Toxic Relationships

Often relationships are toxic, That is harmful.

Toxic Relationships

 

All of us decided that losing weight would benefit us, and make us healthier. We eagerly expect our friends and family to approve and help us. This, however, is not always the case. Others may seek to see us fail.

Why? When we enter into a relationship with someone, be it friendship, family, significant other, or even our fellow workers and management, we essentially enter into a contract with them. That contract spells out how we will act, do, say, etc. It’s unwritten, and often unspoken. Essentially, we agree not to change.

When we decide to move from obesity to a healthy state, we change the contract, unilaterally, even if the other parties agree to support us.

There are several kinds of toxic relationships.

The first and perhaps one of the most seriously toxic is the feeder relationship. Certain people seek out obese people as lovers. The reasons for this are manifold and to extensive to describe here, but I will discuss what they do and it’s impact on your weight loss journey. They seek to keep the status quo or even feed us with the end goal of making us weigh even more.

They do this by keeping our favorite foods in the house or workplace. They will give us fattening foods, or make sure there are no food on our eating plan around. They will often become belligerent when we insist on keeping to our eating plan.  In some instances, a spouse may begin to have affairs with those who are morbidly obese. They cannot take our change.

Another toxic relationship is one in which there is no support. Again, our decision to lose weight and become healthy changes the contract. In an attempt to return things to equilibrium by mental abuse of sorts, if not in fact. They complain about our program, the cost, and consequences of that program. They can chide and complain that you are not the same. Well, in that, they are correct. You are not the same and have changed your eating plan, lifestyle, and activity level. They might accuse you of ignoring the relationship. They seek to find any means to keep you from succeeding.

Another toxic relationship comes in the form of extramarital affairs and jealousy. I have grouped these two together because they are closely related and one often stems from the other.  As I have said, when two people are in a relationship, an unspoken contract is entered into. If a spouse is obese when the relationship began, and that spouse begins to lose weight, again the contract is changed. Humans on the whole, don’t deal well with change. It creates stress, regardless how well adjusted the individual is, stress will result. It may not show on the surface, and the individual might not be aware of it. It can exist at a visceral level.

When it comes to a relationship, this tension often comes to the forefront when the obese partner begins to lose weight. The other partner may sense the stress of perceived danger to the relationship. They fear that the person losing weight will become too attractive and begin to draw the attention of members outside the relationship. This tension can be acted out in many ways, but the anxious partner may engage in a game of “Now see what you made me do,” This might take the form of an extra-relationship affair. They justify it because they perceive that the person losing the weight no longer finds the mate attractive, or are enamored with the new attention that weight loss often elicits in our peer group. The one who is losing weight may also be the one having an affair. They too perceive that the mate is no longer attracted to them because for whatever reason, the non-weight loss individual doesn’t seem to show their affection anymore, or they flat do not support the person changing his/her life style toward a healthy relationship.