TNMom5yearsout

I do not know if I agree that an individual who is insecure (a husband in my case) was insecure at the beginning of the marriage. I was a size 14 when we married and was just completing my college degree. However, during the course of our marriage I had gone on and completed a Master's, had become very successful in my career, and was on the verge of completitng my doctorate. I was losing weight and he had "retired" to be a stay at home caregiver to my child with disabilities, not his child by blood but certainly by love and support. My husband had given up his career, was somewhat isolated from friends and everyone in his field, while I was changing and changing. For a brief time he felt that as I was moving up I would find myself unchalleged by someone who was just a high school educated blue collar XYZ - not my words, his. What he was expressing was that he was scared that I might decide he was not good enough for me, but he expressed it through ridiculous jealousy. All it took was waking me up a bit to pull my head out of my dissertation enough to realize that the changes were too much too fast with no real time and focus on him - once I did that and reassured him that I would love him all of my life, fat or thin, things were great. I just had to articulate clearly that I was not dissatisfied with him at all, I simply could not love me fat, so I had to change. Insecurity can be temporary and the result of too much sudden change - or it can be permanent if you wont take the time to talk it out and then make the other changes that are necessary to walk the talk.

I had WLS five years 2 weeks ago. Lost 130 pounds, getting down to a low of 135, and a very small size 2. Looked awful, and gained 20 - 25 pounds in order to be more comfortable with myself. Have weighed between 158-162 for over 3 years now, never getting higher than 162, very comfortable size 4-8 depending on brand. I have a better marriage now than I ever have and I did not have a supportive husband going into the surgery. As a matter of fact, he darn near picked a fight with my surgeon in the holding area prior to my surgery because he was so against it. I needed to do it for myself, not to get healthier, I could have cared less about that at the time. I wanted to look better, I wanted to like myself. I no longer wanted to be fat and embarrassed to be seen naked by my own husband. I avoided sex, I avoided everything with a man that I so truly adored because I thought I was disgusting. Health never came in to the picture. As a matter of fact, riding to the hospital that morning I was scared to death. I just had this horrible feeling that I was going to die, and I am not a chicken on stuff like that. I have had numerous surgeries even lung surgery because of a tumor found in a lung just years prior. I remember thinking to myself, as scared as I was, that I would be better off dead than to continue to look and feel the way I did. It is truly amazing how excessive fat can change you - I have always said it makes you the person you would never ever want to be. Anyway, home from the hospital my husband took such good care of me. He made certain I got my Proteins in, he cooked for me and cared for me beyond my wildest dreams. I rapidly dropped 65 pounds in 4 months and I could hardly see it, although I knew that I started at a size 24 and was in a 12 or 14 by CHristmas. When I hit 199, it was like a lightbulb went on. Then I could see it. People were complimenting me constantly and it helped me succeed. However, all was not what it appeared. My husband lost his mind when I lost weight. He suddenly became ridiculously jealous and possessive. It took us a long time to get through it, it took me a long time to convince him that I had friends at work that yes were male, but that hardly meant I was sleeping with anyone. He did some crazy things and so did I in order to get him to just stop some of the things he was doing -- checking my cell phone, my email, etc. It was not an easy period in our lives, but it was apparently a necessary one and finally he decided I was not cheating on him. He pushed and pushed and almost pushed me to cheat and I probably could have; he certainly thinks I could have. However, I had gained me through my weight loss and I refused to allow his insecurities to give me a reason to do something that I would hate myself for. We fought and fought, but we hung in there and duked it out. At my one year anniversary, our marriage had fully recovered and we are closer than we have ever been. He has been supportive throughout 2 plastic surgeries and I would not trade this period in our lives for anything. I do know four or five people who have undergone WLS and 3 are still together, although 1 is miserable - and 2 have divorced. However, lets be clear that the issues that drove them to divorce were present at the beginning of their WLS journey; just after weight loss, they no longer had that to hide behind or food to find comfort in. Something had to give and since neither of them would, their marriage had to. So short story, stay focused on what is important to you and you cannot fail in weight loss or in keeping your family together.