No, I'm not planning to trade him for a new DH!

The issue is... he has been extremely supportive of my weight loss efforts, including the surgery, but this is starting to change lately. In the past couple of weeks, he has been bringing a lot of food home that he knows is very difficult for me to resist.  It started with cookies, then those horrible (but delicious) preservative-filled Vachon cakes.  I asked him not to bring the cakes home, I ate tons of them growing up and they are a major trigger.  I explained how hard it is to resist certain things.  Then yesterday he brought home fresh scones... from a place called The Scone Witch in Ottawa that has the best scones I've had in my life; he knows how much I love them.  I haven't touched them but they are screaming "eat me" at me right now. 

This also impacts our 8-year-old son.  He is a big boy and doesn't need to have constant access to junk food, nor does he need permission from my husband to eat something sweet after every meal (except breakfast).  My DH says "he'll have a growth spurt and slim out" but I'm really concerned about this (due, of course, to my own awful experiences with being fat growing up).

I'm confused by this change.  My theory is that he is feeling insecure (although I'm very clear that he has no reason to be) because I weigh less now than I have in probably 19 years (we've been married for 11), and that he is consciously or unconsciously trying to sabotage my efforts.  Maybe he wants me to stay where I am on the scale. 

I'm 2 lbs away from being "overweight" instead of "obese", and have been gaining and losing the same lb for the past 2 weeks.  I really need him to be supportive right now.

Theories?  Suggestions?  Similar experience?  Help!  Thanks!

I dont know what your previous relationship with your husband was like, but here is a little story that may be similar and hopefully provide insight.

My mom was recently diagnosed with Cancer. She had been sick on and off since about April and finally went to the hospital in August. Since then, she has been in and out of the hospital and is currently at home but is left unable to do very much at all. She mostly sits in her chair and watches TV with no sound. She sleeps in the chair too since its closer to the bathroom and she is worried about waking my father in the night when she can't sleep.

My mother has always taken care of my father. He has never cooked a day in his life. He has never had to make his own lunch to take to work, never had to wash his own clothes, never had to fend for himself in any way.

Since my mother has been sick though, he suddenly learned how to use the washing machine, can make chicken-pot-pie and has become a half decent housekeeper. He sleeps on the floor by my mother's chair.

She eats very little now, but had been obese all of her adult life. She probably wears a size small-medium in regular sizes now. I told her to make sure that since she eats so little, to make sure that what she *does* eat, is good for her.

My father, on the other hand, brings home applie pie, Tim Hortons, pizza, KFC, cookies...etc. Anything he thinks she will eat. He simply cannot stand to see her eat so little so he buys anything he thinks she will eat because "as long as she is eating, it doesnt matter what it is"....it makes *HIM* feel better to see my mother eating so in his head, he is making *her* feel better too.


That's the philosophy I grew up with and had to battle for years when I had my own kids. If they didnt want to eat their supper when they were babies, my parents wold say, "well just give them whatever they want - they need to eat!!! A chocolate chip cookie for supper is better than nothing if they wont eat the chicken and broccoli!!!" They couldnt stand to see them "starve".
Really?? Starve because they didnt eat the 2oz of chicken and 1/4c of broccoli I put on their plate?? Not likely. They just couldnt stand to be the bad guy. They want the grandkids to love them, not hate them for feeding them disgusting green stuff!!

Needless to say, I am pretty sure that was a huge factor in how I ended up so fat. For me, even to this day, a chocolate chip cookie makes everything alright.

Probably also why my children are all thin as rails as I do NOT subscribe to this philosophy at all. My kids eat when they are hungry, not because it makes them feel loved. 



Does that make any sense at all??

 

I could be way off, but my take is a little different. I think he has seen the success you have had and thinks that it may be ok now that you've lost some weight to have a few treats in the house again. If he's not making any snarky comments or appearing to sabotage you in any other way, I doubt that's what it is. Probably something more like slipping back to old habits now that your weightloss isn't new anymore, it's hard to be constantly vigilant. Perhaps he didn't appreciate that this would be a life-long change? I think a calm sit down talk is all that is needed. He can have as many treats as he likes when he's out, but they can't come in the house for your sake, and your sons.

Pat XYZ gives a good point. He could be thinking...mmmm yeah...i can have this stuff around again.

or, it could be that he's trying to consciously or unconsciously sabotage you.

You need to have conversations with him about this, help him discover what his motivation is. he may not even know it (if i were talking about my hubby, that would be the case. He just doesn't know what his motivation is)

Keep explaining to him that these are trigger foods for you, and if he wants to eat them, he can do it when he's out of the house. He can buy himself one scone and eat it at work, and the same thing with the vachon cakes (omg omg omg omg i miss those!!!)

What I'm hearing when I read these responses is
"Communicate with him".

I find this really interesting.
Recently a friend remarked that my WLS buddy Wendy and I were completely obsessed with our WLS journey, unable to speak of anything else for any length of time.
I must admit being a little nonplussed, but then realized that she was probably right. This has been uppermost in our minds since just before the surgery.

Others in our lives are not as immersed in the process as we are, so they might be well-meaning, and thinking for themselves, when they do things we might find objectionable.  And their initiative is laudable, of course...

If we don't continue to keep them up to speed on our changing thinking and attitudes and needs, we may experience misunderstandings and disappointments etc..

Does this make sense?

Here's my 2 cents...for what it's worth :)
There's just no getting around it - change is hard.   And it's usually hard for everybody.  The good thing is that you said he's been very supportive of your efforts, so this probably indicates that he will continue to be.  But maybe he's having a hard time maintaining the changes he's had to make; maybe it's about his lifestyle and habits, not yours.  He obviously likes treats and maybe just misses having them.  Particularly if this is something the two of you used to share, he might miss it even more.  My husband just recently told me he misses my baking.  I love to bake but haven't done it much because it's too tempting.  But he misses coming home to the smell of fresh cookies and he commented that he misses the cupcakes and cakes because I enjoyed making them and he enjoyed eating them.  We shared alot over food - loved going to restaurants and we had an 8-year tradition of ordering pizza on whatever night Survivor was on.  Food represents so many things.  And for so many of us, it's enmeshed in our relationships too.

As for your son, that's a little more difficult because it sounds like you & your hubby have different views on what should/shouldn't be accessible to him.  At our house, we have snack and treat rules for the kids - no 'treats' unless they've had their 'healthy food' first.  We teach them about hunger and that you have healthy food for hunger because it's good for your body.  The 'treats' are extras and they can have them but only after the healthy stuff; we find that they're quite often full by then.  My husband & I follow the same rule so that they're seeing the example; though my oldest now notices that I don't eat very many treats anymore.  My life experience has taught me that 'all or nothing' doesn't work for me and I want to teach my kids a different way too.

My advice?  Just keep talking to your hubby.  Ask him what's really going on.  Keep the lines of communication open.  Good luck!!

It's hard to say why he's doing this.
My husband is pretty much the same way.
while he's not bringing this stuff home, he continues to write things like
Chips,
cookies
on the grocery list each week.

does he think that i'm going to buy them so he can eat them in front of me. it's still a temptation. I have on occasion bought them for him, but only the kind I hate so i won't be tempted.

I'm sure it's just that "He doesn't think", i find guys are dumb that way. They just don't "Think"...
time for a talk, and thanks for the post, I think I'll have a little talk about the grocery list with DH as well.

j

Hopefully this can all be sorted out with a chat - to echo what some of the others have said, he may just not be prepared to think about your weight loss journey as in-depth as it needs to be.

Good luck!

Hi everyone.

Thanks for all of your feedback.  I hadn't thought about the "men don't think" factor, nor had I considered just how much work it has been for me to wrap my head around life post-WLS (so why should it be easy for him?).  We are both under a lot of stress right now, and he may just be falling into his "food=comfort" habits without thinking of how that may affect me. I'll talk to hi, again about the food, maybe from a different angle.

As far as junk food being around all the time for my son, DH is pretty adamant that this is ok.  He actually told his kids from his first marriage that dessert is a food group (and they believed him until probably grade 4)!  He has never had a weight problem, so he doesn't get it.  I just want to try to save my boy the pain of trying to change a lifetime of bad eating habits when he's older.  But I think this may be a conversation for another day... One thing at a time is probably best.