Unsupportive Spouses?

stripedsocks

Does anybody else suffer an unsupportive spouse/partner? What do you do to combat their attitudes?

My husband is very lucky to be naturally athletic and blessed with staunch willpower. He has his cake and eats it - literally (in front of me!) Never puts on weight, and loves exercise. Now as I've said before, i'm by no means overweight - i'm bang in the middle of a healthy BMI but am trying to achieve my former slender glory! Given that I am very small framed for my height I think bmi is not exactly accurate, however, and lower end suits my frame best. Hubby agrees. However he is constantly grumbling about my healthy food choices! As I am working late tonight, I have asked him to cook dinner - spaghetti bolegnese. We have lean steak mince, but I have asked him to drain it through a seive after it's browned just to get rid of the last of the fat... well i've never heard anyone grumble so much! I'm creating extra washing up, i'm obsessive, i'm inconveniencing him, he has other stuff to do rather than standing around mopping every last scrap of fat off my food. I should excercise, firm up and stop being paranoid and obsessive.

He knows how much I hate my wobbly bits... why can't he just be nice...:frown:

Leanne926

Its called INSECURITY.. I am dealing with a similar issue with my Husband :ohwell: I told him if he can't support me then just don't say anything at all..
Good luck and remember that we here at MFP are here to support you!

SpaceMarkus

Grumble back at his unhealthy choices. They are just that. HIS. Your healthy choices are yours. If he's not willing to support you you need to call him on it and put this to rest.

michellewilliams10

Hi Striped socks,

like you my husband doesn't get the diet thing. He thinks I'm fine but like you there was a svelte bod in there not that long ago either!!

He doesn't grumble so much as he more keeps putting temptation in my way + we eat out a lot. I have found though if I try to force what I want on him then the grumbling does begin to start.

To that end I made some decisions...

I accept gladly whatever he is good enough to cook for me but what I will do is look at all the packaging & work out how much of it I can eat.

I eat out with him wherever the family want to eat but I either compensate by making sure I excercise first so I can have what I want or to make up for a slight overindulgances later.

One more thing.... It doesn't always work but I've also accepted my weight loss journey may be longer than I would like but I'm happier with that. Don't beat yourself up about it, relax a bit more. This has to fit into your life or it wont work. I hope this helps

Michelle

daves160

I have similar issues. However, I have learned that I can't make everyone else go that extra step for my personal benefit. I just do those things myself. Don't worry, he will come around. Give him some time to get used to the idea.

aclark6818

I'm sorry your spouse acts like that. Maybe when he says things like that he thinks he is being motivating??? Many times men don't understand that most women don't see it as motivating, but as demeaning. Try to let it roll off your back and continue your choices. I would also try not to ask him for any special favors from him for a while to avoid confrontations. Good Luck!
:flowerforyou:

Josedavid

I wouldnt say that my wife is unsupportive (just in case she is reading this, hi honey! i will clean the house and wash the dishes when i come back home...!) but... she is pregnant and she is eating EVERYTHING around. Good food, fast food, chocolate, sugar, etc, etc, etc

Before it was: Oh Jose, stop getting fat! please! you are putting your health in risk. You must control that!

And OK, i did it.. for me now is as if I were in a rehab plan. Same way that junkies go to rehab clinics and take medicines I go to the gym and my medicine is clean food.

Now it is: Oh Jose, why you are EVERYDAY in the gym for two hours? I dont see you!

OK honey... I am sorry but this is what it is... I am in my rehab plan, from morbid obese to obese and then to overweight (i assume that will never be in athletic because the writen numbers about athletic body mass and so on is just stupidily low for my body shape and bones).

Brgrds / Jose D.

JoAnn73

Wow, so happy that I am not alone. I have been married for almost 4 years and my husband is overweight, high blood presure and has diabtetes he is only 34 years old. Yea he married me and loves me just as I was and I feel so blessed about that. But since my weightloss we have bumped heads big time. I understand that its hard for ppl to accept change and that inorder for this weight loss thing to work you HAVE to change your thinking. I LOVE the new me and we will just have to work it out because I am NEVER going back to the old me!

stripedsocks

Thanks people. You all give sound advice as usual!

robinso5

Wow, so happy that I am not alone. I have been married for almost 4 years and my husband is overweight, high blood presure and has diabtetes he is only 34 years old. Yea he married me and loves me just as I was and I feel so blessed about that. But since my weightloss we have bumped heads big time. I understand that its hard for ppl to accept change and that inorder for this weight loss thing to work you HAVE to change your thinking. I LOVE the new me and we will just have to work it out because I am NEVER going back to the old me!

I am so sorry you guys have unsupportive spouses. Everyone in my house supports me from hubby on down to baby! they will say go on ma/honey we will make due until you get back, they will even change their plans so that i can work out. I dont know how it feels to have someone unsupportive but i can tell you what support looks and feels like! MFP is way big on SUPPORT! when someone offers you a cake, take a bite if you want some, tehn throw the rest away! they will look at you and say you wasted food or so forth and so on and they will stop offering eventually!

robinso5

Does anybody else suffer an unsupportive spouse/partner? What do you do to combat their attitudes?

My husband is very lucky to be naturally athletic and blessed with staunch willpower. He has his cake and eats it - literally (in front of me!) Never puts on weight, and loves exercise. Now as I've said before, i'm by no means overweight - i'm bang in the middle of a healthy BMI but am trying to achieve my former slender glory! Given that I am very small framed for my height I think bmi is not exactly accurate, however, and lower end suits my frame best. Hubby agrees. However he is constantly grumbling about my healthy food choices! As I am working late tonight, I have asked him to cook dinner - spaghetti bolegnese. We have lean steak mince, but I have asked him to drain it through a seive after it's browned just to get rid of the last of the fat... well i've never heard anyone grumble so much! I'm creating extra washing up, i'm obsessive, i'm inconveniencing him, he has other stuff to do rather than standing around mopping every last scrap of fat off my food. I should excercise, firm up and stop being paranoid and obsessive.

He knows how much I hate my wobbly bits... why can't he just be nice...:frown:

I have always drained out the fat, cut off the fat pieces of meat and eliminated anything that wasnt healthy due to not liking the taste! many people miss butter on vegetables.............i dont! but hey thats just me! i decided to get back to what i used to do in high school, eat tuna out the can, eat veggies out the can or steam them in water and salt and thats it! it works! and truly its tasty to me!

ncahill77

I can't say my wife is unsupportive but she tends to sabotage me, I think it's subconsciously, there isn't a malicious bone in her body but she is constantly baking cakes or bringing home stuff that is not anywhere on the diet. It get's frustrating sometimes but most of the time I try not to let it derail me.

kendernau

I wouldn't say my wife is unsupportive, but she is unmotivated. She wants to lose some weight too, and start eating healthier, but she hasn't reached the point where she is motivated enough to do it for herself.

She'll eat what I cook, but if I'm not around and cooking, she goes right back to the quick and easy meals (frozen dinners, McDonalds, etc.). She also does not exercise, but she is willing to take care of our toddler while I do, so that helps me.

She has some other issues she is working through as well, so I haven't pushed the issue with her, but long term, I want both of us to be completely on the same page, as some of the changes I want to make, I can't do until she is on board too.

Biggest change I still want to make is pre-planning all the meals for the week, so we can buy the food for them on the weekend and have them all cooked and portioned out by the end of the day Sunday for the rest of the week. I think it would make it easier for her as well, but she is not yet willing to help me put in the effort needed to do this every week.

Mynue_Jeens

I think I might be in the minority here but I think he has a somewhat legitimate gripe. He should totally be supportive of everything you do BUT you can't make everyone around you conform because you are changing your eating habits/lifestyle. I have a hard time w/ it too in my family. For example they don't like brown rice or whole grain pasta but when i cook, i make it because it's the healthy choice bu t when they cook, they make the white rice and pasta. I make my own separate portion of rice/pasta for myself but I don't force them to eat my way all of the time. It's about compromise. And as someone who loves cooking, I would hate someone to be telling me from afar that I should be doing X, Y and Z.

I have similar issues. However, I have learned that I can't make everyone else go that extra step for my personal benefit. I just do those things myself. Don't worry, he will come around. Give him some time to get used to the idea

Agreed

ShannaB83185

I have a similar situation too. My fiance is not supportive really at all. He doesn't understand that whole diet and exercise thing and while he agrees I need to lose the weight he doesn't want to be supportive through it. He makes fun of me for being on MFP all the time and makes even more fun at me for looking at people's success stories and reading and commenting on everyone's posts. He thinks it's just like another social netowork like facebook. He doesn't understand that I need the support and motivation from this site to help me get through this. I mean I am not getting it from him so where else would I?! He isn't overweight... but he isn't in shape no six pack or defined muscle. He I think is just insecure. He has made comments about me getting skinny and then leaving him to find someone else because I will have this new found confidence and people will start hitting on me once I am skinny (thanks :huh: ) he's kinda a jerk when it comes to this stuff. He doesn't wanna eat healthy, he is the pickest eater on the face of the planet! I don't want to force him to so I just make food for myself and then food for everyone else or eat smaller portions. He doesn't try to get me to eat bad food either so I at least don't have that problem. Glad I am not alone... felt good to vent all this out there. Great thread!

stripedsocks

I think I might be in the minority here but I think he has a somewhat legitimate gripe. He should totally be supportive of everything you do BUT you can't make everyone around you conform because you are changing your eating habits/lifestyle. I have a hard time w/ it too in my family. For example they don't like brown rice or whole grain pasta but when i cook, i make it because it's the healthy choice bu t when they cook, they make the white rice and pasta. I make my own separate portion of rice/pasta for myself but I don't force them to eat my way all of the time. It's about compromise. And as someone who loves cooking, I would hate someone to be telling me from afar that I should be doing X, Y and Z.

I have similar issues. However, I have learned that I can't make everyone else go that extra step for my personal benefit. I just do those things myself. Don't worry, he will come around. Give him some time to get used to the idea

Agreed

No. I work full time, he does not, yet I am the person that cooks every night. It's ONCE a week when i work late that i ask him to cook. If I was asking him to do the iron butt-naked or something else that just took my fancy, then fair enough, I wouldn't expect him to dance to my tune, but as we have two young children who are watching how we eat and learning from it, I don't think it's too much to ask that he prepares something as healthy as possible for the one night of the week that he cooks! And if he doesn't like what I cook (which he always does, he just whines about the methoddology!) then he should damn well cook his own!

Indy_Mario

No. I work full time, he does not, yet I am the person that cooks every night. It's ONCE a week when i work late that i ask him to cook. If I was asking him to do the iron butt-naked or something else that just took my fancy, then fair enough, I wouldn't expect him to dance to my tune, but as we have two young children who are watching how we eat and learning from it, I don't think it's too much to ask that he prepares something as healthy as possible for the one night of the week that he cooks! And if he doesn't like what I cook (which he always does, he just whines about the methoddology!) then he should damn well cook his own!

It really grinds my gears when my girlfriend decides it's ok for us to go to McDonald's, but she whines and nags when I want some ice cream, or a white russian... It also seems ridiculous that at this day and age man still expect women to do all the household work AND have a job/career AND be the main care-taker of the off-spring! I cannot believe this man is cooking dinner once a week, and only partly employed, yet he refuses to cater to you! I am sure he's a great person, and there's tons of reasons you're with him, but this seems to be something he really should work on!
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KiyaK

save for later...

lisa4dee

I have to admit my hubby is so supportive of my weight loss ;0) He has lost a lot of weight in the last two years and loves the gym and working out ! But he has never pushed his diet or exercise habits on me, he just did it himself and i stayed on the gaining weight train but now i have decided its time for me to work on myself he couldnt be more supportive ! We are together 15 years and we have always looked out for each other . im sorry to hear your partner isnt supporting you ;( but maybe it could be a bit of insecurity raising its head ??? Not all partners/ family / friends are happy with you looking after yourself and loosing weight but try not let it get ya down keep going ;0)