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.