When your spouse thinks they are helping and they are NOT....

[Renestel]

I am someone that's been in several years of therapy now, some I don't know how they got approved and my latest, who is more based in Eastern therapy, spirituality and healing and amazing. My spouse really triggered me this week by saying after dinner when I stated I was going to grab a strawberry fruit popsicle, "do you think you really need that?" Ummm... excuse me?? I'm overweight from a past injury from May to June and I always fight overeating at night when my PTSD is more present, but guys I MAX am only 15-17 pounds overweight. I just felt like it was literally saying you're fat enough, right? All that I could muster out in anger and shock was saying "anyone who's going to judge me can get the f*ck out of this house." I talked to him the next day and he told me he thought he was being supportive in my wanting to lose weight. I tried to tell him that this was the absolute worst way possible. Support me by going to the gym with me on weekends when you're not working, or say hey looks like you've been working really hard good job. Be supportive, not a break down. Does anyone else have issues/challenges with stuff like this on the communication line with a spouse? Doesn't even need to be about this specifically with weight loss, just do you feel you're on one planet and the spouse another, you try to communicate and its like something is getting lost in space ??

 

[blackemerald1]

Well when I had a spouse - he would make the astute observation that I was 'quiet' after medico/legal assessments??! I honestly don't know how I was supposed to be. So one day I questioned him and he told me he didn't know 'how I was supposed to be'. It was one of those conversations where you just had to be there and still could not believe that it was happening. :rolleyes:

 

[somerandomguy]

So he said something jerky and you overreacted.

It's not clear whether this is a pattern for him. If he says jerky things like that all the time, that's concerning. But the way you're talking about this doesn't lead me to believe that he does. He made a pretty insensitive comment and you totally lost your shit.

Spouses say shitty things to each other all the time. If I had a dollar for every insensitive thing I said to my wife, and then had to pay a dollar for every insensitive thing she said to me, I'd come out pretty even. I know from my own experience that I get pretty reactive sometimes because of my trauma issues. But sometimes my wife can say mean things, too. If I'm regulating well, I'm able to tell whether I'm being especially reactive or whether she said an actually mean thing. If I'm not, I pretty much can't.

Are you feeling especially reactive lately? Or is your partner actually a jerk?

 

[Raven]

Since when do men care about women being 15 lbs overweight? As a woman with a perpetual beer gut muffin top thing that I don't care enough about to fix, I can tell you that they don't even seem to notice stuff like that.

Still, if my husband said, "Do you need to eat that?" I would resist the urge to throat-punch him and point to the door while telling him to take his hairy f*cking keg with him.

It's pretty common sense not to make a disparaging comment about a woman's weight if you want her on your good side.

Good job sticking up for yourself and setting a boundary that hopefully makes it clear he should not behave that way again.

 

[Renestel]

@somerandomguy -

I would say yes to both on your question. He has been overstressed at his job for months, many nights comes home and has had a pattern of taking some cruel “verbal shots” at me, while Im going to therapy where one of the biggest things we are working on is to start finally standing up for myself, no longer being a product of mental or physical abuse/rape and loving and respecting myself. So yes, its like Im trigger happy with reacting to anything I see as disrespectful or unsupportive right now. But I feel too, random, you can ask a lot of women and many would say knocking her on her weight is a big no no. At least in my country it is.
But I will reflect on the fact that maybe me and my PTSD have moved to a different place... I moved from cutting myself, dating abusers and believing I deserved everything I got to becoming the fighter I knew I could be and I need to concentrate on dialing it down a little in my therapy because Im overcompensating for all the biggest jerks in my past.

 

[EveHarrington]

I’d file this under “dumb insensitive things that guys sometimes say”.

I mean....on both sides there are NO NO criticisms. Men should never make disparaging comments about a woman’s weight and things related ie what she is eating. Similarly women know to never make disparaging comments (or anything that could remotely be interpreted as such) about his size. Ahem. It’s pretty much common sense.

 

[Justmehere]

Did his questions stirred up shame you already feel about the weight gain?

The question wasn’t a good idea to ask, but didn’t seem like it was intended to harm. Your sense that it was judgement - I wonder if you judge yourself? Someone who was confident in themselves and their own body would have likely been able to better shrug it off or say “you betcha, you want one too?”

You are struggling and you did need supoort, and you did a great job telling him what he can do to be supportive.

I’ve had partners say a variety of well meaning but totally-misses-the-mark comments. Sometimes we have to educate supporters on how to support.

By the way, a popsicle is a great option for a dessert when losing weight. I tend to go for cake. Lol. I gained weight after an injury too, and trying to lose it is hella hard! I hope that he’s more supportive in the future.

 

[Renestel]

Thx @Justmehere -
I was and am still quite easily triggered by my weight. It's a VERY long story. But thing is, he knows that. So why further poke the bear? Support me, don't shame me.

And- The whole part of this website is, we have some problems. Lets try to work through them. But when your only support system, (him) says something like that, you're PTSD sometimes kicks in and all the times your mom said you're a few pounds overweight (I was 135lb) 5 foot 4 plus was into dance for 18 years and why do all ballet teachers almost instruct bulimia? I don't know. this was more of a tangent. I hope one person feeling what I feel reads this and doesn't feel alone.

 

[Teasel]

This makes me think of insensitive comments most males I've known have said at some point.

Also reminds me of the book men are from Mars women are from Venus. Which though I'm sure is pop psychology actually has some relevant points - saying men rarely ask for advice unless they very much want advice - and women tend to want to talk about their problems - very much not because they want advice but to get stuff of their chest and then they figure out their own solutions or not.

I agree you'd think most men would know that comments relating to a woman's weight are pretty much never welcome, but men frequently don't know this just as we frequently don't get that when a man withdraws when he has problems he really does want some space.

I remember handing this book to my bloke who absolutely hates anything to do with psychology and he loved it. Not saying he particularly remembered any of the advice to men but hey :-)

Understand how you feel, I wouldn't like that either.