As a lurking new member I just wanted to say thanks for all the stories of encouragement and support. After 6 weeks I am still battling my significant other over the validity of this diet. No - he doesn't want to read the book. In fact at lunch today he mentioned that with pork rinds no wonder I'm not losing any weight! If I don't get on the scale in front of him he doesn't believe me I'm losing. Yes - I realize this is his problem (did I mention he is a classical ballet dancer and has weight control 'issues') and not mine but I wanted to say thanks to everyone for sharing and letting me 'poach' on the rest of your strengths.

Any advice on how to turn someone's views around who just isn't interested??

Let me quote a long passage from E. Abramson's Emotional Eating

"Family therapists view marriage as a complex system governed by well defined [if unstated] rules in which each partner gives something and receives something else in return...[O]ngoing interactions take place within the family to preserve this homeostasis....When one marital partner, typically the wife, has been fat for some time, her feelings of unattractiveness, her frequent dieting or failure to diet, and her concern about weight fluctuations all become part of the homeostatic balance in the relationship. Starting to lose weight threatens the balance and is likely to elicit behaviors from the spouse that attempt to restore the balance by undermining weight loss." He goes on to cite the study of a Richard Stuart who recorded dinner conversations of couples where the woman was dieting. The men made negative to postive comments about the weight loss efforts at a ratio of 4:1. He lists the most common tactics these men used:

pressure that she lose weight
comparing her to other woman
making nasty comments about other overweight women
complaining about the cost of diet/gym
demanding that she prepare meals to his taste
insisting on buying snacks
complaining when she puts energy into her diet or leaves to go to the gym, group meetings (or BB, I assume)

Stuart found that while some men were afraid their wives would stray sexually if they lost weight, more men still were afraid if the woman lost pounds, the men'd "lose their bargaining position." (So when she says, "honey, you promised to work on the yard this weekend and you're watching sports again," he gets to say, "you're fat--what about that diet?" in order to deflect the conversation off his failures and onto hers.)

You don't need a marriage license to enjoy the dynamic, btw.

Establishing a new equilibrium in a relationship can be difficult. Sometimes therapy is useful, and other relationships can't be saved once the unhealthy dynamic that surrounds one partner's weight is gone.

We all deserve support from the people who claim to love us. I'd say that's a pretty good definition of love, in fact.

I don't think there is a way to turn someone around who is resistant. You have to agree to disagree. If you stick to your guns and lose, that'll be the evidence.

Wow. Great post as usual, Raz. Thanks for typing that all out. I'm going to have to check out that book.

Allison

I agree. Fantastic info Raz!

Glad I am NOT married to one of "those men".

I have a fantastic husband who supports me 100%. His only comment about my weight is "If you would feel better, then go for it" He never makes fun of my weight and when he compares me to other women, he tells me I look thinner than they do. He never tells me how great thin women look.

He also helped me over my physical problems and when I was unable to do anything--even reach a glass off the bottom shelf of my cupboard, he did it all. He cooked, cleaned, did the laundry and even washed and styled my hair.

I love him dearly and I only wish he would join me on this journey. He is slightly overweight, but very muscular, and he has high blood pressure and probably high cholestrol. He listens to his doctors when they give him the speech about low fat and high fiber. He feels they are the experts. Maybe as I lose weight and show him my blood work numbers he will begin to see the light before it's too late.

Gee -- and I'm leaving the "guy" from that book raz! I swear my whole marriage just flashed before my eyes!!!

Okay okay -- he wasn't THAT bad...but pretty durn close!

Lisa

Wish I’d had E. Abramson's Emotional Eating when I was married – actually before I was married. This passage describes my ex-husband to the letter. The only difference is his personal preference was for voluptuous women (he’s European) and my full hips and legs were what attracted him to me in the first place. So instead of pressuring me to lose weight, he undermined any attempt I made out of fear that I was making myself attractive to other men and NOT him!

K-fire, are there other areas of your relationship where Significant Other exhibits questionable or controlling behavior? I know in my situation, I spent years and tons of energy trying to explain away and cover up for my ex’s demeaning treatment of me. (Mostly it took the form of subtle persuasion that I was stupid, disliked, and untalented.) After all, I’d been a feminist activist; How could I ever admit to anyone that I’d ended up with a man like this?

After I finally asked him to leave the house (after 11 years together) he admitted once that he spent our entire relationship insecure that I would leave him, and did what he could to make sure that wouldn’t happen.

K-fire, I’m not claiming your situation is exactly the same – but is it possible that the issue with your S.O. might just be “control;” not “weight control?”

Please don’t be frightened or put off by the frankness of some the responses here. Keep us posted ...

Best –
-- Rhu

I've got to agree with Atrsy. I never realised I had it so good. (I used to complain when my hubby would say that I looked the same as I did when we met, although I was 75 lighter back then.)
K-fire, as far as changing someone's POV: Only they can change it, no matter how hard you try, if they don't want to see something there's really nothing that you can do. My advice would be everytime he starts with the anti-lc stuff, let him know that he can have his opinion and you can have yours.


Melissa

I'm glad so many of you liked the excerpt.

Allison, it is a good book, and I have two other quotes/paraphrases from it in my journal, page 2, from earlier this week.

And for those of you have a supportive guy in your lives...please give him a big hug and thanks from me. I'm so glad you're getting support in a loving relationship!

I feel as if I should tiptoe into this thread. A male trojan horse in the "enemy camp".

Marriage and relationships are a complex set of dynamics and Abramson's book can be a bit anecdotal at times and not necessarily based on repeatable research and much is based on student papers which he only supervised.

As such it is easy to generalise and "have a go" at the unsympathetic and uncaring perceived attitude of a partner.

I should declare my credentials as a man but also a married man to a lovely wife for 30 years!

Abramson's " to Have and to Hold" is probably a better read on the thread topic

Abramson contends that for many people, the lifestyle changes created by marriage result in significant weight gain. He examines why this happens and what to do about it in his new book To Have and To Hold (Kensington Press, 1999). In the book, he expands his chapter "Sex, Marriage, and Weight" from his Emotional Eating, published by Jossey-Bass in 1998

His findings show that although men and women may gain the same amount of weight after marriage, they differ in their reasons for eating and their attitudes about and responses to their gains. These differences can complicate a marriage. His research supports the idea that women use food for comfort in addition to fuel for their bodies, and, unlike men, their self-worth is based on their ability to maintain an attractive weight.

The focus is clearly on wives. His second paragraph begins, "Your struggle with weight and diet doesn't make sense to your husband . . . his whole worth as a human being isn't tied up in the number that emerges when he steps on the scale."

"Men may be concerned about weight gain, but their concern is more health related than appearance -- about health risks related to preexisting conditions, such as diabetes or excessive obesity."

In his book, as we have done on this forum, Abramson discusses several reasons people gain weight -- heredity, lack of physical exercise, fat (we will have to have a word with him!) and calorie consumption, culture and rituals, and emotional eating -- that apply equally to men and women.

But, he suggests that in order to please the dietary preferences of their husbands (and later their children), many wives relinquish the dietary independence they had as a single person. This has a ring of truth in my own family.

We men are forever misunderstood. If we suggest that a partner should lose weight it is taken amiss if we suggest she doen't bother that is wrong too. If the response that you get from a man is not helpfull and you can not bring him into the loop to be helpfull then you have to distance yourself from the comments, but don't necessarily distance yourself from the man.

There is enough emotional strife in today's marriages sending the divorce rates soaring. I think we would be doing ourselves a favour by taking weight out of the equation.

Rustpot,

It sounds to me that some of the spouses here have issues that far exceed the issue of what people are or are not eating. Sometimes, when a spouse changes it escalates anger or control issues that already exists in a relationship. Change is one of the most difficult things for human beings to initiate. Change is also a powerful catalyst and the outcome can be quite violatile if someone rebels against it.

I agree that often there is no manner that a loved one can address a weight issue that would be received positively. That happened between myself and my husband. However, her finally started telling me that he just could not bear how unhappy it made me. He gave me two choices be heavy and accept myself and be happy or do something to change. This, I think, is what it comes down to. My constant anguish and unhappiness caused him pain. Everything we do affects other people. It would be nice if we could just say it is about us, but unfortunately, it is not. Remeber, we take everyone along for the path we choose in life and, while no one has a right to be abusive or disrespectful, we have to be sensitive to those who take the journey with us.