| HO2 |
| (member) |
| 02/01/07 02:20 PM |
Re: not to sound like a broken record
|
I posted this morning, but then deleted the post again. I was afraid that what I had written would hurt you. Anyway, let me start:
I believe what you describe, withdrawing and getting aggressive when not happy is nothing but typical male behaviour in times of stress.
Furthermore I feel that it is far too easy to say....if a partner gets resentful when I gain 85lbs, then he is simply mean and shallow.
When your partner just keeps gaining more and more weight without making much of an effort to lose it, you end up feeling that he/she simply thinks you are not 'worth' the effort. You become jealous of other people when you feel that their spouse does something for them that yours does not try to do for you: make an effort to be attractive. To top it all, you get stupid remarks from 'well-meaning' friends and relatives, remarks that these people do not dare confronting your partner with.
Everything from 'you are too lenient, I would say something, what a loser are you that you cannot put your foot down and say, stop eating'...over sorrowful ...'is your marriage not going well, your spouse must be so unhappy with you, if he/she puts on so much weight'...to reproachful...'what junk do you guys buy, don't you care about your partner's health'. Does that surprise you now that your partner might have had to swallow mean stuff from other people?
It is not a nice mixture to feel that your partner does not care enough about you to make an effort for you and to be aggressed by others about it. And let me add that at times one can end up feeling like a failure. Culpabilizing. Which does not help with resentment issues.
If on top of that you were depressed back then, that tells me that you were probably not very available emotionally. This is not a reproach at all, but depression makes everyone very self-centered and depression tends to distort everything around. It is very hard to deal with and some divorce over this.
And as if all of this would not already have been enough, there were severe financial problems! All I can say is: I respect both of you very much for having gone through all this without breaking apart as a couple.
I hope you will come to enjoy that your husband is proud of you and wants to be with you. I hope you will be able to move past the anger. And I hope your husband and you will be able to get closer again.