Eating Habits Make my Boyfriend Angry

[voodoolulu]

I have extremely restrictive eating habits and desires to purge after binging (I never have successfully, because I'm scared of ruining my teeth). My boyfriend is always kind and he really tries to be supportive, but when I talk to him about how food is making me feel, he just says things like "you have to eat" and "you can't be scared of food". I feel bad for wanting more support and care from him, because I feel like he doesn't deserve me being this screwed up. Sometimes I just want to talk about it, but he makes it hard.

[silverfighter]

I am not there, so I don't actually know this. However, what you described doesn't sound angry...it sounds confused (but also correct and logical). If you want a different kind of response from him, then you have to tell him what kind of responses are helpful.

In his defense, at the end of the day, even this issue isn't just about you. So if he is hurt or angry or scared, it is only fair that you validate and support him as well.

Mel

[AXT]

I am not there, so I don't actually know this. However, what you described doesn't sound angry...it sounds confused (but also correct and logical). If you want a different kind of response from him, then you have to tell him what kind of responses are helpful.

In his defense, at the end of the day, even this issue isn't just about you. So if he is hurt or angry or scared, it is only fair that you validate and support him as well.

Mel

I totally agree with this.
I cannot bear witness, and I'm not trying to pick a side, but this reads to me as a genuine response, one of support and logical input. I would say that he is trying to resonate with you, by telling you what you fail to tell yourself. Yes you need to eat. No you should not be scared of food. No you should not let your eating disorder take control over your life and self. Yes you can fight it and you should. And yes he is hurting too. All he can do is to challenge those disordered thoughts, and tell you how things should be. But ultimately only you can help yourself, and I think it's always helpful to have someone there to remind you that things are not supposed to be this way, this is not how life is supposed to be.

[voodoolulu]

Thank you for your thoughtful responses. You may be right.

[Crazy Cat Lady]

My husband struggles the same way your boyfriend is. For my hubby, it's just such a foreign concept, something he's never had to deal with or even really think about before. For me, it was easier to just bring him into my therapist's office and have her explain to him that it's not really about the food, and what he can do to be more supportive. It was something I just wasn't able to articulate to him. If this is an option for you, I'd recommend it.

[battypoo]

My boyfriend struggles too. He tries to be sweet and caring until I come up with something very disordered and then he snaps and tells me how stupid I'm acting.
He just doesn't understand. He's never had a voice in his head telling him to count his calories or eat less. He hasn't grown up with an unhealthy relationship with food.
Back in high school, when I first started to feel like my relationship with my body/food was slipping, I started looking at pro-ana things and researching actual eating disorders because I wanted to remind myself why it was bad and force it into my head that starving myself would be very dumb. And I felt a lot of frustration seeing people doing these things to themselves and I just wanted to scoop them up and feed them a healthy diet and make them better. And those were just strangers on the internet. The frustration has to be so much worse with someone you know and love. Because you can't scoop up an adult and force them to eat.
What I try to explain to him is that I know my behavior is dumb. But the difference between us is that I have an automatic thought process going through my head constantly that tells me losing weight is the thing to be doing. I can know everything there is to know about treating my body right, but it doesn't make that thought any quieter. No matter what I do, it's always there pushing me toward losing weight.

[SomeNights]

My girlfriend (it feels weird saying that, but I guess she kind of is) struggles with it all, too. She wants to be supportive, and she's always there when I need to rant, but she doesn't understand why I can't just eat, or why I'm so anxious about food. You have to understand, they're coming from a good place. They want what's best for us. And even though the eating disorder tries to convince us that eating isn't it, eating is what's best for us. It is a fundamental right of being a living being. Another poster mentioned wanting to scoop up random strangers and help them... and I understand that. Because I do, too. At the height of it all, I wandered onto pro sites, forums, the works. In the beginning, the empathy wasn't there. As I hadn't experienced the full blunt of the eating disorder. Once it settled in, I found myself wanting more and more to take them all and do whatever I could to help them. Because I didn't want anyone to feel how I felt. Some people have empathy naturally. Especially for those they love. He doesn't sound angry at all, just concerned. The best you can do is talk to him.