Engaged for 6 months, been together over 2 years. Don't know if I'm getting the ick or being picky or what it is. I've known how he was about his health pretty much from around 6 months into dating him, I hoped he would take a different stance, but it's driving me up the pole now.
This will be the second time around for both of us. Both divorced. We are in our early fifties. I am in fairly good shape, very sporty, decent diet with the occasional night of a few drinks and a takeaway, but mainly lots of healthy food and have cut right back on sugar earlier this year. Well woman check last year showed everything to be good, the only medication I am on is HRT, otherwise I would be homicidal. Don't quote me on that 😂
Fiance has high cholesterol and is borderline diabetic. It keeps pushing over into type 2 numbers but then goes back down, The GP is checking it once a year, which I personally don't feel is enough. He has been on a statin for nearly 18 months and it got his number right now from 6.5 to somewhere in the just under 4 region, which is brilliant. Howwwwwwever, a few things are happening.. still happening.... and he is so stubborn about taking advice and taking care of himself that I am on the brink of ending the engagement.
His sugar and fat consumption are ridiculous. They have been for many years since before we met, so it's nothing to do with me or my behaviours. Despite knowing he has high cholesterol and is on the statin, it's almost as if taking the statin leaves him free to just consume as much saturated fat still as he wants. He fries chips in beef dripping, which he hasn't changed in over 2 years, he refuses to drink semi-skimmed milk, eats entire packets of salami for lunch, washed down with a pint of full fat milk, pours all the fat from meat onto his plate, even if he has grilled bacon, he pours the fat onto his bread. This is why his cholesterol was 6.5. I've tried to explain to him that the statin is getting the number down, but ideally he should do it himself. My Uncle had the same issue and we helped him change his diet and he didn't need a statin in the end.
He refuses to change and makes vomiting sounds and pulls a face when I put skimmed milk into my tea.... which leads me onto..... his sugar consumption. When I met him, he was putting 4 heaped spoons of sugar into his tea, which he makes super strong in quite a small mug, no teapot in sight... and of course puts full fat milk into it. He drinks over 10 to 15 cups a day like this, sometimes coffee, which he puts lots of sugar into as well. If a packet of biscuits are in his house, he will eat them all. Same thing for a cake meant to feed a family.. think the Asda boxed cakes. He has a compulsion to finish them.
I know a fair bit about diabetes as I lost a good friend to complications of the disease, and I hate to go on about it, but I suppose I'm trying to make him realise that yes, he could lose a leg, his eyesight, his kidneys could pack up. Right now his kidney function is OK, but if he keeps on keeping on, it won't be. His blood sugar is 47, which I believe is right at the top end of the borderline range. He has cut back the sugar in his tea, but is still consuming half a jar of jam per day on bread, smeared with thick butter. Yesterday he finished a large jar of jam that he only bought 2 days ago.
His attitude is that there is a pill for it and if he does get diabetes, he will be OK if he just takes it. I've tried to explain what can happen on that pill, and that your pancreas can eventually give up and you end up on insulin for the rest of your life.... or worse. He says he will do something about it if it gets worse, but this is already the 11th hour in my mind, or for anyone with an ounce of common sense about their health.
The latest development is he has jaundice in his eyes, which I noticed a few days ago. He noticed it too. He also has blurred vision. Of course it can mean many things. But the statin could be damaging his liver, it could be a bile issue, something else. But jaundice should never be ignored. I've urged him to see a GP. He hasn't made an appointment. He also has extreme fatigue that seems to be getting worse and worse. I almost drove him to A&E yesterday as I was so worried.
I'm sure I don't even need to mention the ED that happens due to diabetes, but he doesn't even seem bothered about getting the number down for that. I thought that might sway him, a reason to change, but it hasn't.
Today I have decided to back off. I woke up and felt so angry that he doesn't care enough about our shared future to take care of himself better. I'm starting to feel like his mother and not his partner and that's not what a relationship is about.