Can this be done?

It has been a while since I have posted and I am not sure why. I think its a combination of many things including avoidance.  We have a diagnosis of Malnutrition. WBC and RBC are in the toliet, Vitamin D levels in severely deficient area, and muscle injuries. Also got the spend out thousands of dollars on Bone Scan and Bone Density Scans. They showed normal so that is good but to spend all that money because of something that he is doing to himself just adds insult to injury.  So we are taking vitamin D, Calcium, and Zinc. We are going to PT 2-3 times a week. 

Some days are great, he comes home right after work to have dinner with us, he helps parent, and is present. Just about the time I started to believe this was going to be everyday and I didn't have to ask everyday he changes things again. So back to not knowing what is happening next.  I hate the person I am becoming.....I feel like all I do is B**CH about things, I am depressed, and as an added bonus I have started having panic attacks.  I lived most of my life in a state of panic but swore that as an adult I wouldn't. I spent a lot of time in therapy working on this and now in the last few months that has gone right out the door.  I told my husband that I won't have them in front of our children, that is NO way for a child to live, watching their parent lose it, I know that existence and I don't want it for them. They see enough.  I tell him what I need, and he compulsion to work out/exercise beats me every time. His running/exercise wins out ahead of everything and everyone.  NOTHING stops him from it. 

We take 3 steps forward, 5 steps back on a pretty consistant basis and I am not sure how much longer I can live like this. I want to leave, well maybe runaway from this. I am weak, I know I am. My children deserve to have a mother who is strong enough to do what is right for them, but they are stuck with me. Sunday we had a nasty exchange of words and I am heart broken. The things he says and does scare me and cause me such pain.  Everytime something happens the apology comes and it is to a point that the apology means nothing because Sorry means you aren't going to do it again. 

I resent having to explain to my children he isn't coming home, why he doesn't eat, why he is angry, ect.  The anorexia is still controling our lives and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight. No matter how much I pray and beg, the anorexia/orthorexia wins and controls our lives. Not just his but all of ours.

Can this get better? Can I stay in this long enough to see him well? Can life ever be back to normal? I deserve to be happy. I deserve to be loved, I deserve to be #1.

Love Never Promised Tomorrow

I am a HUGE fan of the tv show Nashville and that is a line from the song Casino. I love the music from this show so much! I have almost all of it on my Ipod!  But that line really struck home especially given our situation.

There seems to be progress being made in our journey by all involved.  My husband is eating different foods and having a desire for food outside of his safe foods.  He is running the same but he is putting food in. Friday night we went to Sam's Club to shop, by the time we were done I was hungry so I asked him if he would share a pretzel with me. He said "I won't eat half of it or anything but I will have a little piece or 2." Cool! So I got me a pretzel.....so we ate it on the way home and he ate about half of it! I was so happy to see it! We used to enjoy those things together. Also when I get Cousin's subs with their awesome Broccoli Cheese soup he will have a couple spoonfuls and its great. He always says "sorry I am eating your food" and I always say if I didn't want to share I would tell you NO and let me tell ya I would. LOL

In regards to progress we had another family movie night with all of us and He and I sat together on the couch to watch with our kids. We have a deal that there is no electronics, books, ect to detract from our time. We watched Shrek and it was such a great sound to hear us all laugh.  We are planning on watching the whole series of Shrek. We watched the Men in Black series last week! My husband and I are trying to spend more time together on the couch or in our bed at night next to one another, cuddling......so I had stopped going to church as a family because of many things but Sunday I decided I would go with for my husband and trying on my side to do something he does. I can't run and I can honestly say even if I could, I was never one who enjoyed running anymore than absolutely necessary in life. Me not going with has always been a point of contention for us and it felt good to go with him and be there as a family. Our oldest stayed home but our younger two went and it was a nice feeling. After we got home our middle daughter told me she really liked me being there.....so we will have to see............

I believe there was only one day he went straight to the gym and it was nice.  He ate dinner with us and it was nice to have help with parenting and the house stuff.....

So here it is.........praying that the progress continues, starting to see the light at the end, now just hoping it doesn't burn out.

Do you love me?

A question I ask pretty frequently, even before "Steve" showed up. My husband has always had something as an addiction......when we met we were both smokers........he quit almost 8 yrs ago.....after that he made the slow journey to being an alcoholic, during this time the running was starting to increase and become consistent.  After we got a handle on the drinking the running/exercise/Anorexia came on the scene.  It was a slow progression and well not one I really kept an eye on because he knew what he was doing.......he was always talking about healthy eating and portion control......then all of a sudden certain foods I made he would no longer eat stating he never really liked eating them......then his tongue started to have issues so then we couldn't other foods because they burned his tongue........but when I started to see it and bring it up it was a huge fight.....I was wrong and that was it.......I decided it wasn't fair for our kids to live like that with the fighting.........and eventually I just stopped fighting.........When my parents went through their rough patch my Dad said something that I never understood until recently..." Beth, I stopped fighting with your mom. I decided it wasn't worth the fight anymore." I found that incredibly sad and said I can't imagine that, everyone argues, its part of life.......and then it hit me with my husband........I have no fight left in me.  I still feel that way......

My husband is keeping a blog of sorts for his views of "Steve" and he has shared it with me, so I check on it every so often......I get upset usually when I read it because the things he says truly hurts me and makes me feel like what I am trying to do to help means nothing..........today's entry says: "Everyone tells me they love me, that they care about what is happening.  I don't know what the truth is about any of this." This just kills me......I tell him all the time I love him, show him I love him and he NEVER believes it. I know a lot of this stems with childhood and never feeling worthy of love but in the 19 yrs we have been together I have never walked away no matter what........It breaks me to read this kind of statement when I know I am showing love the best way I can.......I am STILL here.  I have apologized to my children many times since November that I am not strong enough to do what is probably best for them. The thing is I don't feel walking out on 19 yrs of love is the answer, we need each other.....they need their Dad and I need my husband.......Just don't know When Love just isn't enough.  One of my oldest and dearest friends is 44 yrs old and her husband 38 yrs old.....have a 12 yr old. My friend woke up one morning and her healthy, 38 yr old husband had died in his sleep.....no warning, nothing...........it truly put things in perspective that it can happen to anyone......my heart breaks for her, this was the love of her life......they were perfect for each other.  I am scared everyday I will wake up and my husband won't be breathing.....I wake up 2-3 times a night to make sure.......this was before my friend lost her husband, now its at the forefront of my mind. How do you get through that?  Her husband wasn't doing anything to make himself sick or unhealthy........my husband is playing with fire. Playing with his life and I am thankful everyday that we still have him. 

I don't really know how to break through this and help him. Its so different from the male perspective. There is a dynamic there that I can't understand but I pray to be able to. I wish I had the magic words or the instructions on how to make this better but I don't. 

In the spirit of transparency on my part, I have not shared this blog with anyone including my husband. I am not hiding it but I am not advertising it to others right now........ 

Selfishness and Avoiding

Selfishness seems to be an epidemic in our household.....we had always contended with it with our children in some way, shape, or form but my husband and I truly tried to be examples of selflessness. We also tried to up front and deal with issues head on, not avoid them or let them go. As we live in this world of Anorexia/Orthorexia ,selfishness and avoidance have become the norm for ALL of us, myself included.  I am always becoming an expert as avoiding issues and important things that need my attention because I am so emotionally drained from all the things going on around us. Its not right but hey, here we are. 

As I sit here and type I am disappointed in myself that I have succumbed to the selfishness and avoidance around me........that I am not being a better example for my children and my husband. I know that prior to this we all had things we were selfish about but it is truly an epidemic in our daily life.  Its almost like if I don't think about me and my needs, no one else will.  So much of our lives has had to center around my husband's exercise/running schedule and work.  With 24 hours in a day you would think there would be time to do so many things but with the schedule we HAVE to keep its ugly.........we eat dinner around 3pm, he leaves to run between 4 and 5 pm, comes back 1.5 hours later and then we go to the store or the gas station or where ever we need to.  We come home and then its time for him to eat his snack and get on the computer. Also time for our children to start winding down, getting ready for bed.  On a Saturday, sleep in until 9 or so......eat around 11am....head out to shop BY 1:30pm so that we again are home for 2pm-3pm dinner time, and then running time again...........our time to be together or do other things gets smaller and smaller.  We actually had a movie night last Sunday. For the first time in a VERY LONG time we sat down as a family and watched Hotel Transylvania. Awesome movie........my husband and I sat on the couch together rather than he on the computer, me with my nose in a book, and held hands and sat together.....such a good feeling.....the kids were sprawled out all over the living room and it was a good night........our 11 year old son wants to do it again this weekend and we are planning on it. 

Its these activities that give me hope........they give me that glimpse of the man I married, the man I know that is in there.  Our baby steps of progress are wonderful, its just hard to be patient with some things and I have to deal with that.........I have to give him space to do better, make better choices, be a better person rather than constantly point out the faults and failures.......I hate that I do it, I say things or type an email and then after I "calm" down I have no idea why I let the emotions take me...at the time it was soooo important but later, its not......I go over it in my head how I could have been more positive, more supportive, less selfish, less self absorbed. I have no idea how we are going to cure the epidemic in our home but I pray that it will happen. I want nothing more that to keep our family intact and come out the other side of this a happier, stronger family. 

Peppermint Whipped Cream

Yes Peppermint Whipped Cream. Husband and I were walking through Pick N Save and I needed to get milk. So as we were walking past the dairy coolers I happened to look over and see Peppermint Whipped Cream......never seen it before.....so instantly I look at Husband and say " Look, its Peppermint Whipped Cream, that would be cool." He smiles at me with one of those smiles that says he really doesn't want me to say the next thing I am going to say but of course I did, " Peppermint Whipped Cream, now that could be TONS OF FUN!!" And Silence...........

Intimacy has taken a hiatus since "Steve" moved in completely.  We have not been intimate for over 7 months and before that it was 4 months and before that 3 months and so on.  When we did blood work for his evaluation for services thru Aurora Psych we had to get blood work done so I asked them if they could test his testosterone levels.  I do not know what the levels were but the PCP stated all of his tests came back normal. So it must be normal....but there is nothing normal about our sex life or intimacy in our marriage. 

A few years ago I read the book, "The 5 Love Languages" By Gary Chapman and discovered my love language was Physical Touch.....I knew it was but you know what I mean......husband doesn't put any stock in those kinds of books so he didn't read it or do the quiz and that's OK. This discovery truly gave me a bigger insight to why I feel the way I do about certain things.........so you can imagine that with our intimacy not happening how much that throws me. Also because well, I definitely didn't agree to give it up. I am 38 yrs old and I have made choices and have given up things but this was NOT one of them.  I am not very comfortable talking about these things so its a hard topic for me to bring to my husband but I have many times. When I do he gets upset and tells me that the pressure is part of it.........so I try not to bring it up but its in the forefront of my mind and thoughts.......I miss the intimacy......the touching, kissing, love, and fun.  I thrive on physical contact and TRY to make sure that I am enjoying the intimacy he is trying to give but MAN............I know I am not very eloquent with my words but this is the point we are at.  I don't know how much longer I can go like this.....

I work very hard to meet everyone's needs in this house at the exact moment they want them met. I am not always able to but I do work hard to try. My needs aren't anyone's priority right now. It is amazing how selfishness and self centeredness has taking up residence in our home....It is amazing to see how quickly the kids started doing it because my husband is.......I have lived with alcoholism growing up and my husband was an alcoholic for a while and I know how selfish alcoholics can be and I have to say with this Anorexia/Orthorexia its right up there........NOTHING stops his running. If I am sick he will stay home from work but goes running......my back is out he goes running......I had a hysterectomy and he still went running, leaving our children here with me to referee. He is trying harder and I am proud of him for it. Its just hard.........

Scared

Scared........an emotion that has become part of my daily life.  Throughout my life I never felt 100% safe due to different experience I have had but once I met my husband, I always felt safe.......that peace.  But since this all started I feel anything but safe.  I am scared for him, scared of him, and scared of what will happen.


My husband is so thin that you can see every rib in his chest and every bone in his spinal column.  I can wrap my thumb and forefinger around his wrists, and his upper arms are like sticks.  He typically has a yellowish tint to his skin but now its dark spots from the top of his cheek bones and up. He fears almost all foods except the few he will eat. We go through about 18-20 lbs of baby carrots a week. Our children won't talk to him about any of this because they are afraid of his reaction so they talk to me. They tell me how this isn't their dad and ask if he is going to get better. What do you say? I tell them that he loves them and wants them to talk to him. That I believe he can get better but he has to WANT to.

I am very thankful that with this situation my husband tries hard to be transparent about everything he can. When he weighs himself, he shows me. When he puts in his calories and activity online he lets me see it or tells me what it says.  This past week he ran 117 miles in 6 days.......he is averaging 19-20 miles a DAY.  This is not acceptable.....in order to run that much he is out of the house then so his time is spent: gym, work, gym, home, store, home, and bed , to start all over again.....He is a runner and I am so proud of the running he does. He has participated in 4 half marathons and we love to be able to cheer him on.  Watching him run makes me so proud, just one more thing I am proud of him for. But we are having trouble balancing the running with the food.

A Really Cool Response

This morning I had a surprise in my email. Barbara Kent Lawrence, the author of The Hungry i: A Workbook for Partners of Men With Eating Disorder, emailed me a response to a post I left on her website: http://www.barbaralawrence.com/index.html  I had left a post thanking her for writing this workbook and what it has done for me so far in my journey.  Barbara asked me to post this comment on my blog:

Beth - thank you for mentioning my book, "The Hungry i: a workbook for partners of men with eating disorders."  It means a great deal to me that it is useful to you and your husband.  I wrote my first book, "Bitter Ice: a memoir of love, food and obsession," as a way of understanding my now former husband's struggles with eating disorders and ways my own vulnerabilities made me an enabler.  It was very painful for me to write that book because it forced me to try to understand my own behavior.  I'm sorry our struggle ended in divorce, and I respect your effort to keep your family intact.  Writing The Hungry i" helped me understand the illness itself by putting on my 'research' hat.  Perhaps most startling was realizing that eating disordered behavior gives people an endorphin high, so it becomes addictive.

I wish I had some magic dust to throw over all the men and their families who suffer from the destructive illness of eating disorders, but of course, I don't.  I do, however, believe that we must raise awareness that men and boys are vulnerable to eating disorders.  One statistic - since 1998 when "Bitter Ice" was published, and 2010 when "The Hungry i" was published, the ratio of men to women who are eating disordered in the US rose from one in 20 to one in four. Surely,  we can do more to help these men and boys.

I feel so blessed to have gotten a response back from Barbara Kent Lawrence. Gives me hope especially on days like these when I don't have much hope that we will make it through this.

She Can't Save Him

She Can't Save Him is the title of a song and its one that goes through my head many times a day. I can't save him. I can't wave my magic wand and make "Steve" leave our family. I go through so many emotions in a day that I am tired.  I love him so much, it hurts. In the workbook I am reading called "The Hungry I: Workbook for partners of men with Eating Disorders" By Barbara Ken Lawrence has been my light in this storm. One of the few resources out there for our situations, has activities in it to do, one of them is to journal so that is what I am going to try to do with this blog....use it as my journal through this. I highly recommend this for anyone dealing with this.  I have a few other resources to share down the road......I share this book with my husband and so far he has been receptive to it. I am a reader......everything I learn I do it by reading. As I educate myself I pray I can be helpful to my husband and my children.

    From the first time we met, I knew he was the one. We have been together half of my life at this point. I have always admired him and who he is. Regardless of what life gave him, he has always been a wonderful man.  I always felt safe with him, taken care of, and loved. He has been through the wringer with me and I am so thankful for everything. I have been a nightmare to live with...I know that. We have dealt with our share of stuff including unemployment, infidelity, alcoholism, debt, secrets, fighting, ect........In the beginning of our relationship I said I would never stay with some who.......but I found out very quickly that its not that simple....that you don't know how much you will handle and put up with until you are there staring it in the face. So much is compromised in life for love. I do NOT regret US, I believe he and I make a choice everyday to be here in this marriage, this family. We have choices and we choose us.

  The counselor told me right from the start that this isn't my husband, its the disease.....but its my husband.....this is who he is right now. I wish I had the magic words but I don't. I see in him the man I married......but right now he is someone different. I knew for 2 years he is Anorexic but when I tried to talk to him it ended in screaming. I could no long expose myself or our children to this environment....lesser of two evils I suppose.  Everyone in his life, except me, kept rewarding him for this. Heck his job pays him a bonus of 400.00/year for being thin. His yearly bonus I lovingly refer to as his "Anorexia Money". I stopped talking to him about it......I just went with it because he wasn't going to hear me.  Everyone in his life while they were congratulating him and rewarding him would look at me and ask "Why are you letting him do this?" "Why aren't you making him eat?" Its amazing how much of this falls on me...the joke is I feel the same way......why aren't I making him? How could I let it get this far? I know I did NOT cause this but I also know that this isn't about being thin, its about something all together different but until he deals with it here we are. I have told him and the counselor I have NO delusions.....I know I have a hand in this...we all do.....you can't live with someone and not have an affect on their lives. I am trying to hard to change what needs to be changed here.....he spends more time out of the house than in our home. Our children are lost.....all 3 of them ask me the same questions everyday and I have no new answers.  He is trying, I see it.....but is it enough? I am so scared to lose him completely.......I wake up 3-4 times a night to make sure he is still breathing........I do not know what to do......Its hard to have no one to talk to about it who can really give insight. I do not have much in way of a support system.....He and I have always been the support system for one another.

 I am 38 years old and my husband is 45. I am disabled and have been for 8.5 years. I have always been a very independent woman, working and doing for myself w/out asking for help. My husband and I have had little help from anyone else outside of one another from the start of our married lives so we have depended solely on one another. We never had help w/ our kids outside a select few friends so our focus has always been our children. Everything we have done is with/for them. They had to come with us for everything. If we had a babysitter it was so we could go to something for one of the kids. We have neglected ourselves and our marriage. We have 2 special needs children: our 14 yr old has ADHD, ODD, and Sensory Integration Issues and our 11 yr old has Asperger's, ADD, and Sensory Integration Issues so we have had some challenges. We have never had help when it came to them, we again depended on ourselves and medical professionals. We are trying so hard to get back to our marriage but our children have little respect for our privacy or our marriage......but how can they when we haven't shown them to have respect for our marriage. We have a 16 yr old, 14 yr old and 11 yr old and its not easy on them either......they come to me and I try to have answers but I don't. Our 11 yr old tries to talk to him about it but its hard to our 11 yr old to express himself.......So we push on......we keep going......I pray everyday and hope God is hearing me.

What I Hope

Our situation is unique because we are dealing with Male Anorexia/Orthorexia. As I found out quickly not much information out there and the people around us who are the "specialists" had no idea where I should start. The bulk of information out there pertains to teenagers and women and those who this situation understand that info geared toward teenagers and women is not going to give me any REAL insight to my husband's situation. My husband sent me this article about male anorexia and so I decided to search the title and see if maybe other info would come up......it did and as I weeded through all the information, somewhere in the middle there were recommendations of books and such. I hit the jackpot. I am a reader, I can do anything but I need to read it.....can't have someone just talk to me about it or whatever.  So I got my start! As I post on here I will definitely share the info I have found.  Thankfully these articles gave names,book titles,web addresses......ect. With that said, the information out there is limited but what I have found has been helpful.

So that is the main reason for doing this. To hopefully be able to help other women in my situation to find what they are looking for.  I am hoping to be able to find others in our situation to connect with.  My biggest hope is to be able to show support and walk hand in hand with my husband through this. So please bear with me. 

So it begins...............

So it begins for me, to blog some of what we are going through and learning in My families journey through Male Anorexia/Orthorexia or as I affectionately call it "Steve".  Toward the end of November my husband of 17 years was officially diagnosed with Anorexia/Orthorexia.  We know what anorexia is but Orthorexia?

The definition of Orthorexia is: an obsession with avoiding foods perceived to be unhealthy, being "solely concerned with the quality of the food they put in their bodies, refining and restricting their diets according to their personal understanding of which foods are truly 'pure'.