gives him. Deep down he is likely to be depressed or insecure.

You might want to look at the charity BEAT which is for eating disorders, as that is what's going on. I can't be sure offhand but there may be a page there for relatives/ friends of people with the problem.

The other option perhaps is you see your GP and discuss it (don't tell your H) and they may call him for a routine check up or something.

Sadly, if he won't tackle this, you will have to walk away and that might be what he needs to face it and get help.

Loseweightanddeclutter21 · 07/01/2021 15:23

Tbh I always think it's a shame when you see couples who have split up and they have both lost weight and got fit etc and you think "why couldn't you have done that when you were married?"

But this sort of change has got to come from within him. You say he is clearly depressed by his weight op so he isn't in total denial to himself, even if he is to everyone around him.

AnneLovesGilbert · 07/01/2021 15:30

This is so sad. I understand your concerns about his issues with food affecting your DC more if you split up but you being around isn’t stopping or reducing his current behaviour so why do you think it would be so much worse?

As things stand they’re already exposed to his addictions and lack of self care, plus their mum and dad sleeping in separate rooms, his defensiveness and your growing resentment and despair. And you matter too. He’s not your responsibility, you can’t change or fix him and you deserve to live a happy life and have a happy home.

Eckhart · 07/01/2021 15:50

This is the same as someone dependent on drink

That's a good point, @DuchessofDerbyshire

OP, watch out for co-dependency. If you continue to allow this situation, that's the risk.

WellIWasInTheNeighbourhoo · 07/01/2021 15:59

Introduce him to the divorce diet. It might save his life.

Icametogetdown · 09/01/2021 09:25

As you mention alcohol:
He's not alcohol dependent at all, but he definitely binges on that too. He can't seem to stop or know his limits when he does drink.
There is a history of gambling and food addiction within his family and I find myself wondering if there is an addictive personality issue.

OP posts:
random9876 · 09/01/2021 09:40

I really hear your powerlessness in this thread, OP. And I think for this reason you just have to focus on clarifying your own bottom line. What would it take for this relationship to be happy for you? Could it be happy, or have you just married someone and sadly learned he has traits you just cannot live with? There must be a lot of anger and perhaps even guilt swilling around in this scenario that you have to work through. You can then communicate the bottom line to your DH - whether that is ‚I’m leaving‘ or something else. It’s such a hard situation, I’m sorry.

AgentJohnson · 09/01/2021 10:10

Does he know the marriage is at risk if he continues on this path? Remind him that the time is now because once the respect and love has gone, it probably won’t be coming back.

Icametogetdown · 12/01/2021 09:39

He's accepted that the marriage is failing, claiming "it's not working anyway."
But when I begin putting together plans to separate, he panics, asks for a bit more time, begins living more healthily, things improve and then one argument will tip him back into his unhealthy ways and so the cycle begins again.
Being Powerless really clinches it for me, I've had to accept that in many ways I am powerless. I can not force or control him into behaving the way I want to behave.
One of the main issues for me, is the influence his behaviour has over myself and may eventually have over the children. I've never really battled with my own weight before meeting him and contrary to popular MN belief, his behaviour influences mine no matter how much I try to resist it. My behaviour doesn't appear to influence his anymore as he's quite stubborn with his unhealthy ways, appearing to make a conscious choice to live an unhealthy lifestyle at times. I think to rebel against my healthy goals.
I feel in some ways,that I need to escape him to protect my own health.

OP posts:
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