A Family Affair

I really have no right to bitch and moan, because life has overall been good to me. However, I feel I must get this off my chest.

I don't mind my period so much, but the week before, the PMS, with all the mood swings and bloating and cravings of salty/sweet, the runs and cramps-- that, I can do without. Ever since I had my last child and we decided we were done having children, and I had a tubal to ensure it, I have prayed for early menopause-- I know it's no picnic either, but it'll be nice to have it over and done with.

Anyway... on to the interesting events that have unfolded in the last couple of days.

Apparently my boys (9 & 11) have noticed my efforts, and hugged and congratulated me for succeeding, and encouraged me on.

And apparently, my older son is very worried about his dad, who is not only as overweight as I am, but is also diabetic and lives in complete denial of it. And a bit of crying and hugging his dad, and he convinced my husband to join me on the bandwagon.

My beautiful boys have even volunteered to eat healthier with us (not diet; just eat more veggies and less junk and get more exercise), so that we can all learn to have better habits and keep the temptations out of the house, bless them. 

My husband is ambivalent, I must admit. On some level I am sure he realizes he desperately needs to do this. He is 40 and has diabetes for at least the last 8 years that we know of, and completely ignores it. He likes to pretend he doesn't have it because it is not immediately effecting him. Heart disease runs in his family, and his older brother died at about 42 of his 2nd heart attack.

But he loves to live in denial, and unfortunately he has such a great imagination and attention problems, and I guess has had such a hard childhood, that he's gotten quite good at burying his head in the sand and pretending things can't really hurt him if he doesn't acknowledge them. He's too good for his own good.

To his disadvantage in this particular life issue, he hates challenges. Unlike me-- I who am always seeking the next wall to slam my head on and am as stubborn as a pit bull-- always wishing I could reach and master the next level of growth and the next stage towards some kind of enlightenment and control-- he is happy to drift along and go with the flow. He doesn't want the hard road, and he doesn't want to do anything that is going to require effort and sacrifice.

Now don't get me wrong; I have learned a lot from his happy-go-lucky attitude than can help me; I hate to admit it, but in a lot of ways, even though I am so artsy fartsy in some ways, in other ways I can be a total Type A personality. He is the yin to my overactive yang.

But, as balance is best in all things, he can really take a lesson or two from me if he had the drive to want to really drive the lesson home-- sometimes it is simply necessary-- and rewarding even-- to push yourself to your very limits of sanity and endurance and tolerance.

Food is a touchy area especially for him. He had a really bad family life in a really bad neighborhood in a lot of ways, spent half of his childhood raised in a state group home because he was abandoned. Food is his first love, it's is best friend, it's his reward and his comfort and the warm, fuzzy blanket he pulls over himself to shield himself from the world and block out what he doesn't want to deal with. He wants what he wants when he wants it.

If you held out all the food he loves in one hand, and 20 years of his life in the other hand, and said he could only have one or the other and had to choose, I honestly believe he would have to think about it.

He has always been overweight, so he doesn't have the memories of I do of those glorious days of youth, when I was beautiful and thin and caught eyes and could dance the night away if I wanted to, or run around for 10 hours in the zoo with unyielding energy and enthusiasm, barely losing my breath. To him, being thinner (even if not totally thin), having more energy, feeling better after weight loss, is viewed somewhat as some people view space aliens and bigfoot-- with a healthy dose of  "I want to believe it exists, but I just don't think I buy it." He's not very good at looking to the long-term, or really grasping future goals... he is content to dream about the future and live in the moment for the most part, and probably wishes he could just live like that, day to day, doing whatever he wants at any given moment, without ever really considering the future.

Whereas me, sometimes I look to the future so much I have to stop and remind myself that I'm wasting too much of the present doing it, and have to force myself to stop and smell the roses.

As you can see we are a good match in a lot of ways... but back to his weight problem.

He says he's willing, and I think in some ways he would like to see it happen, I just don't know that he is prepared to make the sacrifices or fight to win the challenges. And if his heart isn't in it, he's not going to last.

We just think differently. I think "I want this; what do I need to do to get it?" and I will then fight for it, even if I lose. He thinks, "I want this; it would be nice if it happened." he never considers that he could put the effort in to bring himself to the goal... because really, while things would be nice to have, not making efforts to him in the long run would be nicer.

Don't get me wrong-- he's not a lazy bum; he'll give lots of help around the house and work and all and does the responsible thing to ensure we have what we need. He just likes to spend too much time enjoying life-- being with family, having fun, playing, a little like the inner child in him tries to take over a bit too much. So when it gets to beyond necessities, a lot of time his attitude is, "why bother? That will be too long from now. I want to enjoy now." It's almost like he would rather enjoy now a little more than later a whole lot. Inability to really see long-term goals coming to fruition I guess, being too engrossed in the now, leads to low motivation.

For a couple of days he's been trying but I get the sense his heart isn't in it, he just feels deprived and unhappy.  And instead of telling himself, "I can do this, it will be better," he's probably telling himself, "this isn't fair; why should I have to suffer and sacrifice?" I hope he hangs in there, but I have a hard time believing he will until I see some spark from him-- some indication that he is motivated.

To top it off, he doesn't practice Witchcraft... so I would have to design and cast spells on him to deal with his problems. And as for things like taking time out of his day for meditation or positive affirmations and such-- well, let's just say it's unlikely as he has no interests in such things. Maybe he will be open to letting me cast a spell on him for motivation. But with his worries about finding work I just don't know he will find the motivation for weight loss-- if I know him, he's going to somehow convince himself that he deserves to be happy with food because other things are so difficult right now.

At least he quit smoking-- that was a huge step for him and I know it was very hard; I'd given up trying to get him to consider it, but this time-- mainly because of the rising cost of ciggarettes-- he finally got determined on his own. That's what made the difference and I am so proud of him. I hope that kicks in with weight-loss too.