My Husband Finally Gets It!

[JamieLogical 8,684]

I was sleeved over 18 months ago. My husband didn't think I needed WLS. In fact, he shared with me that my decision to have WLS diminished his respect for me, because he had always thought of me as an incredibly strong person and he felt that having WLS was me "giving up". A lot of his perspective was my own fault. I had lost and regained many times since we were together. Every time I regained, I always had some excuse: an injury, an illness, recovering from surgery, etc. The problem is, I always milked those excuses for far longer than necessary and I took full advantage of them. Meanwhile, he bought into them. So where I *knew* that my regain was 99% to do with my own failures, he thought it was 99% legit.

Also, I was a secret binge eater and I went out of my way to hide a lot of my eating from him. I would eat big fast food lunches, then bring the evidence back to work with me to throw in the trash. Or I would take trash straight out to the bin in the garage instead of putting it in the kitchen garbage where he might see it.

So I did a really good job of tricking him into thinking I had a better handle on my eating and my weight than I really did. Which meant he didn't see how much I truly struggled with it, both mentally and physically.

By the time I had my VSG, I knew myself well enough to know that it was the right decision. But it has taken me losing all my excess weight and maintaining it for 6+ months for my husband to catch on.

We had a great talk at dinner on Saturday night. I had completed my 8 mile run for my half marathon training and was rewarding myself with a date night of dinner and a movie. While I was on the treadmill, doing my run, I had watched a couple more episodes of My 600 Pound Life. I was discussing the episodes with my husband and we got into the talk we always get into when discussing that show... how do people let it get that bad. We talked about how spouses and parents are "enablers" and how Dr. Nowzaradan always berates them for that, but in real life, what choice do they really have? It's easy to be on the outside looking in and say "well he should just stop buying sweets for her" or "well she should stop cooking him two dinners a night" or whatever. But when you are inside that reality, caring for someone you love and wanting to keep them happy, it's easy to see how they end up in those roles. My husband confessed that had I continued on that trajectory, he doesn't think he would have had the strength to try to intervene. Plus he might not have even realized how bad it had gotten until it was much too late. As it is, he says he looks at pictures of me now at my highest weight and he can't believe it. He doesn't ever remember seeing me that big. He sees those pictures and thinks "how did I ever let her get that big?" And since he never consciously registered how big I was and how much damage I was doing to my health, he can't truly say that he wouldn't have let it keep getting worse without realizing it.

He then went on to say that he'd like to think *I* would never have let it get that out of control. And my response was, "I'd like to think I'd never let it get as far as it did, but I did!" I told him I probably would have made many more valiant attempts to lose weight. I probably would have gone through many more cycles of losing and regaining. But eventually the cycle was going to have to break in one direction or the other. Either I was going to lose the weight for good and keep it off or I was going to keep packing on the pounds and give up on losing. Without surgery, the latter was the FAR more likely scenario. Eventually I really would have had a chronic excuse, like a bad knee or back or hip and I would give up entirely.

We came away from the dinner with me finally feeling like he understood why I'd had the surgery. Why it really was the best decision for our future. And even though it took him a while this time, once again he understands that I am always right.

[Sharon1964 2,530]

That is awesome!

[2goldengirl 2,076]

That's fantastic!

And of course, we always knew you were right. Always!

[VSGAnn2014 12,992]

What an honest post, @JamieLogical. Great one.

[Inner Surfer Girl 12,015]

Thank you so much for sharing.

[Miss Mac 6,261]

Congratulations for your breakthrough. I love men, but they sure are hard to train!

[JamieLogical 8,684]

That's fantastic!

And of course, we always knew you were right. Always!

You would think he's learn after 10+ years!

[glitter eyes 1,398]

What a great post and a wonderful breakthrough for your husband to realize the need for your WLS!!

[dsheive 100]

Thank you and congrats

[JamieLogical 8,684]

I'm moved that people have thanked me for this post. Thank YOU for you support and understanding.