It’s okay to enjoy things that taste good and make us feel good in the moment, like some really delicious, greasy food at the end of a tough day.
But we have to strike a balance between eating comfortably and eating mindfully so we don’t put our health on the line, pointed out the members of the “Am I Overreacting?” (AIO) subReddit.
Redditor Equivalent_Law_9178 had been with their partner for a long time, and their partner’s health had always been a concern, though they clearly cared more about their partner’s condition than their partner did.
When it got so bad that he developed symptoms that even he couldn’t ignore, the Original Poster (OP) realized that if he couldn’t make changes for himself, then they couldn’t stay in his life any longer.
They asked the sub:
“Am I overreacting for wanting to break our engagement after my fiancé’s diagnosis?”
The OP’s fiancé had a history of not taking care of himself.
“My fiancé has a long family history of diabetes on both sides.”
“He has always been obese, and that has never bothered me. But I did worry about his health, both mentally and physically.”
“About five years ago, we stopped being able to have penetrative sex because he couldn’t get completely hard. He talked about a lack of ‘feeling.'”
“I begged him to go to a doctor. He was afraid they were going to do a blood test on him, and he’d know for sure that he had diabetes. He said he’d lose weight on his own and fix it.”
“He’d download an app, and he’d kinda use it, but he never took it seriously. He never went to the gym with me, went on walks, and he went out of his way to avoid exercise. He’d cheat on his diet, and I’d always find fast food wrappers in his car.”
“We would fight constantly about it. And nothing ever changed.”
Then something happened that even the OP’s fiancé couldn’t ignore.
“Then he recently got a sore on his foot. I saw it before he knew it was there. I told him it looked like a diabetic foot ulcer, and he needed to go see a doctor immediately.”
“He again told me it was nothing and he’d take care of it later.”
“After many fights and begging and crying and pleading, he still didn’t see a doctor until two months later, when it started to smell and ooze, and it was basically impossible to ignore.”
“The podiatrist basically scolded him for not taking care of this sooner and told him he needed to see a doctor immediately. She gave him a list of instructions and a bunch of antibiotics, but basically, the wound care has fallen to me, because he can’t physically do it on his own.”
“I think this whole experience scared him straight, and he’s been talking about doing all the right things and making changes. He did make an appointment with a GP after his trip to the podiatrist.”
The OP gave him an ultimatum.
“I told him I’d be with him every single step of the way and I was confident we could get through this together… but he can’t lie to me or himself about his calorie intake anymore.”
“He needs to be disciplined. He needs to keep up with it and do whatever the doctor says. He can’t cheat on his diet anymore, and he must start exercising.”
“I said I’d do my best to make macro-friendly meals and calculate the nutrients in the meals I made for him. I told him I’d do my best to support him, but he’s got to meet me halfway!”
“I did give him some tough love, but I needed him to know how serious this is.”
“He said that my ‘tone’ was not what he would respond to the best, and I need to rethink my approach. That left me feeling exasperated, and I am not confident that he can take this seriously to see it through.”
The OP knew they couldn’t stay anymore if their fiancé didn’t take this seriously.
“I want to help, and I want him to get better, but I am so angry that it took this long after years of begging and all the fights. And now our worst fears have been realized, and I feel so hopeless.”
“I love him so much, and he needs my help, but if he doesn’t really show commitment in the next couple of months, I am seriously considering calling off the wedding.”
“While I don’t want to do that, I also don’t want to be in a marriage where my husband starts to rot from the inside out, and I’m standing by helpless to stop it from happening because he refuses to take medical advice.”
“AIO?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NOR: Not Overreacting
- YOR: You’re Overreacting
Some pointed out that the fiancé was more concerned about their “tone” than his health or their life together.
“NOR. He doesn’t need your help. He needs to help himself.”
“You can’t love him better or love him into accountability or responsibility for his own health.”
“He has no respect for you. You used a ‘tone’ he didn’t like to explain your concerns whilst offering to do everything to support him to lose weight, and that is the thing he picked up on… He’s going to be a victim for the rest of his life.”
“Find a way to love yourself more than him and leave. You can’t rescue someone who refuses to help themself.” – cumbersnatchbeard
“The OP wrote, ‘He said that my “tone” was not what he would respond to the best, and I need to rethink my approach.'”
“So if he fails, it’s your fault? NOR.”
“Since he went to the podiatrist, how has he been doing? Has he gone for a walk? Has he been to the gym? Did he eat a vegetable? I don’t think you can be expected to watch him commit slow-motion suicide while you stand there begging him to fight for his life.” – Kip_Schtum
“NOR. Dump this man.”
“He’s worried about your tone when his bloody foot is f**king falling off due to his own f**king negligence?!”
“Nah, throw the whole man away.” – OkIssue5589
“Are there family members nearby who can back you up? Presumably, he’d hear it better from family on his side, I mean, rather than yours, although having someone there to support you wouldn’t hurt.”
“I guess I am saying he needs an intervention, because he’s being petulant about your tone of voice when you try to help him, and maybe if he heard a similar tone from his own family members, he’d have to examine it a bit harder.” – psychedelicparsley
“Save yourself some heartache. Look, I understand you love him. But sometimes love is not enough.”
“If you continue involving yourself, guess what? You’ll be to blame when he fails or falls off the wagon because you didn’t use the right tone. The fact that this was his response to you when you had a heart-to-heart with him tells you everything you need to know.”
“He will never take responsibility for where he’s at. He’s immature and selfish.”
“Overeating, to the degree he’s at, is very similar to alcoholism.”
“I used to work in the medical field and learned that 95% of folks who are on dialysis are non- compliant diabetics. 95 percent!”
“I would watch these folks finish dialysis and, while waiting for their rides (wheelchairs-missing various pieces of limbs), take out their hidden stash of Butterfingers, Paydays, Snickers, and Skittles and wash it all down with a full sugar Coke. It was absolutely shocking.”
“This is what you have in store. Pretty bleak.” – Alarmed-Speaker-8330
Others urged the OP to call off the wedding before they became this man’s nurse.
“NOR! Don’t marry him, and give him an ultimatum. If he doesn’t start to take his own health seriously and does drastic changes, you leave.”
“You shouldn’t end up as a caregiver for someone who doesn’t care about you, the relationship, or his own life. And you won’t watch him harm himself.” – Found_Onyx
“This is very similar to alcoholism. It’s a chemical and emotional addiction. Unless someone acknowledges the problem, then takes ownership of addressing the problem, nothing will change.”
“I once watched an eating-disordered friend get violently ill from overeating, throw it all up, then immediately go back for seconds. Sorry if that was gross to hear. But I couldn’t help but think of that when you described people with missing limbs going in on another candy bar.”
“What these people need is serious long-term therapy and food counseling.” – Evening_Sea4823
“Some folks end up Type One and even Type Two, largely on genetics, and it’s unavoidable… and there may be aspects to his profile that make it that way as well… What I’m hearing is not that the diabetes is the problem, that you want to know if it’s okay to break up with a partner who:”
“1. Does not generally care about their health status enough to be consistent with exams.”
“2. Disregards your desire for sexual intimacy.”
“3. Won’t stick to stated goals and won’t discuss reasoning.”
“4. Is unwilling to seek therapy to deal with all of the above and more.”
“5. won’t listen or consider you or make efforts at productive conversation or reasonable goal setting (why would you marry someone displaying that?!).”
“So, like, are you overreacting for wanting to break up with someone who doesn’t care about literally anything?”
“NOR. THAT’S REASONABLE.” – PhoenixDogsWifey
“OP, at this point, you have to realize that you are enabling him. You have become his nagging mom who takes on the responsibility for his health, while he behaves like the toddler who’s trying to sneak snacks before supper – instead of the adult man he is supposed to be.”
“In your place, I’d tell him point-blank that you wash your hands of the whole situation. It’s now completely his responsibility; you are not his mother, and you don’t want to be that nagging spouse he is accusing you of being.”
“Tell him this is his last chance to get his s**t together. He will for sure lose his foot if he continues down this road, but it will be completely on him, since he claims he is an adult and can handle it on his own.”
“Then stick around for as long as you want or can bear it, and watch him either grow up or go down. A huge aspect of codependency is making yourself responsible for the other person’s feelings.”
“Accept that his feelings are HIS responsibility, not yours, as are his health decisions. The only thing you are responsible for is your own choices of whether to stay with him or not.” – Corfiz74
“Do you want to parent a grown man for the rest of your life? Or parent him until he dies young or has to go into a care home?” – MoysteBouquet
After receiving feedback, the OP shared an update, clearly relieved by the comments.
“I wanted to give an update. I have read all your comments and given them serious thought.”
“I think I was also in denial because even with all these NOR responses, I still thought that maybe he was on board. That he’d turn it around. He said that we’d be partners, and I believed him.”
“I was wrong.”
“To his credit, he’s been doing well on his calories, at least from what I’ve seen. He lost two pounds in three days, which is good, and I made sure to tell him that it’s a great start.”
“But I have suggested some physical activity every day. Nothing crazy. He has to stay off his foot, so I was trying to get him to do some exercises while sitting in a chair with light dumbbells for 10 minutes.”
“He said no and that he was tired and didn’t want to do it. I accepted that yesterday. I asked him to do it again today. He threw a fit. He yelled at me, told me I was being too pushy, that I should respect his boundaries, and that I wasn’t being empathetic enough.”
“I never raised my voice, I didn’t stomp around, I didn’t wave my arms. I just sat there and told him calmly and flatly that this is what he asked me to do. He wanted me to hold him accountable.”
The OP realized what they were destined for if they stayed.
“He eventually did it. It was the easiest workout I could find, and he whined the entire time. He was an a**hole about it. Even after I changed his dressing and cared for his wound.”
“I have gone out of my way to cook him diabetic-friendly foods, counting all the macros for him. I have wept for this man. I went into the pantry and removed all the snacks that made him stumble, and bought new snacks. I took time out of my workday to prepare healthy, pre-portioned snacks for him.”
“He has witnessed me cry as I expressed my anxiety over this whole situation… and after all that… he still tried to make me feel small. That I was the problem. I feel so stupid. I asked him if he could tell just how miserable I was. Does he even care?”
“He said he was also miserable.”
“Even when I tried to encourage him, after holding him accountable like he asked me to do. During that fight, I felt something in me die. The future I wanted, any love remaining for him, my wedding deposits… all of it went up in smoke in an instant.”
“It’s like someone flipped the lights off. I am on the precipice of completely blowing up my life. I’m grieving. I haven’t told him outright that the wedding is off, but in my head, it’s over. I just have to get the courage to do it.”
“Because I am not sure what I’ll tell my friends, my family, my best friend… his family has also become my family, so I’ll lose all of them too.”
“If it wasn’t for the fact that we’re living in a home that I bought, I would be trying to pack all my s**t and leave tonight.”
“I’m thankful for everyone’s responses. I am just so, so, so very sad.”
The subReddit was sad for the OP, who had put in so much work, effort, love, and worry into a partner who refused to reciprocate that love, for them or for themselves.
Until the OP’s partner was ready to care for himself, there was no future but worry and at-home care waiting for them, and the OP deserved much more.