Yeah, my partner isn't much better...she is very thin you can literally see her ribs, though she eats plenty... She has struggled to understand my weight issues over the past 15 years we have been together. But now she sees this as a way to save my health and that's all she sees. So, when the insurance approved me way earlier than expected, she just said "great, better to get it over with sooner" without realizing how this affects me emotionally. But she has always sort of been like that. Things are just matter-of-fact to her. She knows that neither of us would cheat and can't understand any of the other issues you raised. So, I talk to my friends who are more "normal" in this respect--get the empathy and concern and depth that I need from them. She is there in so many other ways for our family, that I have (sadly) learned not to expect her to be there in EVERY way for me. On the other hand, if I lay it on the table--meaning I literally say something like, "I am going to tell you something that is important and upsetting to me"--this lets her know not to bru**** off. She can't get it the way I want her to, but she does understand my concerns better and can respond in a more supportive way that doesn't make me want to strangle her.

Thanks! I really appreciate you taking the time to give me some positive words of encouragement :-) I'm doing my best to not let my fear of what COULD happen in the future ruin what IS happening now. At any rate, he's been as involved as possible in all of this. Kind of hard since I'm having the surgery in a diff state and it's not that easy for him to get off work. I quit my job so I could get my life underway this summer b/4 starting nursing school in Fall. Thanks again!

Even though I am not technically married, I am going to post here.... My fiance and I have been together for 2 years and engaged for 1 year. We were supposed to be getting married in August, but have decided together (his idea) to postpone the marriage for a year so that I can get healthy and LIVE first! While he has made tons of comments in the past of wishing that I could lose some weight, he hasn't been disparaging or anything. He still tells me he loves me and wants me all the time. He is 100% supportive of the surgery, mostly b/c we've just recently found out I have NAFLD and if this goes untreated I could die w/in a year it's progressed so quickly...but also b/c the surgery will fix more than just one problem. Now, for the reason I'm posting (I'm sure you've been wondering while I've been blabbing)...a good friend of my mother's had the surgery a few years ago and she's been totally supportive and in trying to be helpful she's been terrifying me w/ horror stories of her husband completely changing after she had WLS. They actually ended up getting divorced because of it. I love my fiance and I don't want to lose him just b/c I'm trying to LIVE....anyone have encouraging words? She's scaring the beejeezus outta me....

OK so this is half-rant and half-freak out --- so bear with me! I'm in process of pre-op testing and ins. approval and I'm pretty much going a little nutty. The only people who know I'm getting the surgery are my DH, my ex and my shrink. My shrink is good for support, but she's tiny so can't really empathize. My ex is sweet, but I don't really talk to him about the personal stuff. And my DH is sort of detached from the whole thing - which is wiggin' me out. I mean he's read all the literature I brought home from the docs and he watched a slide show about the RNY procedure online, but he didn't come to the seminar and didn't ask my doc or nurse anything when he took me in for my EGD. I told him that I'm anxious and all my fears and hopes; and he just sort of took it all in but didn't react. Everytime I bring up the surgery, he just says "As long as you're happy, I'm happy." WTF?! He's got to be having some sort of reaction. Or is that just wishful thinking on my part? I start to talk about plans and he melts out of the room to play guitar or video games. When I get stressed about the ins. or how long it's taking to get test results and medical records, he just says "There's no point in getting stressed about it, you'll get the surgery sooner or later." ACK! If I have to wait too long for surgery, things will just get worse - I can't lose any weight restricting my diet anymore and I'm so tired and in so much joint pain that significant exercise is pretty much out of the question. I'm looking into home gym equipment to add to our existing treadmill and he'll probably want to use it, too. But instead of giving me info so I get a system that works for both of us, he starts complaining about money (but he just bought himself a new $1500 guitar!). On the advice of my therapist, I brought up that a lot of changes will happen when I start losing weight, and not just the physical ones either. I told him that I'll probably be (more) emotional and start being more confident, etc. I told him that a lot of couples have problems during this process and invited him to read the forums (which he didn't). He just said "I'm not worried about anything. Whatever makes you happy." I brought up common issues: worry about cheating, stress of changing roles and confidence levels, problems with body image and feeling attractive again.... and got NOTHING. My goal is to be half the person I am today and twice the personality! I mean, my whole life is about to radically change and my husband just seems to be a bystander. He's not being mean or trying to undermine me, he just doesn't seem to care about this all that much. I know he cares about me, but he won't talk to me about stuff, he won't plan... heck, he won't even acknowledge that things might be seriously different and that they might affect him and us (let alone how he FEELS about it). He did admit that he was a little concerned about me dying in surgery, but since it's such a low probability "not that much"!!! Am I crazy? Am I being too hard on him? Am I expecting too much? Did any of you experienced this? Did it ever work out? If it happened to you and things went weird in your relationship after WLS, do you think it might not have been so bad if your partner had gotten engaged earlier in the process? I feel at wit's end; and even though he's "supportive" of my decision, I still feel like I'm going through all this on my own . :help: Thanks everybody! -Jennine

Hi Patience, I know EXACTLY how you feel. My wife had the surgery a little over a year ago and she has become a completely different person, certainly not the one I married. They told us at the support group in peoria Illinois that if your marriage is not perfectly stable to begin with that the surgery will end it for good. They claimed that everyone will look at the WLS patient differently. I think that is BULL! Depending on the patients' age, the younger ones are the most likely, they go thru some kind of midlife event that changes their whole personallity. They do look down on everone else, change fiends, dump lovers and spouses. My wife has said that she doesn't find me attractive anymore and that she doesn't feel like she even knows herself or where she belongs. This surgery can be more trouble to relationships than it is worth. Chris