I am not a tiny woman.

[KissMeDeadly]

I am a big, hairy man-bear. You knew that when you met me, and you know it now.

Yes, you are my fiance and I love you with every bit of my being, but you need to stop degrading me for eating more than you do. You were anorexic for severel years, and while you aren't now, you still have a small stomach because, well, you are just naturally a short, skinny girl.

I am 5'11 and barrel chested. I have hair on my back and shoulders. I'm goddamn grizzly-fucking-adams. So don't tell me I'm eating too much when I cook three eggs instead of one, or that I don't consider a hot-pocket an entire day's food.

[Solumina]

Um...I use three eggs in my omelets and I finish them off with no problem and a hot-pocket is a snack, not a meal. I am by no means a big girl and while I do like to eat, I don't think I overindulge.

It sounds to me like your fiance is still in the process of recovering from her eating disorder and she is still very much restricting her portions, it also sounds like she knows that she shouldn't be doing that so she is trying to get you to cut down on your portions so that hers seem more normal. Please keep in mind that someone can eat and still be anorexic as long as they are unhealthily restricting their intake.

[KissMeDeadly]

Originally Posted by Solumina

Um...I use three eggs in my omelets and I finish them off with no problem and a hot-pocket is a snack, not a meal. I am by no means a big girl and while I do like to eat, I don't think I overindulge.

It sounds to me like your fiance is still in the process of recovering from her eating disorder and she is still very much restricting her portions, it also sounds like she knows that she shouldn't be doing that so she is trying to get you to cut down on your portions so that hers seem more normal. Please keep in mind that someone can eat and still be anorexic as long as they are unhealthily restricting their intake.

Well, it's not like she'll only eat a single hot-pocket every day, but sometimes she'll eat something that small and nothing else.

Most of the time she grazes, an egg in the morning, maybe a can of tuna or something in the after noon...just little things like that. She's actually put on a whole lot of weight. I knew her in highschool but never really *knew* her. She was a walking skeleton back then. She's got a tiny little gut now, I think it's more an issue that her stomach is still all shrunken, and she never really learned how to eat.

I think the fact that she's eating considerably more than she used to makes her think that she eats more than normal people, and since I eat more then her, it's clearly going to turn me into a giant obese fat-puddle on the bed.

Now, I am a big guy. And by 'big guy', I mean I'm overweight. So I see that she thinks she's helping, but she isn't. I stay away from unhealthy shit like chips and soda that I used to shovel down in massive portions, but when she gives me that 'you're eating too damn much' look because my big ole' dressing-free salads I make is bigger then hers, a part of me wants to just say fuck it and whip out the old deep-fryer.

[Catch]

Well, she might be obsessed with food. It happens. I try to make sure to eat an appropriate amount of calories each day, but eating at all seem tedious so under-eating is almost normal.

[Ben Lahnger]

There are three challenges here. You cannot do anything about the way she views your or her own weight. You can easily impact the way you view your own or her weight, and there might be some merit in that as you made a couple of statements ("She's actually put on a whole lot of weight", "She's got a tiny little gut now") that indicate that your bias might have an impact on your conversations. But the third challenge is how you both communicate with each other.

You CAN do something about that. I'd encourage you both to use ACTIVE LISTENING techniques when you have conversations about this.

Here's the University of Colorado's page on Active Listening, part of their International Online Training Program On Intractable Conflict (which has been replaced by Dealing Constructively with Intractable Conflicts.)

Here's 10 Tips to Effective & Active Listening Skills.

Basically, it's a way to make sure you both actually understand what the other person is saying, and to some extent, get a better idea of how they feel. For example:

She: "You watch sports all the time."
He: "So, you think I watch too much sports?"

It seems a bit simplistic at the start, but it's amazing how much people miss about what the other person is saying when they're busy formulating what their response is going to be. This technique actually makes you focus on what the other person is saying, frequently letting you hear additional details or subtleties you are missing and often making the other person feel validated that you really are hearing them. Sometimes it's even easier to agree to disagree, if the other party genuinely feels that you've heard them out.

[Grausamkeit]

Tell her that if she's worried about your weight she can help you work it off in the sack.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Solumina

It sounds to me like your fiance is still in the process of recovering from her eating disorder and she is still very much restricting her portions, it also sounds like she knows that she shouldn't be doing that so she is trying to get you to cut down on your portions so that hers seem more normal. Please keep in mind that someone can eat and still be anorexic as long as they are unhealthily restricting their intake.

I'm 99% sure that to qualify as anorexic you need to be a certain weight, but I know many people who were anorexic who continue to have disordered eating habits (I read somewhere that most teenage girls have disordered eating habits now, but that isn't to say most girls are anorexic or bulimic). Like, a friend of mine while she eats and she weighs a healthy weight now, doesn't qualify as anorexic, but its been years and she still can't have a scales in her home and freaked out recently because a doctor told her her weight. She can't count her calories or anything because she finds she gets obsessive about it way too easily.

So someone can totally be recovered from anorexia, but they'll have issues to deal with for a very long time. Is she in therapy?

[KissMeDeadly]

Ok, here's what I know about her anorexia thing:

It started out when I first became aquainted with her in Highschool back in ancient times. Like I said, it was pretty extreme. She always looked sick and was like a walking skeleton. I seriously thought that she had some kind of crazy physical problem. Anyway she was just like, the friend of the friend of the friend, so we didn't get to know each other.

Fast forward, say, oh about 6 or 7 years when I am reintroduced to her where I used to work. She looked insanely healthier, like a totally different person. She had gone to therapy for a year or so and got put on protein shakes and a fixed diet and stuff, but that was years ago and her and her family feel that she can make good eating decisions, which, for the most part she does. It's just that her portions are much much smaller then mine because, as I said, she's a naturally small person.

[Saya]

Size doesn't mean much. I eat like a pig and I'm rake thin, my sister is much bigger than me and eats much less. You can have a shrunk stomach and not be able to eat much at once, but that doesn't mean you don't need as many calories, you know? I have a lot of stomach issues and there was a period, especially when I was a kid, where I couldn't eat much at one meal. So I spent most of my day snacking.

I'm not saying she needs therapy or anything, I don't know her at all, and yeah she sounds like she's much much much better, but I would suspect that she still just doesn't have a totally healthy relationship with food yet or killed all her disordered eating habits.

[Ben Lahnger]

I'm going to estimate that the number of times people on the internet determine that a person they've never met or talked to might need therapy whereupon that person actually seeks out therapy are few and far between.

Before I gave my previous advice I'd already determined that KMD is a bright individual, and if he thought she needed therapy he'd already probably tried to approach the subject, but except for interventions and institutional commitments, you really can't force individuals to get help. And most of the time they either have reached a point where they are so unhappy with the status of their own life that they willingly seek out such a solution on their own (which KMD gave no indication of) or they are highly resistant to the idea.

I didn't want to encourage KMD to give any kind of ultimatum, because he wants the relationship to work. As I said, he can't change the way she thinks about weight or eating (because he's not a therapist and she's not interested in therapy at this time), so the "gentle", relationship-saving approach is to communicate his feelings about the way she treats him in a way that gets through to her.

That's why I suggested what looks like a simplistic approach that didn't seem to address the problem ... because the problem he can't solve is how she thinks, but the problem he might be able to solve is how she treats him.

[KissMeDeadly]

Originally Posted by Ben Lahnger

I'm going to estimate that the number of times people on the internet determine that a person they've never met or talked to might need therapy whereupon that person actually seeks out therapy are few and far between.

Before I gave my previous advice I'd already determined that KMD is a bright individual, and if he thought she needed therapy he'd already probably tried to approach the subject, but except for interventions and institutional commitments, you really can't force individuals to get help. And most of the time they either have reached a point where they are so unhappy with the status of their own life that they willingly seek out such a solution on their own (which KMD gave no indication of) or they are highly resistant to the idea.

I didn't want to encourage KMD to give any kind of ultimatum, because he wants the relationship to work. As I said, he can't change the way she thinks about weight or eating (because he's not a therapist and she's not interested in therapy at this time), so the "gentle", relationship-saving approach is to communicate his feelings about the way she treats him in a way that gets through to her.

That's why I suggested what looks like a simplistic approach that didn't seem to address the problem ... because the problem he can't solve is how she thinks, but the problem he might be able to solve is how she treats him.

o.o

Uh. Yeah. That's uh...that's about right.

Thanks for the advice, by the way, and I'm directing that at everyone. I'm going to check out those communication links, hopefully they'll help me get it into her head that I really am doing my best not to overeat, and that if she wants to help, to encourage me, not make me feel like I'm already failing.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Ben Lahnger

I'm going to estimate that the number of times people on the internet determine that a person they've never met or talked to might need therapy whereupon that person actually seeks out therapy are few and far between.

Before I gave my previous advice I'd already determined that KMD is a bright individual, and if he thought she needed therapy he'd already probably tried to approach the subject, but except for interventions and institutional commitments, you really can't force individuals to get help. And most of the time they either have reached a point where they are so unhappy with the status of their own life that they willingly seek out such a solution on their own (which KMD gave no indication of) or they are highly resistant to the idea.

I didn't want to encourage KMD to give any kind of ultimatum, because he wants the relationship to work. As I said, he can't change the way she thinks about weight or eating (because he's not a therapist and she's not interested in therapy at this time), so the "gentle", relationship-saving approach is to communicate his feelings about the way she treats him in a way that gets through to her.

That's why I suggested what looks like a simplistic approach that didn't seem to address the problem ... because the problem he can't solve is how she thinks, but the problem he might be able to solve is how she treats him.

Erm, what? I was just wondering if she was still in therapy.

You can be perfectly functional and still have habits you had when you were destructive. I'm not telling him to tell her what to do, and really he can't do anything. I'm just trying to say that even though she's no longer anorexic, that doesn't mean that all the habits she had goes away and there's no trace of her past condition. So it would probably be best to keep that in mind to better understand where she's coming from.

[JCC]

Originally Posted by Saya

I'm 99% sure that to qualify as anorexic you need to be a certain weight, but I know many people who were anorexic who continue to have disordered eating habits (I read somewhere that most teenage girls have disordered eating habits now, but that isn't to say most girls are anorexic or bulimic). Like, a friend of mine while she eats and she weighs a healthy weight now, doesn't qualify as anorexic, but its been years and she still can't have a scales in her home and freaked out recently because a doctor told her her weight. She can't count her calories or anything because she finds she gets obsessive about it way too easily.

So someone can totally be recovered from anorexia, but they'll have issues to deal with for a very long time. Is she in therapy?

As far as I know, anorexia is just restricting your food intake to an unhealthy degree because of body dysmorphia and fear of gaining weight, rather than reaching a certain weight.

[Saya]

When I google DSM-IV gets quoted a lot as saying "A. Refusal to maintain body weight at or above a minimally normal weight for age and height (e.g., weight loss leading to maintenance of body weight less than 85% of that expected; or failure to make expected weight gain during period of growth, leading to body weight less than 85% of that expected)." is the first criteria point to be diagnosed with anorexia. It might have been updated since but I've always been told the <85% thing.

[JCC]

Ah really? I never went to the doctors when I had an 'eating problem' so I'm not sure but I'm surprised that they class 85% of expected or less as anorexia, 15% underweight isn't that much really is it?

[Saya]

I'd say so. Like, I'm supposed to be 130 pounds, and being five pounds underweight isn't a problem for me, but once when I was super sick, being 116 pounds caused my doctor to be worried, I imagine less than 110 pounds would be much worse.

[JCC]

Mm, I'm meant to be 170 and I think I was closer to like 130-140 at the time. I didn't feel that bad really. Just pretty tired.

[Solumina]

If I recall correctly you typically wouldn't be diagnosed with an eating disorder unless you are underweight but in cases where someone was overweight to begin with then drastic weight loss as a result of dietary restrictions could lead to you being diagnosed (although that is rare as people aren't typically concerned enough about someone's health to get them help in that sort of situation, the weight loss is usually looked at by family and peers as being positive). That being said, I'm fairly certain that once you have been diagnosed you are not considered cured until you have a healthy relationship with food and a healthy body image due to the frequency of relapses as well as the fact that eating disorders have to be physically and psychologically cured.

Also JCC that is pretty darn underweight, I'm surprised that you only felt a bit tired.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Solumina

If I recall correctly you typically wouldn't be diagnosed with an eating disorder unless you are underweight but in cases where someone was overweight to begin with then drastic weight loss as a result of dietary restrictions could lead to you being diagnosed (although that is rare as people aren't typically concerned enough about someone's health to get them help in that sort of situation, the weight loss is usually looked at by family and peers as being positive). That being said, I'm fairly certain that once you have been diagnosed you are not considered cured until you have a healthy relationship with food and a healthy body image due to the frequency of relapses as well as the fact that eating disorders have to be physically and psychologically cured.

Also JCC that is pretty darn underweight, I'm surprised that you only felt a bit tired.

Not entirely true. Most bulimics from my understanding don't lose much weight, they don't have the same diagnosis criteria.

And I don't think they really stamp your file CURED. Basically with the friends I've known with anorexia, they just got to the point where they could take care of themselves without risk of relapse, and they know what their triggers are, so they don't go to therapy for it anymore.

Although we had free psychological tests one day for Eating Disorder Awareness Day. I'm certifiably not anorexic XD