I have an interesting predicament. My wife was fully in favor of me getting the sleeve. She had been trying to get me to have WLS for a year before I finally admitted to myself that it was the right thing to do for me. Every step of the way she has been supportive and encouraging. She has been the one that has taken my progress photos and seen how incredibly life changing this has been for me. She is very happy that I had this surgery.

She is also trying to lose weight. She determined that she would not be the fat wife. We had always been a heavier couple, me much more so than her. She has done a terrific job following a better diet and exercising. She has lost approximately 50lbs in 8 months as a result. She is also right by my side when I meet people that comment on my weight loss and want to hear about my story. She is there for the excitement such as was expressed by a lady at church this morning that was so happy to see me "melting away" while ending the greeting by telling my wife that she "looked good too". She has heard me talk about the loss of cravings, how even when I want to eat more I'm limited physically and how what I call "hunger" now is no where near what it was before surgery.

She is supportive and would not wish me to fail, yet she is struggling with how successful I've been, with the attention I am getting and feels cheated that she, in her opinion, has to work so much harder for the loss she sees. I do everything I can to reinforced to her how wonderful I think she is and how great she has done. It is little to no comfort for her. She has told me that seeing me be as successful, with no real difficulties, has made it that much harder for her as she tries to lose. She has become resentful and jealous of how well the sleeve has worked for me.

She tells me that another compounding effect of this comes in that i have a surgical support group I attend weekly and a couple great outlets for on line support, where she feels left alone in a situation that not many can relate too. Even on the forums that I frequent, there really is not a great spouse support structure, let alone a spouse trying to loose weight while seeing her husband virtually disappear. I have known for some time that she was getting sick of hearing my stories and being around for the "OMG you look so good" comments so I have not been sharing some things with her. I see no use in "rubbing her nose" in my good fortune. This is yet another thorn in her side because I now seem to want to "keep this part of my life separate". Well yeah, duh, you don't want to hear about it and it makes you feel worse about yourself and makes you resent me. No **** I don't want to tell her about successes. Oh and as a side note I really enjoy talking to others about this process, love helping other WLS patients with whatever information I can provide for them and would like nothing more to be able to have a career working with WLS support groups.

I feel like I'm living in the quintessential catch 22. I don't know if there are any answers or anything I can do to make the situation better, but I'd sure love some input. Thanks for reading my rant.

I'm new here, so this may exist already, but perhaps she could start a spouses support group on this site? It appears that your wife is not unique in her feelings, and it might be good to have a place where the emotions can get worked out...and help other spouses at the same time! Just a thought. Oh, and CONGRATS on your success!