Loaded Question about Relationships/Marrage

Thanks for sharing your experiences. The guy I saw only did the 45 min surgical eval, so there isn't any real history. He spoke to our support group on a topic close to relationships and WL and my wife thought he was very good. So I think I can definitely leverage that experience (she's come to every support group meeting and follow up with the doctor). Thanks again.

Absolutely everything Kat said.

Oh Kat! Thank you for this post. My husband and I have been together for 23 years and married for 21. I too had to set his fears aside to have this surgery. He was very scared. Now, even though it's early days yet, he's happy I did it and he's been so supportive. I do see our marriage getting stronger.

Just sent Dr. Clorfene a note to see what he thinks we should do

I thought I had a fairly strong marriage prior to losing weight. We had issues, but I thought they were all tied to my weight. I was also concerned about my change in lifestyle. My ex was a homebody and I wanted to go out and do things, experience life, travel, etc. but I just physically couldn't. When I started the process, I warned him of this. I asked him to do proactive counseling with me and he refused.

Weight comes off. Nothing changes. I push the issue, nothing changes. I start to become more unhappy. He's unhappy that I'm making him confront his own issues. Time goes by. Here I am using the term "ex" in my first paragraph.

I'm all for regular therapy - individual and with a couple. The weight loss over time absolutely caused issues in my case. But, in truth, it was more of a situation where the issues were always there, I just didn't quite realize it.

Thank you for sharing. My wife and I met during one of my big losses, so what drew us together were similar activity/interest levels. It was the weight regain coupled with injury/health issues that changed things and caused the damage. So my issues are somewhat opposite. It's not fear of the changed life and lack of common interests. It's more I'm going back to what we shared in common, but the 4 years of being near bed bound that did the damage. I wasn't happy with myself, so I couldn't bring joy and happiness to others. Thankfully, that's changing and others even are saying my old self is coming back out. But I hear the theme in the replies and I'm on board with finding communication pathways.

A lot of us believe that losing weight will fix a variety of things. The only thing you can really count on happening is weighing less. As others pointed out, very often the excess weight wasn't the problem after all.

Things don't usually fix themselves. Just like everything in life, if you can fix it yourselves, that's great. If you can't fix it, or you make it worse, it's time to call a profwssional.

Mine fell apart but I what I thought was strong wasn't. I had fooled myself for a long time. As I lost weight and went to therapy for weight and food related issues I had to face the other issues. It was like food was my drug of choice and if I wasn't using that and I hadn't picked up drinking, smoking, or any other number of things I had to deal with it. For me the hardest thing was finding out the unhappy and sad and fear and all that stuff wasn't because of the weight. The weight was a symptom. Losing the weight and still being unhappy blew my world apart...really far apart.

as far as professional help I don't ever see how that would be bad. Go ahead and get started either alone or with your spouse. What's the worst that happens..you're communicating better? Yes be proactive the only other option is to ignore or be reactive. For me those exact things are what got me to being heavy and many other places in my life. So I try not to ignore or be reactive if there is an option for being proactive.

Also remember that you will be flooded with hormones and other things as you lose weight rapidly so even if its just to help navigate through a professional may be a good call.

Very well described. This is one of the most significant things no one tells us going into surgery.

Not every problem was because of our weight, and losing weight won't solve them.