DH and diabetes driving me mad!

[Justateweetabix]

My husband was diagnosed with diabetes about 8 years ago.
He's never taken it seriously and at every diabetic review has had a telling off from the nurse! He's promised to change his ways but nothing much has ever changed.
He's just had this years test results back. The nurse has told him his results are 'through the roof' and his cholesterol is 8.0 (very high).
He eats a lot of fatty food and stopped taking his statins about a year ago because they were giving him joint pain.
He's on the highest dose of metformin he can take.
I've just had enough. All I can see in my future is being widowed or being his carer. He's 8 years older than me and starting to look a bit ill and haggered.
He was given the results on Thursday. He bought a bottle of wine home on Thursday night and ate hot dogs out of a tin.
We had a long talk on Friday night about how he needs to make drastic changes and he agreed and promised.
Fast forward to yesterday, I caught him eating biscuits the kitchen, he'd had 3.Then for dinner he suggested getting a kfc!!
He just doesn't get it send I'm sick of being the food police 😒
And yes I know we shouldn't have these things in the house but we have a teenager. I don't buy puddings or chocolate. He eats his main meal at work and has now admitted that he eats a pudding there every day too.
I can only do so much. I cooked him a healthy dinner last night but he left the salad, just ate chicken and jacket potato.
Leaving is not really an option financially but it's what I feel like doing. Diabetes has already destroyed our sex life (inpotence) and it could destroy our lives too if he let's it ...
Sorry if this was long and rambling !

PS: my heart failure isn’t because of lifestyle but an underlying condition, but I’ve seen plenty of people end up in hospital who have ended up there because of their lifestyles, who then, when they’ve had their stents fitted or their bypass surgery, get their visitors to bring them in McDonalds or have deliveroo deliver to the hospital, and once they can get up etc go straight outside for a bloody cigarette, even though they are offered patches to help them quit.

Honestly you can't change him.

Sounds like you've done your best.

I'd make plans to leave.

I wouldn't say leaving is urgent. There is no violence or anything. You could start to disengage now and then leave in a year, say? Use that time to get yourself set up well financially and get a support system in place.

Honestly @Justateweetabix - if my DC were a bit older and I had family and/ or plenty of money, I'd probably have left DP by now. As it is I do echo what PP have said, I worry that sooner or later I'll end up his carer

He's pretty much incapacitated at the moment due to illness brought on by his eating habits - 'thankfully' he does bugger all to help around the house anyway, so it's not like I'll miss his help - but it does make me think, what will I do if he doesn't get better? As yet I don't know...

Have you thought about taking out a life insurance policy with you as the beneficiary with his knowledge then start offering him KFC and cream cake? It might make him come to his senses.

Alternatively you could start looking for accommodation and making it clear you intend to move out as watching him killing himself is not how you want to spend your remaining years.

He needs a sharp shock now.

I followed your lead today @Justateweetabix and made DP a dinner of half a plate of veg, a jacket potato and plain pork chop. All in accordance with his diet plan.

He shovelled in the meat, picked at the jacket potato and left all the veg  and yet tomorrow he will moan again that I'm not supportive...

I think @Esspee 's suggestion of a constant diet of fast food and chocolate would probably appeal to him more!

I think you've just become white noise to him now OP and he's not going to take your comments about leaving seriously because nothing happens. I'm not saying you should up sticks and move out tomorrow but you've given him fair warning now so just stop telling him and asking him about his food choices and start planning your exit. Whenever that may be for.

He's told you his decision, so (and I know it comes from best intentions) but it could be argued its YOU who isn't listening.

Over the last couple of weeks things have improved a bit. We have talked a lot, and we're working on our marriage, looking into counselling, booked a weekend away... Until yesterday.....
I was cooking a roast and my dh invited a friend to join us.

The friend turned up with two puddings which I thought was a bit odd as there was only 4 of us, one of whom is diabetic. . Anyway of course my dh had some pudding. Bearing in mind his sugar reading had been very high in the morning and remained high.
I later discovered that my dh had text his friend beforehand asking him to bring the pudding with him
I just don't have anything to say to him anymore. To the person who said I was white noise - you are right!

• Not a couple of weeks, one week! Just a very long week

So pudding right now is more important than his future ?
That would be the final straw for me and I’d be gone faster than his blood glucose can drop back to normal.

Good luck

@Justateweetabix

I would not go on anymore that him.
Start creating your own life away from him and get things in order.

You've told him more than once your considering leaving him and I think the diabetes' is just a guise for how your really feeling.
Step bak and look at it as a whole op.

Do you do things together,talk together,laugh together,have intimacy?

The eating is a compulsive behaviour with a psychological root. Until the root is addressed, this probably won’t change, no different to other people who buy things/binge eat/drink as a coping mechanism.

He needs to recognise this, you need to view him slipping off the wagon as a bad coping mechanism for stress/fear/anxiety, and decide if you want to stay with him. Counselling for both of you sounds like a good start.

I can understand binge eating as a compulsive behaviour but this isn't someone eating until they're sick, this is just always eating the wrong things. Everyone's allowed pudding occasionally but most people can say not today, I overindulged yesterday.
Do you think there's anything that would get through to him Op? Would a private medical accessment work- something where they would list all his health problems/potential problems?
Somehow I don't get the impression he'd want to go to counselling, he'd just see it as someone else saying he's not allowed. Could you force his hand a bit by saying this is a dealbreaker for you and you'll be leaving if he doesn't change? It's so sad for you both but no one can say you haven't really tried

I really don't think you can win this one @Justateweetabix... as you say, we could understand if the friend had brought pudding round and your DH had been unaware, but actually asking for one...?!

As with my DP, if you allow him pudding then you're being unsupportive (or so he'll throw back at me at a later date), if you don't then you're not understanding of his problems, you're no fun etc etc...

I don't know if he (or you) would find this useful, but I've just joined the NHS diabetes prevention programme, do you think he might participate in something like that?

How is your DP doing @Justateweetabix? And how about you?!

My DP was given a wake up call last week, the GP told him that if he doesn't seriously change his diet and start exercising more, he'll probably be dead within ten years - he's at risk of a heart attack and (more imminently) Type 2 diabetes. We were away for a few days over Easter; I thought it might help him to stop indulging in the fry ups/ burgers/ snacks so much but apparently not! Hope you're having more luck...

@ClaraTheImpossibleGirl
Much the same. I've just given up I think, can't even bothered to say anything to him anymore 😔
It's sad because he's not a bad person and I know he loves me a lot, but not enough to make a change, and that's what I need more than anything.
Sorry to hear about your DP. I just don't understand men!

I don't blame you @Justateweetabix; I mean I completely understand how hard it is to make changes (I need to make some myself!) but when men don't make any effort whatsoever...?!

My DP has been told that he desperately needs to start exercising more too, he has a very sedentary job and the GP advised that he needs to get much more exercise. However even just walking he will moan and moan about!

Me (trying to be encouraging): would you like to join me and the DC doing a 5K sponsored walk for their school? You don't have to run, just walk - it's only to raise funds for school.
DP: no.

Me: should we book swimming for us to do with the DC at the weekend? They love swimming, we don't take them often enough.
DP: no.

Me: would you like to try this new outdoor trail with the DC? They'd love it, loads of stuff to climb on and see.
DP: no. Shall I meet you at the end?

I just cannot see how he'll make enough significant changes to his diet and lifestyle to not become ill very soon

We are both fighting a losing battle!
My husbands latest favourite snack is a crisp sandwich - white bread of course.

Luckily he has quite a physical job so I don't have to worry about the exercise side of things but I can imagine how hard that is for you.
Unfortunately you just cant help some people. But when they are incapacitated by their own actions they will expect your help then 😡

I work with patients who have heart failure and poorly controlled diabetes, I think unfortunately this is something that is quite common with older men, they just will not be told by anyone what to do, it’s some mix of denial, arrogance and stubbornness and it eventually kills them.

I think I gave advice earlier in the thread that in my experience people like this never change, it’s just their personality. The more you try to convince them to change the more stubborn they get, even when they’re dying of heart failure they don’t change.

You’re in for a life of constant worrying, frustration, nagging, him hiding things and lying, health problems, hospital and doctors appointments (if he bothers to attend them) and eventually being his carer and then widow, I’ve seen it time and time again.

He constantly complains that he's tired, gets worn out easily and has constant heartburn.
He's coming up to his 55th birthday and I realised yesterday, in 5 years he'll be 60 (if he makes it to 60)
The prospect of having to look after him is becoming more and more real and I know I need to leave him to it. The love I had for him is gone. It's difficult because I'm living in his house but I'll find a way.

I typed quite a long message and then Mumsnet decided to crash or something... a bit annoying!
Your DH sounds like my Dad. He was older when he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes but he had always been obese, didn't eat healthy food, never did any exercise of any description, smoked etc.
At first I think they managed to put the wind up him a bit and he really did try hard and brought his levels down to "pre-diabetes" but he wasn't able to maintain it. I live abroad and often chatted to him about it to check he was still on track but he was obviously just telling me any old thing.
Sadly he died in his early 70s of a massive heart attack in his sleep - no forewarning, nothing. When I got back to the UK I found his flat full of junk food - tins of sweets everywhere, crisps, chocolate, junk food, ready meals and he'd been eating out at the local cafe nearly every day - ham and eggs and chips. There were also letters from the doctor about his various tests he had to go to regularly showing that the levels were very concerning and that he had the beginnings of retinopathy. He also had nasty leg ulcers which I did know about and was becoming increasingly immobile.
Diabetes is a really nasty illness with horrible consequences such as loss of sight and loss of limbs - never mind the elevated risk of heart attack.

I feel (and this obviously isn't scientific fact) from the experience with Dad, that once it takes hold you come to a tipping point where you absolutely cannot get it under control because the need for the sweet things and junk spirals out of control - like an addiction. If you catch it early enough and make the lifestyle changes and stick to them, you have a chance - but if it's diagnosed too late or if you make lifestyle changes once but start to slip, it spirals out of control even faster.
OP, this is horrible for you. There's no bright future here. If I can be so blunt - he's either going to have a massive heart attack (possibly fatal) at some point fairly soon, leaving you widowed or he avoids a fatal heart attack but becomes more and more immobile and more reliant on you as carer. I can't see a scenario where he changes his lifestyle completely early enough to mitigate the effects of this. He might have a heart attack and get a massive shock and then kick his ass in to gear but it will probably be too late.

Only you can decide what to do about it. But in all honesty I'd be looking at the various scenarios (including a possible sudden death) to ensure that you and the children are financially secure. If you decide to leave him I can understand why you would do that.

When

My Dad was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Put on same medication as your DH. My Dad changed his diet and lifestyle. He found it hard but he did not give in. After 4 months of strict diet and walking 3 times a week it was under control. He lost weight and no longer needed meds. It can be done but hard work needed. My Mum only bought healthy food. No junk food in house. She lost weight too. Don't buy any my crisps, biscuits or similar. Give him time ultimatum to start to get it under control. If he refuses to even try. I would leave.

He's coming up to his 55th birthday and I realised yesterday, in 5 years he'll be 60 (if he makes it to 60)

Has he been paying into a pension? A motivator for someone I know was the idea that despite paying into a pension for years they were never going to enjoy it.

I posted on your thread earlier OP under a different user name.

We went on holiday recently, and I blew out one day having fish and chips. I felt really off colour, so tested my blood which was 18. It really really frightened me, and it made me get my shit together and I ordered a Libre sensor to wear for 2 weeks. During that time, it was really visible what affected my sugar levels (mainly carbs) and with effort, I managed to keep my blood sugar at an average of 6.8 for the second week of it.

He's a dick, OP, ignoring a serious condition that will be life limiting for him.

But his lifestyle choices don't have to be yours.

Has he been paying into a pension?
No, has been self employed a lot of his life, only has a very small pension, but has life insurance.
Don't buy any my crisps, biscuits or similar. He buys them himself and eats his main meal at work.
At the rare times when he checks his blood they are rarely lower than 10, and as high as 18. It doesn't seem to bother him whatsoever.
The day he asked his friend to bring a pudding over, his bloods were 17.2!
He doesn't test them anymore😕

I think your message has to be, 'why should I bother about you when you don't? Why should I buy what you need, when you don't?'

Make your life entirely focussed on yourself- the food you want, the activities you want. Plan for leaving.

It's possible he'll actually recognise what's happening and make changes. If he doesn't, you're better off anyway.

I'm speaking as someone whose been life long obese, whose husband is inclined to sabotage. I'd have been so appreciative of someone like you in my relationship, helping me make positive changes. Instead I've been faced with delicious crusty white bread, crisps and chocolate everywhere, and found it hard to control.

I'm 5.5 stone down now, because I've tuned him out and am ignoring him. I do what I want. Cook what I want. Buy what I want. He still buys crap, but because 'we' are no longer a 'we', it's irrelevant to me. I know that probably doesn't make sense to anyone else!