Hi Astrasuzy!

I am sorry your husband has apnea. The way you express yourself show you have an emotional intelligence to not hurt your husband if, when wishing him the best from a health perspective.

Yes, I agree. I don't think any diets are good for you. I think mainly having, striving for a balanced way of eating, exercising is the way to go, but to also respect someone else's boundaries and what they are up to at the time.

There are so much information out there, easy access to it these days with the Internet, and if one is in doubt one can always ask a doctor or dietist. There are quite many diets out there that do not agree with what is recommended. There are healthy options to make sure your body is given all the nutrition it needs.

I was always waiting for him to by himself want to give me compliments and/or want to look at the bright side.He was then leaning towards the perfectionism and always looking for faults. So lets say a dinner was good up to 95% of it, then he would point out the 5% that wasn't. I would be the type to forget about the 5%, be happy someone else offered me dinner, say my thanks. I would never point out the 5%. In fact I could not care less about the 5%.

I suppose I look the same way about my body, that I got some 5% somewhere that he just could not let go instead of just enjoying, seeing the rest of the 95%, and me then thinking you know what? Then he's not gonna have the 95% either. If I ain't good enough for him me being normal weight or slightly over weight then so be it. Someone I am not good enough for is not good enough for me either. But it still hurts. I still feel her, the old me that was so eager to please and to try to get everything just how he wanted it so he would just love me, so I would just be enough, as he was always back the more than enough for me, I loved him. It was too bad he could not look at me, my body, or our home the same way I looked at him and it had nothing to do with perfection, nothing to do with his looks or work out or what he worked with or what he didn't. I was giving him emotional support and defending him when his parent thought was it not time he got even more advanced at work. I never gave him criticism as it just was not in me back in the day but he had no trouble giving it to me and it would then to me be over these non important things that I could not care less for and not understand how it could be worth even bringing up and worth destroying what I thought we had that I valued but he didn't. He was to me reckless. If and when I did give him criticism he could not take it, was on the defense, not how he was with others. He would later say it drove him crazy. That me who never said anything, if and when I did, he thought it hit him hard, spun him out of control. But to me it felt nothing short but a punishment, as if I was worth less than anyone else that he treated with more respect.

From his first family the only way I have seen his parent deal with such things is first of all to take defense. He was doing what he had been taught to do, and then he had no idea how to get to the bottom of things so he would take to cleaning instead or work out to get rid off that energy. It was scary I think for him. Unfamiliar waters. Something he had been taught not to do, not to go. He didn't know how. I knew how. But I couldn't get him to walk with me.

It has been years of this perfectionism getting the best of him, but periods where it was less so, but still overall it was having a negative effect on me.

He has now quit his diet, now not once during has he ever said something to me about my own body, except for compliments. I refuse to weight myself so I actually do not know if I am slightly overweight or normal weight at this present moment. I've just decided to keep to my own schedule.

Perhaps he could tell it put me off ease this time as he was on his diet as I simply can not go through yet another of one of those nightmare-diets with him ever again, that it brings everything back and I do not want to hold my breath.

There are these triggers, whispers of yesterday and I guess I feel I have not gotten out of the environment where I got to suffer mentally before: We still live in the same home where all the bad memories were made before. But I also have to think of all the good memories. I am thinking of changing something around here though to make it different. Before it just felt like his home. That I had to make sure I had not forgotten something. I could not relax. Stil at work I do it, if someone has left to me a bit of a mess I fix it right away as if I am afraid he will turn up behind me or something. I have to now train myself to not fix someone else's mess.

Over Christmas, another trigger, we are about to meet with some of his family that are fixated and around us will be no sensitivity and kids who call each other "fat" when they are not. I do not want any younger generation that I am responsible for to be around that. I do not want any younger generation around that, in fact. All I can then do is to speak my mind, but without anger, if to adress a child about it but to explain.

It is always surprising to me how some parents can take such distance from when their kids end up with some problem, drinking for instance, or for instance calling one another words such as fat as insults as if they had nothing to do with it. It is as if the parents wants to declare their own innocence.
I know when I went through what I did with my first love who had developed a drinking problem, and I suspected or knew it existed in his family, among relatives, that somehow I got to be looked at as the bad guy for telling the truth and knowing he needed help and he needed help now. This had already gone too far. I was not concerned with what others might think as I knew he was this great guy and he was loved and those who had the maturity in them, his true friends etc, they would stand by him, they would stand by me. The rest - the rest I did not care about. If using this vulnerability (him drinking and going to rehab to get free of it) against him, us, it would only reveal the ugly truth about who they really were, not who he was and those who listened to those kind of people would reveal something about them too that was not too flattering. He was so much more than his drinking, but I knew if he kept this up it would get more and more of him and finally take over, has happened to some of the best people of this world.

When my husband was not doing well at all during our split I wondered to myself but where is his now perfect family? His perfect parents? Is he not perfect to them anymore? In times of trouble where are they? If anything they ought to be relieved. I was now out of the game. I had before taken steps back. Had not exactly felt welcomed and part of the family by his narcissistic parent anyhow. It was as if he stood alone.

When I have later asked my husband about it it comes across to me as if he said only very little, if anything, and that it was he that wanted that distance, and could not really cope with anyone else's feelings on top of his own. It was one of the first time I could tell he made his own choice to separate himself from his parents, but I know too that when I could see this was truly bad on him, and I was now his ex, that I thought to myself are they going to leave him al alone in this?

It frankly reminded me of my ex where his parent told him not to drink in their home. As if he would not then still drink in his own home. As if as long as you do not see it the problem don't exist. In the meanwhile, and he was my ex by then, he was on the phone with me and I was worried he might drop his cigarette and there would be a fire, that something would happen. That is like saying he's not our problem, we did not do this, we are the perfect parents. Never mind the genes, the history, the environment or I don't know - simply because that is our boy. Some parents need to get over themselves. I have heard so much about the whole attitude of "think of the neighbors". Does it never come across their minds that the neighbors might be thinking the same thing about us? They can go and stuff the neighbors-attitude somewhere for all they are worth, I do not care. Everyone has their problems, nobody is perfect. But shame you know - shame is a strong, strong component, enemy. That and fear. We gotta fight our way through those walls so we can finally breath.

Perhaps I should just lay off the expectations that now we are going to be so very happy but start out relaxing first of all and trust that with time everything will fall into place and try to be patient and not stress myself. This diet of his was a trigger again and it reminded me of everything before. i was hoping he was not to say anything bad again about my body and he didn't but then of course I just had to go there thinking - does he think it instead? I can still hear him. Then i felt bad about that. Hopeless, ha ha. They say that after one bad thing said it takes up to 5 positive things to say before it ounces up. Think too I was with him for years and used to him hardly ever saying something positive to me, about me, only negative, so for him these days go around and saying positive things about me has then made me wonder Who is this guy? And is he for real? Can I count on him? Will he change back? Or is he here to stay?

I wish you all the best as well :)