Wife is sad about being overweight but doesn't make any effort to change

[T92]

I am 34 (male) and have been married to my wife (32) for 3 years, together for 12. We have one child who is 6 months.

My wife has always been on the larger size. She was a size 16/18 when I met her. I found her incredibly attractive and for the first couple of years her weight wasn't an issue for either of us.

She has fluctuated up and down over the years but has steadily been gaining weight for the past few years. She is currently a size 22.

She constantly moans about her weight now and has done for years. She went to the gym before our wedding but lasted 3 weeks, she regularly does Slimming World or calorie counting but gives up after a couple of weeks. I fully support these endeavours and cook healthy, offer to go for walks with her or take the baby whilst she goes alone etc but she does very little, if any, exercise apart from walking around the supermarket. Our diet isn't outrageous but she snacks a lot and is constantly talking about food. She keeps saying she will 'start on Monday' but never does. She keeps saying that she's just had a baby which I understand but I am the one that takes him for long walks in his pram after I finish work. She has taken him once.

She is constantly asking me if I still love her and fancy her. I do and to be honest, our sex life is as good as it has ever been but there is no getting away from the fact that she is obese and unhealthy.

She came downstairs recently and said that she wanted to run a half marathon next year. I was a little sceptical having run one myself recently and told her that it was a serious undertaking for a non-runner. She got upset and said I didn't believe in her and I should be supportive. I was honest with her and said that she never sees things through. I explained her constant moaning about her weight and lifestyle is hard to listen to when she makes no effort to change.

I came downstairs the next day and apologised and said (truthfully) if she put her mind to it, she could run a half marathon and I will support her but she has to take the training seriously... that was a month ago and she has been for a couple of walks and complained about a sore back and hadn't mentioned it since, kind of proving my point.

I love my wife dearly but her lifestyle and inaction are causing me concern. I genuinely think she wants to change but feels trapped and that she has too much to do. She is a fantastic Mum but I am hands on too, I do all the housework and I will take the little man out for hours at a time on my own and she will generally spend that time sat on the sofa doomscrolling. I get she needs a break but then she complains she is unproductive and the cycle continues.

I'm appealing to the women of Mumsnet, how can I support her?

What a useless post.

He's worried as she is obese and long term this will impact on her health with a risk of early death.

Any caring partner would be worried and thinks that asking other mums may be a way to try to understand how he can help her.

Hes inviting women to judge his wife?! Who works, has had 3 kids and is currently on a well deserved maternity leave

Your post is useless and has a shaming undertone

I would get very frustrated if someone was constantly moaning but not actually doing anything about it.

The issue seems to be that she’s focusing too much on exercise. This won’t really help her lose weight unless she’s doing it properly.

What’s the point in doing a marathon if she doesn’t want to even go for a walk in the evenings.
I guess it’s something to work towards but I can’t help feel she’s using it as an excuse up delay starting anything.

Tell her you’ll support her doing the half marathon and that she should start with the 5k.

The main thing that works for me when losing weight is reducing my carbs.
I’m assuming she’s going to back to work in a couple of months and so perhaps suggests she reduces her carbs and tracks her calories so she feels more comfortable before she goes back to work.

Being overweight is a vicious cycle as it makes you tired and crave junk.

At size 22, if she stuck to 1800kcals a day, reduced her carbs and did a bit of walking a couple of times a week - then she’ll lose weight.

If you want to support her, then perhaps help with meal planning and getting an online delivery and don’t have crap in the house - I appreciate you shouldn’t be doing any of this considering she’s not currently working.

Where has the 3 kids come from? She has one 6 month old baby!

He’s not asking anyone to judge his wife - he’s literally asking for advice on how he can help her because she’s so unhappy.

Good for him.

You could have easily been my partner.
its a hard situation when you know you need to lose weight and you want too but it is really really hard. I’m a stone and a half down but only due to the mounjaro jabs. It took away the food noise and I haven’t had crisps or chocolate in months. Something I thought I would never say!

I've been doing a course on healthy lifestyle and keeping your heart healthy, and one of the things that the teacher has been making clear to us is that people generally fail in creating good habits because they set too many and too big goals. Its much better to gradually introduce smaller changes into your life, integrate them until they are a routine habit then add more.

'I'm going to do a half marathon' is too big an aim for someone who is overweight and unfit. You need shorter term achievable goals. 'I'm going to walk briskly for 15 mins a day' is more realistic and achievable, then when that is part of her routine she can up the exercise time/maybe add in another form of fitness like swimming or cycling, or swapping unhealthy snacks for healthy ones.

Losing weight is hard, especially if she is breast feeding the baby, and she will be tired and feeling unmotivated because babies are exhausting.
But if she can introduce some small steps and she loses a bit of weight that way, she will start to feel better and that in itself will encourage her to keep at it.

Just keep encouraging her and supporting her efforts, and help her not to self sabotage if she has a bad day, if you eat a load of unhealthy stuff one day or miss a days exercise its very easy to tell yourself 'well I've scuppered things now I may as well give up' encourage her to put a bad day behind her and start afresh the next day.

She’s not happy with her weight, which is specifically what OP is asking about. In case you’ve forgotten:

She constantly moans about her weight now and has done for years

Are you really suggesting she continues to stuff her face and gain weight until, and if, she decides to start taking WLI?

DH & I are both on wli and we more than cover the cost with savings on our food bill. We split doses (so take 2.5mg from a 5mg pen etc) so the cost is less than £100 each per month.

If I was you, I would read some of the threads on the weight loss injections board (supportive ones not the goady anti-wli ones) and maybe suggest your wife has a look if she is interested.

. We have one child who is 6 months

I know it's in the first post from the OP !.

@mumofoneAloneandwell will be telling us next he must be lying about that, because he’s a man 😂

"Sounds like she has disordered eating and is depressed. I think the reason you're not seeing results from support or any intrinsic motivation is because disordered eating and depression don't really work like that.

So, her BMI is over 40 and this should mean that she's eligible for WLI and support on the NHS. She needs to go to the doctors and, if possible, you need to go with her. Chances are that she does have something like sleep apnoea or other 'qualifying' conditions. In any case, they can refer her to a supportive programme. If she can't manage that, then there's a compliance issue and they will need to make other referrals for that."

Quoted for emphasis.

OP, you're falling in the trap of seeing obesity as a moral failing. It's actually literally a disease. All you're doing by seeing your wife's obesity as a moral failing is making her miserable and more inclined to eat. It's not helpful, and in fact is really counterproductive.

You mentioned the side effects of WLIs, but the evidence at this point is really unequivocal: the side effects of WLIs FAR outweigh the long-term problems of obesity. If you're really concerned about side effects, you and your wife can discuss them with your doctor.

These all cost money and they’re not loaded as OP has said.

None of these things will actually help if the wife doesn’t actually do it herself.

Instead of taking her out to eat, the wife should be eating less calories at home.

Instead of paying for a gym, the wife should be going for a walk with the baby during the day or by herself when OP gets home.

They cannot afford WLIs and I don’t think they’ll work long term on the wife anyway and she could end up putting more weight on than when she started.

Nah the invitation is to say 'look how much I do, shes so lazy' 😫😫

She doesnt deserve this - god forbid a woman takes it easier after having 3 kids

Edit - ONE KID

PLEASE, THE WOMEN IN AWE OF THE OP, DONT COME FOR ME FOR MISREADING

This is a good time of year for weight loss...

If you take over cooking your shared meals - lots of lean protein (e.g. bbq chicken breast kebabs) and tasty salads with new potatoes- a small change to one meal a day may make a significant difference

Also suggest family activities that you can both do with your little one that involve some activity. Maybe get annual membership to your nearest zoo or farm, that often involves a fair bit of walking

The jabs enable her to lead a healthy lifestyle. They don’t just melt the fat off whilst you sit and eat donuts for goodness sake. You can’t even be bothered reading up on it.

Ohh my mistake, I misread and thought it was 3 kids - apologies @T92 and to the many women falling overthemselves at your amazing husbanding 🙄🙄🙄

But i'm still judging you - let the woman live. Great youre doing your bit. Shes had your child and is allowed to relax and take it easy before she goes back to work, not be judged by her husband for not moving around enough

I was a little sceptical having run one myself recently

OMG @T92 you have A HOBBY how very dare you !
And you called your son the little man

Signed your own death warrrant there , matey ! .

Someone will be along to tell you to get a 2nd job to fund the Mounjaro (other weight loss injections are available ) you could take in some ironing or something .

This site is just so bloody twisted sometimes , if a female poster wrote "My DH has suggested I do some excercise/lay off the snacks/have the jabs" the answers would be "Well he's no Jason Mamoa I;ll wager "

Christ, I think some people have started on the Friday night gin a little early.

Well done for reaching out and trying another tack in order to support her. Ignore the naysayers, you're doing a good thing. My suggestion would be as per a pp: try to do things together. A walk with the buggy at a weekend. Far enough to challenge but not so far it puts her off. Then a bit further next time and so on. She has to want to change, herself. You can't instill that desire unfortunately. But you can try to instigate small changes and moving with her would be a great start.

😌

And you’re falling over yourself to defend this woman, sitting on her arse all day, eating rubbish and ruining her health. Why is that?

Post deleted! Wrong post quoted.

^this
Mounjaro can give you a start but ultimately you’ll have to address your relationship with food and exercise.
She needs to find something she enjoys, walking, swimming, it’s ideal weather now.

I think some of the comments on here are disgusting and the fact some of them have come from adults SMH 🤦🏼‍♀️ if the shoe was on the other foot and a woman was posting this about her husband id love to see the switch up in the comments,

OP the first thing i thought could you help her reach out to a PT and come up with a good diet plan i think all you can do is KEEP her motivated, unfortunately losing the weight is entirely down to herself but there are definitely things you can do to help you could suggest to look on TikTok or google for tasty low calorie recipes and healthy snacks there is LOADS out there she could aim for 10k steps a day which WOULD make a huge huge difference i personally would never ever recommend weight loss injections a lot of people gain a lot of weight back once they stop taking it again let her start a plan keep her motivated a much as possible suggest making small small goals like lose 1lb a week