Thursday

This is already a very hard journal entry to write.  It is going to be rough to put this into words or to revisit what has happened.  It would be easy for me to just push it aside as though it never happened, to bury it deep and cover it with the bandaid of apology that I know will come later on today, but if I do that, I might lose any potential lesson that is in it for me.

It is important to know that for at least two years now, my husband has been my best cheerleader.  We had some rough times in the beginning of our marriage when he woke up and realized he'd married a fat woman.  I got some pretty insensitive speeches about what he deserved and how he didn't think he could go the rest of his life and never again be with a fit woman.  At first, I cried a good bit and promised I'd make changes and wallowed in the mellow dramatic, then turned a lot of self-loathing onto myself, which of course, had the opposite effect of what he wanted.  I ate to feel better. 

Somewhere around year 6, I got up the self esteem to say, "You know, I will never stop working on this because I want it too.  It's obvious I'm not having any kind of long term success and that hurts me and hurts you, but I do think it's important that you realize that this might be all there is and as good as it gets.  I was fat when you married me. I am fat now and although I will keep trying to change that, it might not happen." 

Around the time we moved into this house in March of 2004 (we married in November of 1997), he really seemed to have come to terms with the situation.  When I would buy a new piece of exercise equipment or have an epiphany, he would cheer me on and be so proud of me.  He told me absolutely countless times during those two years that while he was proud of me for all of the things I tried in the effort to get fit, he was past feeling cheated, past feeling like it mattered between the two of us if I lost the weight.  As this attitude prevailed, I was able to open up more and more to him.  He was my best friend and I could share my most intimate fears and struggles in this area.  A couple of weeks ago, I even trusted him enough to confess my true weight to him, a number I keep carefully guarded because I tend to look like I weigh less and I don't mind that impression being out there.  He created a safe place for me to fall and it was such an amazing gift.  It empowered me to do more, to be more and to believe in myself and my own worth. 

Last night, all of that changed.  It's funny how it can take years to build up such a rock-solid trust and only about 47 minutes to completely destroy it.  Actually, I would say that it took about 3 minutes to destroy it and maybe 44 for him to piss on the pieces and kick them around a bit.

We watched one of my favorite shows, The Biggest Loser.  I always find it inspirational to watch people lose remarkable amounts of weight seemingly before our very eyes.  I love how positive Trainer Bob is with his people, while still pushing them to do more than they believe they can do.  That Jillian chick makes me uncomfortable, though.  I'd be on the blue team.  Last night's episode involved military wives, Navy and Marine, which is dear to my  heart because I have had two military (Air Force) husbands and was a military wife for a total of about 22 years (18 with Paul and 4 with Eric).  As I watched the show, I found that surprisingly, I was not relating to the people on the teams very well.  For one reason, only one woman had as much weight to lose as I did.  Usually, everyone on the teams are pretty big.  It bothered me that for several women, their husbands were deployed and while that might seem liked a great time to go away for however long they were at The Biggest Loser Ranch, I felt sad for their kids.  Their dad was already gone by duty and now their mom was leaving them by choice. I know firsthand how hard deployments are for military kids and they need the stability of the remaining parent there to give them some sense of normalcy and continuity.  As the show was in its final stages with the weigh-ins, Eric asked, with a kind of sneering tone to his voice, "Is this motivation for you at all?"  I admitted that tonight's show was not particularly, but did not go into details because I didn't want to miss the show.

After the show was over, because I'd been nodding off a bit (9pm is my bedtime and I hadn't slept well the night before because of a rare headache), I told him good night and eased over into my side-lying, sleep-courting position, happy as a little clam and already easing into sleepy bliss.  That was when Eric decided to stage his intervention. 

As a bit of background review, I have missed two days of exercising in the past 3 weeks.  They were Tuesday and Wednesday (yesterday) of this week.  I have been very depressed about the endless snow that has trapped me in this house.  In most places, it is up to my waist.  Eric has to drive our only vehicle that is trustworthy on bad weather roads.  Yesterday was the first day I have been without kids since Friday mid-day when they came home from school (short day that day).  Tuesday, we had no electricity from 4am - 4pm except for a 30 minute break in the middle of the day.  Since it was about 30 degrees outside and we have electric heat, it was pretty chilly.  I did keep a fire going in the wood stove (which involved wading through the waist-thigh high snow, chopping wood in the wood shed and hauling it back through the snow again.

Over the 3 weeks that I have been doing exercise every day, both aerobic and strength-building, I have lost one dress/pants size, going from a 20-22 to an 18-20.  I lost maybe a pound.  On my bustline, my waist, my hips and one thigh, I lost 4 inches.  Then the depression hit and I stopped exercising for 2 days.

One of the things that seemed, years ago, to help Eric better understand the struggles that come from trying to lose weight was to equate it to the enormous smoking monkey (gorilla) he has on his back.  He has wanted to stop smoking for years and years, but can never seem to make it stick for longer than a few days.  Even after he gets past the physical addiction phase, the emotional addiction pulls him back in.  With that comparison, he really seemed to have a lightbulb go off and he *got it*.  I also pointed out that in the instance of food, because I have to feed the family, it's as if he tried to quit smoking while all of the rest of us smoked around him and asked him to light ours.

So last night he went for it.  Without going into all of the details, his basic message was for me to know how disgusted he was with my fat.  He hates the feel of it.  He hates the sight of it.  He saw the one woman on the show who was my size and was appalled to realize that I really do look just like her.  He is a young, upwardly mobile, rising-star of a man and he deserves a woman with the same kind of strength and determination at his side.  He is sick of my years of excuses.  I need to stop comparing my weight loss struggle with his smoking struggles.  He is young and I am old and I have a lot less time to deal with my demons.  He even said (brace yourselves, menopausal darlings), that I only have a good 5 years or so left before "it's over" and I no longer have a chance for change.  You know how it is, ladies.  At 49, life is over. He informed me that he does not want to spend his best years "taking care of" me because of all of my health maladies (I have none that are known and feel pretty good).     

"My way" since February 2 has been to introduce changes a few at a time.  I have integrated good exercise into my life, the past two days notwithstanding.  I have started drinking lots of water.  I have started taking the right nutritional supplements.  I have severely limited the sweets in my diet.  I have virtually eliminated caffeine from my diet.  In the past 6 weeks or so, I have eased these changes in one at a time.  I felt I was working toward a complete launch, having all of my ducks in a row in time for Spring Equinox, the planting. 

My husband, who created this spiritual path with me, actually told me he did not want to hear any of that "planting bullshit."  Oh man.  Goddess is going to smite the hell out of him for that one.  I hope I am not around when it happens because I really don't want to be covered in Eric juice and shrapnel.

As he spoke, I would repeat back to him what he said to me.  He would say, "I am ashamed" in the context of discussing how I look.  I would try and clarify and say, "You are ashamed... of me?  Of how I look?"  He would say, "No, that's not what I said."  I'd say, "Then explain to me what you mean."  Then he would get all flustered and  not be able to tell me.  He told me he only feels "this way" about 5% of the time and that 95% of the time he is OK with "it."  So I repeated back to him.  "So you're fine with this 95% of the time?"  No, he didn't mean that either. It always has bothered him.  Good God.  Then he would get angry with me for twisting his words.  Um, OK.  This is what a conversation held during a Mercury retrograde goes.

There was more, but it's not something I want to revisit publicly.  You probably get the gist.  My weight impacts him in a negative way. His message is that it has to change and it has to change right now.  I pointed out that the people who are on Biggest Loser have a personal trainer, a gym membership, group support and a $50,000 goal.  He offered that if I lost 50 pounds, he would absolutely stop smoking.  (I'd rather have the $50,000)  I told him I did not think it was fair for him to hold for ransom something he should already be doing.  So he shot back, "Oh it would be safe for me because I could still be smoking 20 years from now and you would not have lost the weight."  He suggested that perhaps I might be better motivated if we just didn't have sex until I'd lost a certain amount of weight.

I tried to hear beyond his tone, which the entire conversation was jeering and snotty and derisive.  I tried to hear his truth, that he is worried about me, that my weight impacts him negatively and there are no excuses good enough, that he is scared my health is going to diminish.  There was a time when I would have taken his words and turned them into self-loathing.  This time, I just felt hurt and anger that he would take something that I cherished so much, my trust, the support he gives to me, the safety I felt with him, the feeling that I was complete as I was and be so comfortable destroying it.  I would stand confidently naked in front of this man.   I would let him touch my belly and my hips, running his hands over the softness and believing that he was not repulsed.  I felt lovely in his presence. 

How can I do that now??

Since he has told me how disgusted he is by my rolls of fat, how can I let him see me naked without knowing that he is repulsed and hearing those words over and over in my head?  When will I know that it's enough and that I no longer disgust him by how I look?  Fifty pounds?  One hundred pounds?  My first husband sneered that instead of a car, we could save up and get me a tummy tuck.  This was two months after the birth of our third child when I was dieting down from 130.  When I weight 115 (my thinnest as an adult), he still complained about my fat.  When I look at the photos from back then, I am skeletal. 

How can I ever confide to him again regarding my weight?  So many things I shared with him trustingly were used as weapons last night.  I feel adrift now, not realizing how much I had come to depend on his support and acceptance to feel safe and capable.  I do know it is highly foolish to invest in the behavior of someone else to help achieve your own success, but isn't that what support groups are all about?  He was my support group! 

Another dilemma (and I already know the answer to this one):  Dr Phil says (and I have come to learn this is entirely true) that we teach people how to treat us.  Now, when I succeed, have I shown him that this kind of hurtful, hateful behavior is an appropriate and effective tool?  What message does it send to him?  If he doesn't appreciate some aspect of my life or my personality, that he can berate me and I will change it?

The answer, of course, is that it doesn't matter overall.  This isn't about him.  My success is not about him (and now can be seen as occurring in spite of him, not with his help and support). 

I still need to process this a good bit.  I will get a lot of exercise today because I have to find some way to dig a path in the snow to the kennel and get it working again.  Since that's a couple hundred feet from the house at least, I should be well sore by tonight.

He already called this morning to see how I was doing.  I wasn't by any means ready to feel anything but cold and distant and sore.  I cried after he called, wishing I could find the way to unlock this and not have it feel like such a negative thing between us.  Because Eric has a hard time communicating his concerns without sounding completely hateful, I usually give him enormous leeway.  This time, I am just not ready to do that.  The wound is too personal and intimate to me to just let it go yet.  Hate and grudges and anger do so little to help a relationship, but this is something I need to process a bit more before I can talk to him.  I slept on the couch last night, so I am fairly tired (we desperately need a new couch) and my head is all messed up.  While typing this around getting kids ready for school, I am trying to work it out in my mind and find a way and a place to put it to rest.  My heart hurts.  I feel betrayed.  I feel foolish for believing that he really accepted me for who and what I am and how I look (sucker!).  I know there are many, many words of truth in what he has said and those are what I need to take away from this instead of how he said them (because his delivery has always sucked).  Regardless, immense damage has been done to my confidence where he is concerned and I have lost my best support system.  The words of encouragement I get from the readers of this journal mean the world to me, especially now since it is all I've got.

When I woke up, I had an email waiting for me from a dear woman who follows the journal.  In the context of what she was sharing with me, she said, "Stay POSITIVE and WARM------- Sprint is near!"  I started to cry right then (and really haven't much stopped since) because it was exactly what I needed to hear.

When you are reading this, it is important that you know that:

1)  What Eric has said has in no way thrown me off track or made me any less determined to succeed.  It hit me at a low point and I know it bothered me more because of that.

2)  My husband is not always an asshole. He just really shines at it in rare moments.

3)  I know this is completely not about Eric, it's about me.  That doesn't mean it did not hurt for him to do this.  It does mean that I will likely never, ever again share one iota of information with him about my weight loss journey.   He has punched that ticket.

4)  I know he will ultimately apologize and I will accept it, but the bell has been rung. 

5)  I'm OK, I just have some healing to do.