My boyfriend...

In the interest of full disclosure (and because I know there are hardcore realists on this site) I will say two things before I go into my spiel. #1 – I realize I can’t change anybody but myself. #2 – At the bottom of it, what I’m really mad about is #1.

My boyfriend. Sigh.

Backstory: We dated years ago (like…10 years ago). Lost contact. Reconnected a year and some change ago. Have been inseparable since. When we dated years ago he’d lost a massive amount of weight (how I know not). In that 10 years he regained it and now lives with Type 2 diabetes.

He’s sort of food obsessed. Now on a good note, he makes me realize how NOT food obsessed I’ve become (blog and whatnot, notwithstanding) but everything – absolutely everything – is about food.

This scares me. Because he doesn’t eat healthfully. And while I don’t know a lot about diabetes, I do notice that these days he tends to have to give himself two shots at a meal instead of one (he does one before and one shortly after). Since HE has brought up losing weight and getting healthier I made what I thought were simple suggestions. For instance, maybe not eating three different starches at each meal (this is not me being snarky…he’ll get bread on a sandwich, fries and then order a side biscuit).

I’ve made it clear to him I love him no matter what his size but his health worries me. I know part of this is residual from my mom’s death. She died from complications of diabetes which started with her doing the very same things he is doing now. I don’t want to project all that onto him but at the same time I can’****ch another person die that way.

So I’m not asking for advice so much as I am venting. I have decided that I love this man and want to stay with him (I can’t imagine my life without him in it) but this really, really worries me and so I wanted to at least say that.

So I said it. Any words of advice, encouragement, foreboding, whatever are welcome but don’t feel obligated! Thanks. 

I think he will have to come to terms with his eating when he is ready. Is he perhaps in denial about his diabetes and its possible consequences? I wonder if he ever went to any diabetes education classes.  Maybe he thinks he has a good grasp on eating properly but really doesn't.

I know when he is at your house he probably isn't getting three starches with a meal!

I have a somewhat similar situation with my husband. He chews tobacco. I work in an oncology office, and I prepare chemo authorizations for people with cancer, sometimes mouth cancer. I know that chewing tobacco really increases his odds of getting head/neck cancer, which can be disfiguring and hard to treat. He knows tobacco is doing nothing for him, but he has to do it on his own. I wish I could do it for him.

I think it's the same deal with your fella. I know before surgery, I would have been really mad if anyone made suggestions, even out of love.

Kate,

Tell hubby to go on the gum to quit the tobacco.  He can pack it down in his front lip like snuff and it will have the same physical sensation of being there and will transfer the nicotine till he weans himself off of it.  I used it quitting smoking but was a former dipper/chewer and still enjoyed the occasional chew when outside when I got off all the tobacco nearly 13 years ago.

Great idea! Thanks, Don. He said chewing is a lot harder to quit than smoking.

Here's what I finally figured out with my ex.  When he talked about wanting to lose weight, he wasn't asking me for advice.  He already knew stuff like eating three starches with one meal wasn't a good weight loss strategy.  You know a lot about eating healthy and still eating yummy stuff.  Anyone wanting advice on how to do that would be wise to ask you.  But maybe he isn't looking for advice.

My ex wasn't.  I wi**** had occurred to me sooner because I would have just said something like, "How can I best support you?"  But I think what he wanted was for me not to do things like surprise him by baking his favorite cake when he was trying to lose weight (yes, I was guilty of doing that once, and no, I was not trying to sabotage him, I just knew he really liked that cake and thought he'd be pleased to find it on the table when he came home from work).  I don't think he wanted me to offer suggestions, though.  I think he already knew the things I could tell him, anyway. 

Oh dear, that's a tough one!  He's doing what you took action to avoid and all you can do is do your best to not enable his behavior and wait for his "aha" moment.  It's a double bummer because he'd been very successful at losing weight previously, but let it all creep back on.  There is great temptation to armchair psychoanalyze and pose questions about what made him gain the weight back and what drives him to continue to put on weight, even in the face of his escalating diabetes.  But you can't do that because that will only make him resentful, which is not good for an ongoing relationship.

I really feel you on this one.  As I've lost weight, I'm looking forward to doing adventurous things like kayaking, zip lining and the wind tunnel parachute simulator.  My husband, who has always been smaller than me but still overweight, is starting to become the limiting factor and I think he's starting to realize that.  I really want to march him into my surgeon's office, but I know that's not a thing I can or should do.  I know he's not happy with his weight and we've had the "I think you would do well with WLS" conversation and I've left it at that.  He needs to come to the decision on his own or be content to be left at home.  Same thing with your fella.  

Hang in there.  You know where to come when you need to talk it out.  :D

Jen

Start with I love you and I won'****ch you kill yourself so you either love me and want to get healthy so we can have a long healthy life together or you don't really love me.  Shame him, bribe him, manipulate him, who cares what you have to do to make him take care of himself.  Offer to help, to cook, whatever he needs, but remember you are his love not his mommy, make him step up.  He's having the diabetes pity party and needs to be called on it for him being selfish to you.  Underhanded?  Perhaps, but the result can be a happy healthy man who you obviously love and care about.  And forget you can't change people, you most certainly can. 

If she really, really loved him and wanted him cured, she could chain him to a radiator in the basement, and only give him healthy food.

You mean I'm supposed to let Jim leave the basement occasionally?   (slinks off to remove handcuffs, gag and duct tape ...)

Oh wait, were you being serious?