HI all, I've read so much about how the divorce rate goes up after having weight loss surgery, esp within the first 3 years. And with divorce statistics as high as what they are already it makes me wonder. I didn't want to attempt a survey but I am aching to ask those who have been banded for a while if you have experienced this - divorce after being banded & what do you think the reasons were that caused the divorce. OR did the surgery help your relationship with your SO?

I've been banded for 6 months now (wow, time flies!) & in some ways I feel closer to my DH then ever but it hasn't always been so. And those reasons haven't gone away but are lurking in the background still to this day. In no way do I want to divorce & for years I've worked on keeping the issues we have from completely interfering in our lives. Sometimes it seems like so much work.

There was a point about 5 years ago (I've been married for 13 years now) where I lost 50 pounds on WW and was feeling great. I LIKED the attention I was receiving from others & beamed at compliments. I didn't want to recognize the issues I had with my DH, some of them I believe were (are) compatibility issues. I rekindled a misguided affair of the heart with someone I knew in childhood. It was all over the phone & through letters & lasted a short time but it caused my DH much pain.

Needless to say I'm very weary about how I feel about my now shrinking self. It doesn't interest me much when a man tells me that I look good. In fact I shrink from that attention 'cause I look at it in light of my previous experience.

I would like to hear from those of you with first hand experience with issues of the heart resulting from WLS/lap band. Did the surgery cause problems or actually help your relationship? Thanks for sharing your stories.

In all the things I researched or considered about WL, marital discord wasn't one of them; this topic is somewhat disturbing for that reason. So far (admittedly this is early in my weightloss/health gain journey [6 months]) this issue has not arisen. DH is as supportive as I could possibly want him to be, and we haven't encountered any issues as a result of it. Like another poster, DH has been supportive through other major events including my hysterectomy at an early age and a cancer issue; to me my weight loss would be no different. Or at least until reading this thread, I naively thought so.

I am fascinated by this discussion, and will continue to follow it.

I personally don't know anyone who went through WLS and got divorced (still newbie) but do know of a couple of women who lost a lot of weight and within a very short time got divorced. In these instances, these were women who had been overweight most of their lives and upon getting thin, they "became their true selves" and found that their husbands were not compatible.

What I saw from my vantage point was that they became intoxicated with their new bodies and wanted the freedom to pursue flirtations. Neither one of these ladies had ever thought of themselves as desirable and when they began being pursued by males, they couldn't resist that pull. In the end, they ended up divorced, remarried to new husbands, regained weight and divorced again. It seems the new husbands who married them at their smaller size didn't want to stay married to them when they returned to their bigger size.

Good point, I think I know a lot of people like that too! My sister for one although she's on her second husband and lost the weight prior to leaving the first but I think it was her desire to leave her husband that helped with the weight loss, got into an new relationship immediately and is now married and so far I've been told twice by her already that she's going to leave him. He's a much younger version of her first husband.

She got the tummy tuck but only because she combined it with surgery to repair her breast due to cancer and it saved a bit of money that way and has now put back the weight that she lost prior to leaving her husband. Sometimes I see it as a dissatisfaction with one's self than anything. Does that make sense. I mean she's unhappy with herself it really doesn't matter who she's with really. Just my opinion. Nancy.

Well, I suppose it could be but my dr is a straight shooter and was very concerned about it.

That doesn't mean his 99% isn't his own opinion vs. having sat down and compiled all the stats from his practice. In fact, him being concerned about it makes it all the more likely that it *feels* like that many to him. We tend to notice what concerns us more.

99% is just not a believable number when the national average is only around 40%.

That's not to say that it isn't a high number or not a problem, just that I bet if he actually compiled some stats, he'd get a number like 87.4 or 72.1 -- something really high but not so high as to include pretty much anyone who is married and has WLS.

I don't doubt the number is high, and would hazzard a guess that most of them are the posters we see on here so frequently that do not have spousal support in their surgery.

It IS an adjustment, as many things are in marriage, career changes, moves, kids, other health issues. About a month after being banded my DH's mitral valve failed, and he had to have open heart surgery, and his surgeon broached the subject with us, that these types of surgeries often bring on marital discord. I was so surprised, but then as the months went by and we kept in contact with his hospital friend who had surgery the same day----the guy was so bitter, and so negative, and so depressed, I was not surprised in the least when he said his wife had moved out and told him until he got counselling she would not be back.

I imagine it to be very similar.

Everything is like being on a roller coaster ride!!!! But like that ride, if you hang on, ride it out, ride out the highs and lows, let it all stop and then decide if you want to go again or not, you have better chances!! Jump off while the roller coaster is going, and there is not much of a chance.

As with most things in marriage, you are going to get out of it what you put into it....and while it is so hard not to focus 24/7 on the band and how it is affecting US-----our spouses too are going through changes. I mean if your bald spouse suddenly decided to get plugs----to make him more attractive---or had his teeth capped, to the tune of several thousand bucks, and rather than focus on his ability to eat better, focused on his looks only, it would make me insecure for sure!!!

Think my DH deserves an Extra hug tonight!

Kat

Thanks, everyone. I put this question out 'cause I really did want to hear what people thought of this issue.

I had WLS five years 2 weeks ago. Lost 130 pounds, getting down to a low of 135, and a very small size 2. Looked awful, and gained 20 - 25 pounds in order to be more comfortable with myself. Have weighed between 158-162 for over 3 years now, never getting higher than 162, very comfortable size 4-8 depending on brand.

I have a better marriage now than I ever have and I did not have a supportive husband going into the surgery. As a matter of fact, he darn near picked a fight with my surgeon in the holding area prior to my surgery because he was so against it. I needed to do it for myself, not to get healthier, I could have cared less about that at the time. I wanted to look better, I wanted to like myself. I no longer wanted to be fat and embarrassed to be seen naked by my own husband. I avoided sex, I avoided everything with a man that I so truly adored because I thought I was disgusting. Health never came in to the picture. As a matter of fact, riding to the hospital that morning I was scared to death. I just had this horrible feeling that I was going to die, and I am not a chicken on stuff like that. I have had numerous surgeries even lung surgery because of a tumor found in a lung just years prior. I remember thinking to myself, as scared as I was, that I would be better off dead than to continue to look and feel the way I did. It is truly amazing how excessive fat can change you - I have always said it makes you the person you would never ever want to be.

Anyway, home from the hospital my husband took such good care of me. He made certain I got my Proteins in, he cooked for me and cared for me beyond my wildest dreams. I rapidly dropped 65 pounds in 4 months and I could hardly see it, although I knew that I started at a size 24 and was in a 12 or 14 by CHristmas. When I hit 199, it was like a lightbulb went on. Then I could see it. People were complimenting me constantly and it helped me succeed.

However, all was not what it appeared. My husband lost his mind when I lost weight. He suddenly became ridiculously jealous and possessive. It took us a long time to get through it, it took me a long time to convince him that I had friends at work that yes were male, but that hardly meant I was sleeping with anyone. He did some crazy things and so did I in order to get him to just stop some of the things he was doing -- checking my cell phone, my email, etc. It was not an easy period in our lives, but it was apparently a necessary one and finally he decided I was not cheating on him. He pushed and pushed and almost pushed me to cheat and I probably could have; he certainly thinks I could have. However, I had gained me through my weight loss and I refused to allow his insecurities to give me a reason to do something that I would hate myself for.

We fought and fought, but we hung in there and duked it out. At my one year anniversary, our marriage had fully recovered and we are closer than we have ever been. He has been supportive throughout 2 plastic surgeries and I would not trade this period in our lives for anything. I do know four or five people who have undergone WLS and 3 are still together, although 1 is miserable - and 2 have divorced. However, lets be clear that the issues that drove them to divorce were present at the beginning of their WLS journey; just after weight loss, they no longer had that to hide behind or food to find comfort in. Something had to give and since neither of them would, their marriage had to.

So short story, stay focused on what is important to you and you cannot fail in weight loss or in keeping your family together.

Ten years ago I lost 75 lbs. I look sooo differant. People made wonderful comments about how great I looked. But I always remember the night of my husbands work Christmas party when my husband looked at me and said I was "smoking hot"!* We have been married 26 years and I now weigh 212 and I want to be hot again. If you have a good, solid marrige to start I can't see where losing weight should change it. It may even make it better.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/180580_bypass03.html

I can see where WLS and the changes it brings could further rock a shaky marriage. I think my biggest problem has been times when my emotions (or hormones, depending on whom you ask!) are all over the place and I don't know what to do with myself. Before WLS, I just conveniently headed to the kitchen to smother the emotions with food. Now, I have to find other ways to cope or -- HORROR! -- just DEAL with them. Hubby's had to do a lot of hand-holding and quiet listening.

But none of it has been a threat because we've got 29 years together and have endured bigger hardships than this.

However, lets be clear that the issues that drove them to divorce were present at the beginning of their WLS journey; just after weight loss, they no longer had that to hide behind or food to find comfort in. Something had to give and since neither of them would, their marriage had to.

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And that's the critical point - the WLS may have brought the issues more to the forefront, but they were there before.

Sometimes I think people get married or stay married to people they've "settled" on because they had low self esteem and felt it was the best they could do. I think having the surgery and losing a lot of weight when they thought they could never accomplish something like that gives them the strength to take on other issues they thought they couldn't handle, e.g, getting better job, going back to school, leaving a spouse they no longer love.

Everyone is certainly different and that goes without saying really. What happens when we age, isn't that going to affect our marriage also?

If losing weight is going to make someone insecure then if one ages poorly and one ages well in a marriage will that also send someone over the edge?

To me the signs are there in the beginning if your have a spouse that is insecure then you have a spouse that is insecure beginning to end. Pick the right one from the start. We all get old and don't stay "cute" forever, Nancy.:thumbup:

Great advice Nancy. It took me 3 tries to find the right husband but at least I didn't waste too much time on the first 2 husbands.

As with some shoes and purses, sometimes, it takes a bit of using before we realize we made the wrong choice.

I do not know if I agree that an individual who is insecure (a husband in my case) was insecure at the beginning of the marriage. I was a size 14 when we married and was just completing my college degree. However, during the course of our marriage I had gone on and completed a Master's, had become very successful in my career, and was on the verge of completitng my doctorate. I was losing weight and he had "retired" to be a stay at home caregiver to my child with disabilities, not his child by blood but certainly by love and support.

My husband had given up his career, was somewhat isolated from friends and everyone in his field, while I was changing and changing. For a brief time he felt that as I was moving up I would find myself unchalleged by someone who was just a high school educated blue collar XYZ - not my words, his. What he was expressing was that he was scared that I might decide he was not good enough for me, but he expressed it through ridiculous jealousy. All it took was waking me up a bit to pull my head out of my dissertation enough to realize that the changes were too much too fast with no real time and focus on him - once I did that and reassured him that I would love him all of my life, fat or thin, things were great. I just had to articulate clearly that I was not dissatisfied with him at all, I simply could not love me fat, so I had to change.

Insecurity can be temporary and the result of too much sudden change - or it can be permanent if you wont take the time to talk it out and then make the other changes that are necessary to walk the talk.

I hate to be a doomsday prophet...but my DH was all for this when I began the seminar route back in May.....I chose a Dr. and told him which practice....he was fine with it...........well, we finally met the surgeon for the first time last Friday, and he (who is also a Doc) acted disinterested, rude, etc.....very UNLIKE his normal self. On the ride home he said he knew "My Secret Plan", :cursing:to get thin and leave him. But, do hear this....we had issues before...he is much older and facing retirement, failing health and has always shown some envy at my youth... HAH.....(53), and happy go lucky attitude. This came out of nowhere, I would never leave him, but it is Tues. and we are barely speaking! If I try and reassure him he gets verbally abusive. It was my size 6 and personality that attracted him from the first. DUH!:thumbup: I'm the last person you want to hear from, right?:thumbup:

Joy