Hi everyone,
I've posted quite a bit here on my main account, but I am not sure who in my life may know my main account, so I made a throwaway for this post.
I have a lovely girlfriend of 4 years. I truly care for her and love her. However, since I've begun losing weight (about 2 years now) I've started to resent her lack of care for herself.
Just some background info:
I was ~25 pounds overweight when we first started dating, she was ~40 pounds overweight but was right in the middle of a big weight loss. To this day she hasn't given me specifics, but it was in the neighborhood of ~60 pounds if I had to guess. I wasn't really looking to lose weight when we first started dating, I knew I had to or wanted to eventually, but I just wasn't ready to do it at the time. Weight wasn't a major issue for either of us at the time, and it didn't bother me that she was overweight at the time because she looked great and seemed really happy.
6 or 7 months into the relationship I learned that she was losing weight because of an eating disorder. I won't go into details but it wasn't good. I made sure to explain that I loved her the way she was and that she didn't need to lose weight that way. Looking back I didn't handle this situation well because I didn't know what to do. I still don't know what to do to be honest. My relationship to food isn't the same as hers. She's an extreme comfort/emotional eater. I've always just been lazy about my food choices. For me, losing weight has been relatively simple. For her it isn't.
A few months go by and she's no longer skipping meals, or going on 6 mile runs to negate all of the calories she ate that day. She's eating healthier and seems really happy. Then a traumatic medical event happened (purposely vague) for her. It wasn't life threatening, but it changed her appearance. This was a very tough time for us. I was at a loss of how to comfort her. I did my best, and she claims I've always been great at making her feel loved, but I still have doubts. She ended up turning to food, and in an effort to stave off the eating disorder I gave in to food as well.
We ended up moving in together with another couple. I had just graduated college, but she was still finishing her degree. I was unemployed and became very sedentary. I'd stay in our room all day and order food in. I gained 25 pounds putting me well above the biggest I'd ever been. I decided to stop drinking Mountain Dew (2 cans with every meal/day) and made no other changes. I ended up losing a bunch of weight and I felt great, nearly back to the weight I was during college. The other couple we lived with turned out to be huge jerks who stole from us and refused to admit their theft despite evidence. This whole thing caused a lot of stress on my girlfriend because she trusted these people. Meanwhile the medical issue she was dealing with was getting worse rapidly. All of these stresses ended up with her eating a lot of feelings. I tried to get her into therapy but she wasn't interested. Her depression and anxiety was at an all time high, which compounded on my own mental health issues. I decided that I needed to make a change and dove into losing weight, thinking that maybe she'd decide to try to lose weight in a healthy way by following my lead. No dice. She's not interested in losing weight at all. In fact, she actively has said she wouldn't lose weight for her own reasons, just external reasons. We move into our own place after 1.5 years with the shitty couple.
I try to take this in stride. I still love her, and I want to support her. So I just focus on me. I start counting calories and lose weight with relative ease. I drop down below my college weight to a very low number I hadn't seen since high school. I feel really accomplished and proud. I decide to take a break and try to work on maintaining for a while with the plans of losing another 30 or 40 pounds at a later time. It was around this time (~3 months in our new place) that I realize how much weight she's gained. She's now close to the same weight she was before her eating disorder formed. I hadn't realized how bad it was until I was looking at photos of us together from a couple of years earlier. I was really surprised. I decided to talk to her about it. I was honest with her. I told her that I love her, and I'll always care about her, but that I wasn't as attracted to her physically anymore. She obviously took this very hard, and I didn't take what I was saying lightly, but I knew I had to say something. She takes what I said to heart, and knew I was saying it for good reasons. We both start trying to lose weight again. I had gained 10lbs in my failed attempt at maintaining, and I was happy to start losing weight again as I felt ready to make a true life change. I felt optimistic, and so did she. This was about 6 months ago. I am now well below my previous all time low. She gave up after 3 weeks and has put on more weight. I tried to help her, but she took my advice as an attack. I gave up on trying to help.
I am now at a weight where I've started doing physical activities that I never thought I'd do. I went rock climbing at a gym a few weeks ago, and have decided that it is something I want to turn into a hobby. She asked if she could come and try, but I know she won't be able to do it due to her physical limitations. This event made me realize that all of the new physical that I want to try will have to be done on my own, or at least without her. These are things I can't share with her, and I may never be able to. Its caused me to doubt my relationship with her, and despite how much I love her I am not sure I am okay with being held back in this way.
I'm not sure why I am writing this, I just feel desperate for help.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2JNWiX1
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