I’m in complete and utter despair about my husband and his eating disorder. We’ve been together for 7 years, and married for 3 months. He’s just been diagnosed as pre-diabetic and is severely overweight with no sign of changing his habits. I’ve come to realise it’s a compulsion and he’s addicted to sugar. He secretly eats cookie dough, brownies, chocolate bars, anything sugary and sweet. I’ve stopped buying anything sugar/processed to stop him eating it, but then will find wrappers and takeaway cartons buried in the bin that he’s bought himself or ordered in. He even eats sugar out of the sugar bowl, so soon I’ll have to stop keeping that in the house too!! I have tried every way I can to beg him to change his habits and lifestyle – I’ve cried and begged him, I’ve talked to his family and tried an intervention, I’ve gotten angry, I’ve started dieting and changing my eating habits to lead by example, but nothing seems to work. It’s devastating me – he’s gained 5 stone since we’ve been together and I’m ashamed to say there is now zero physical attraction there for me at the moment. We haven’t been physical in months. Even on our honeymoon we had sex only once and it felt like something we should do, not that either of us wanted to do. He constantly talked about getting fit and losing weight to anyone who’d listen while we were on honeymoon, so I was hopeful when we got home things would change. They haven’t, in fact I think they’ve gotten worse. He’s in complete denial about what he’s eating and the impact it’s having on his health, our relationship, our future..
Also, it’s a vicious cycle because he doesn’t sleep well (he’s developed sleep apnoea) so feels tired constantly so reaches for the sugar. He smokes too and is just generally so unhealthy. In my darkest moments I can’t help think he’s in self destruct mode and is killing himself on purpose.
I don’t know what more I can do, but I can’t stand by and watch him do this to himself. Can anyone help me see a way through this?