Husband Deception and Food Addiction

[EasterJoy]

I’m going to be really blunt here: You did not make a good choice in a spouse. Did your parents support this union, or did they see things more clearly and warn you?

The good should not have to outweigh the bad when discerning if someone is an appropriate spouse. There should not be ANY bad. Sure, we all have little personality quirks and annoying habits. But there is a HUGE difference between overlooking small, insignificant flaws and attempting to overlook a major character defect. Your husband has a major character defect.

You married a liar. A compulsive liar. I’m sorry you are stuck in this situation. I would split and seek an annulment, and thank the Good Lord that you don’t have any children to get caught in the middle.

To be an addict is not the same as being a sociopath or a psychopath.

Persons who previously had good characters will typically become liars when they develop an addiction. When the addiction is treated–I mean not only that they have stopped “using” but have also faced the damage they’ve done and the also the reason they self-medicated with an addiction in the first place–they can become trustworthy again. I have seen people who both stopped using and faced up to the factors that lead to their addiction “become themselves” again.

If I were married to an addict who denied that he had a problem or refused to seek treatment, I’d get a separation with the bond remaining. That is an insane life, and you cannot have peace when a person gives themselves over to slavery. Mind you, though, separation with the bond remaining does not mean I’d presume the marriage had never been valid. We don’t have to have “perfect mental health” (whatever that is) in order to give valid consent for marriage.

If I were married to an addict who was making what I believed was a good-faith effort to amend and stay clean and sober, though, I’d stick it out. I think that falls under “for better or worse.” What constitutes “a good-faith effort,” though, that is something the victim of the addict’s lies is free to decide. If this OP were to decide her husband was not making a true effort, I would not blame her for refusing to tolerate that. She ought to give the matter careful discernment, but in the end it is her call.

 

[Samanthajr]

I’m going to be really blunt here: You did not make a good choice in a spouse. Did your parents support this union, or did they see things more clearly and warn you?

The good should not have to outweigh the bad when discerning if someone is an appropriate spouse. There should not be ANY bad. Sure, we all have little personality quirks and annoying habits. But there is a HUGE difference between overlooking small, insignificant flaws and attempting to overlook a major character defect. Your husband has a major character defect.

You married a liar. A compulsive liar. I’m sorry you are stuck in this situation. I would split and seek an annulment, and thank the Good Lord that you don’t have any children to get caught in the middle.

Avocadomom,

You offer an interesting perspective, but being equally blunt, I’m not sure how constructive it was to say at this point. As others have pointed out, I had already stated myself that I went against my better judgement in many ways.

Perhaps I did make a poor choice in spouse, particularly from a practical standpoint. Regarding my parents, yes, they did support the union… partially because they didn’t know the extent of his problems, and also because as I said, he’s a very likable person on the outside and I seemed happy (yes, for a long time I coped well). Also, I do have a child, and would certainly never wish away my child or be thankful that my child didn’t exist. I understand what you meant by that, but seeing as I had already mentioned in one of my posts that I had a child, it was irrelevant anyway.

Here is the thing… I realize that I made a lot of mistakes, and they were largely a result of immaturity. Meeting young has its benefits and its serious pitfalls, and I was also loyal to a fault. I admit that freely. I was naive, I ignored obvious signs, I followed my heart and not my head in a huge way.

But this is where we stand… this is not the past. I don’t want to rehash what I should have done, because I already have an idea of that. I just want to move forward with all of the circumstances in consideration in the best way that I can. It could be that that ultimately means separation, I can’t say for certain because his recovery is up to him, but at this point in time I am interested in if or what I can do personally for the sake of my marriage, myself, and my troubled husband that I still do love.

Perhaps my husband has a major character defect. Believe me, these are thoughts I consider myself, and very seriously. It’s a terrible thing trying to discern if one has made a mistake in marrying someone. I’m just not sure that his defect makes him unsalvageable, as I get the impression that you are saying. I know it’s very difficult to make any sort of assessment online, as it’s just bits and pieces of a very complicated story, and I truly do appreciate gut reactions to the facts that I’ve put out there, because I know that I would feel very similarly. However, it’s just not really what I meant for help with when I posed my initial questions.

Maybe I’m still naive, but I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t believe that my husband is worthy of love. There are a lot of personal factors relating to his life growing up that went into making him the way that he was. He is quite lost. I find it difficult to believe that the best route is to abandon the situation entirely. If you feel differently, that’s fine, I understand, but right now it’s just not the direction I’m pursuing.

 

[EasterJoy]

Avocadomom,

You offer an interesting perspective, but being equally blunt, I’m not sure how constructive it was to say at this point. As others have pointed out, I had already stated myself that I went against my better judgement in many ways.

Perhaps I did make a poor choice in spouse, particularly from a practical standpoint. Regarding my parents, yes, they did support the union… partially because they didn’t know the extent of his problems, and also because as I said, he’s a very likable person on the outside and I seemed happy (yes, for a long time I coped well). Also, I do have a child, and would certainly never wish away my child or be thankful that my child didn’t exist. I understand what you meant by that, but seeing as I had already mentioned in one of my posts that I had a child, it was irrelevant anyway.

Here is the thing… I realize that I made a lot of mistakes, and they were largely a result of immaturity. Meeting young has its benefits and its serious pitfalls, and I was also loyal to a fault. I admit that freely. I was naive, I ignored obvious signs, I followed my heart and not my head in a huge way.

But this is where we stand… this is not the past. I don’t want to rehash what I should have done, because I already have an idea of that. I just want to move forward with all of the circumstances in consideration in the best way that I can. It could be that that ultimately means separation, I can’t say for certain because his recovery is up to him, but at this point in time I am interested in if or what I can do personally for the sake of my marriage, myself, and my troubled husband that I still do love.

Perhaps my husband has a major character defect. Believe me, these are thoughts I consider myself, and very seriously. It’s a terrible thing trying to discern if one has made a mistake in marrying someone. I’m just not sure that his defect makes him unsalvageable, as I get the impression that you are saying. I know it’s very difficult to make any sort of assessment online, as it’s just bits and pieces of a very complicated story, and I truly do appreciate gut reactions to the facts that I’ve put out there, because I know that I would feel very similarly. However, it’s just not really what I meant for help with when I posed my initial questions.

Maybe I’m still naive, but I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t believe that my husband is worthy of love. There are a lot of personal factors relating to his life growing up that went into making him the way that he was. He is quite lost. I find it difficult to believe that the best route is to abandon the situation entirely. If you feel differently, that’s fine, I understand, but right now it’s just not the direction I’m pursuing.

I think you are wise to be willing to seek and consider the advice of others, but then in the end follow your own mind without any need to justify yourself to anyone else, save Heaven. If you do that and then you get old and look back on your life, both the regrets and the satisfactions will fit you better. It can be very hard, but it beats all the alternatives.

 

[runningdude]

Runningdude,

I appreciate your response to my initial post, but if you read my subsequent posts you’ll see that he has been through counseling several times and already has an appointment with the physician set up.

I actually did read through your subsequent posts, but didn’t really feel the need to revise what I had wrote. The heart of my advice is to learn to accept the situation as it currently exists, and to give up any expectation (but not hope) of change.

When I was younger, I dated a women who suffered severe behavior and emotional issues. She was always on her best behavior with me, but seemed perennially at odds with her parents. I never got a straight answer from her or her parents as to what the issues were, and perhaps it wasn’t my business. But eventually it resulted in her leaving home under difficult circumstances, and though I loved her (and really always will), I concluded that I had to break up with her for my own good, and I hoped for her own, that she would get the message, and get her life in order.

I lucked out, that she did get her life in order; she is now married to a stable and gainfully employed man and has a kid on the way, but I also accepted that things may never improve for her. Actually it took years to accept that things may never change for her, even after the break up. I hoped and prayed, saw progress, saw collapse. I even eventually learned to have some empathy for her parents (who I initially blamed and had deep anger at for causing half her issues). Hers was a success story, but it was hard to learn the correct lesson that her pulling her life together was not inevitable; to empathize with those whose outcomes are not so lucky.

…
I am indeed working on separating myself from the things that I cannot control -

From my experience, this is all you can do

 

[runningdude]

Runningdude,

I appreciate your response to my initial post, but if you read my subsequent posts you’ll see that he has been through counseling several times and already has an appointment with the physician set up.

The problem is not that I get angry at his food purchases, it’s that I get angry with him doing things like secretly buying gift cards to hide what he’s doing… whether it was a food addiction or something else (and it has indeed been many other kinds of things as well over the years), it’s the deception I’m primarily referring to. The food addiction is just one part of the larger problem. As I tried to explain in my post, but perhaps was not clear on, I have tried to encourage him to be open about it - many, many times - I never told him he couldn’t use our money to buy himself food, it was a decision he made on his own due to his own internal turmoil. What you are telling me to do is unfortunately what I’ve already done many times over. I have tried to create a safe environment, but the problem goes much deeper than that because I believe his personal sense of shame is so intense.

It is easy to say not to get upset when he does lie, that would certainly be ideal. The problem with lying though is that it permeates every part of the relationship… when deception is involved it’s hard to trust anything, and reality and his lies get very confusing to navigate through, not to mention the fact that it’s apparent that he acts differently with me when he’s holding in a lie. As often as I can, I try to keep my cool and handle it in a constructive way, but unfortunately it’s not always possible to do so.

I am indeed working on separating myself from the things that I cannot control - I do believe that that’s my largest problem of all - which is what posting this and reading the responses has motivated me to do.

I am sorry that your previous efforts to get help for you husband have failed, but my advice is really the same. You have to learn to no longer expect him to change.

I don’t claim for it to be simple; when I was younger, I had to let go of a troubled girl whom I still love dearly, because I realized I could not expect her to change, and that her then current behavior was unacceptable. I hope it doesn’t come down to that with your husband, but you need to accept that things may never get better.

You need to figure out strategies to protect your children from his lying. You need to find a mantra to help you emotionally cope when he lies to your face. You need to set up a reserve of funds that he cannot touch to protect yourself financially.

You asked how you can learn to trust him again; unfortunately you cannot. He has squandered your trust, and only he can earn it back over the course of years or decades. A part of your guard must always be up, which is why I suggest building financial safeguards to help ease the emotional burden you face, by having a backup plan in case things get worse.

Sometimes you just need to let go. You can hope that letting go inspires him to change, but really this must be for yourself.