Introductions

Let me begin with an entry I made in my diary last September:

"DH and I always battle about the heat - always have. I am always warm, and he is always cold - but whereas I know that I am warmer than average, he thinks he is normal. Like turning the thermostat up to 90*F when it is in the mid-50s outside in mid-September is normal.

I was chatting to our landlady yesterday and she wants to come and bleed the upstairs radiators at some point (which is a pita, the upstairs rooms are complete pits and now I'll need to clean them all) - then she said that because the burner is so old (this is a 90 year old house) it broke down 3 years ago and the heating guy who fixed it told her not to be turning the heat on and off a lot or have it cycle from off to really high or from really high to off. Basically she said to keep it on and just move the setting down to say 65F instead of turning it off.

I didn't say anything to DH last night as a knew he would think I was making it up and start picking at me.

But when I came down this morning the place was chilly, I readily admit that, and he said that he'd kept the heat off all night and needed it on now. I checked, and yes, he'd set it to 90F.

So I said that I'd been speaking to the landlady yesterday and she said that the burner had been broken and couldn't handle extreme temp changes. I didn't even get to finish that part when he started yelling at me. He doesn't care what she says, he's not taking my shit any more about the heat, he works hard and pays for heat and he wants his house to be warm.

Then he said that I haven't lost a single lb yet and needed to get off my ass and lose 50, 60 or 100lbs and then I'd feel the cold too.

For the last 6 weeks I've been getting up at 6am 3 days a week and working out at Curves. I work my arse off there - the staff said I work harder than anyone else who goes there. I have lost some inches, but only about 3lbs in weight - apparently this is common at the start with weight training, and also I have PCOS and don't lose weight easily. Even though my RE explained it to him directly, he still doesn't believe it and thinks it’s just an excuse.

DD1 was there and kept asking him to keep his voice down. The worst part? He's teaching them to talk to me like this. Just yesterday when I told her off for something DD1 put on a mean face and started saying, "You're fat, mummy, you're fat". And when I come back from the gym she says, "Are you getting skinny mummy, you need to be skinny."

I'm just so upset, I've been crying for over an hour now. DD1 has been so sweet - she sang and danced for me to cheer me up and asked me to go through a One Step Ahead catalog with her - which normally *would* cheer me up, LOL.

If one of his patients came in and relayed this story he'd be so empathetic and full of reassurance, I just don't know how he can go to work and be Mr. super-therapist and then come home and talk like this to me.

He knows that my parents made me miserable and insecure as a child ridiculing my appearance and telling me how fat and ugly I was (even though I wasn't overweight at that time), and that I briefly had an eating disorder. It seems that unconditional love and acceptance extends to the kids and his patients but not to me.

He'll be all sorry later and say he's just stressed at work or whatever and he is (he's been working 11-12 hours a day, 7 days a week for the last 3 weeks or so). But this stuff stays with me. He thinks I have a problem with my temper, and I agree, but he never sees the way he blows up and how it scares me. And he will never understand that this stuff that he says in anger is the stuff I hold on to, internalize, and believe, because I was taught at a young age that whatever I was, wasn't good enough. I know now that I can turn myself inside out and bend over backwards but that I'll never be good enough, ever.

When we first got married 8 years ago he never said anything about my weight - and the hilarious part is that I am only 9 lbs heavier than I was then. I let my guard down and finally felt like I could be safe. When he started on about my weight (just after DD2 was born) it was such a slap in the face. Two weeks after she was born he started giving me digs about not losing enough weight.

My body has done amazing things - it has carried, protected, grown, birthed and then nourished with milk two babies, born just a year apart. But now it is just an obese, ugly thing to be ridiculed and degraded.

*Sigh* there's nothing to be done, no real advice I'm seeking. I've made my bed, and now I have to lie in it. DH and I have been doing better generally, but it's times like this when I know that it'll never be a real marriage and a real partnership.

I remember so many times growing up when I would sit in the lap of a big teddy bear I had, and cry like my heart would break because I'd been left on my own again and no one loved or understood me. I so wish I could go back and hug that little girl and tell her how special and lovable she was. No one protected or stood up for that little girl then, and I feel like I owe it to her now. There are times when I feel like I should just sacrifice myself for DH and the kids - just let go of everything I wanted to do or be because it's just one little life, it's not so important on the grand scale of things.

But that little girl won't let me - I can just see her face crumple if I let her down now like so many did back then. She had so much potential, she wanted to succeed so badly. She fought so hard for everything - to get out of that dysfunction, to get an education (mum wanted me taken out of school at 16), even just for her existence (I was born at 28 weeks gestation and the doctors said I wouldn't survive). I'm all she has. So I'll keep on keeping on."




That was from last September - now it is mid-May and almost the same thing happened last night. It never changes or gets any better. I stopped going to Curves last November when I developed foot problems and the kids weren't sleeping through (even though I was going earlier and earlier to try to be back before they woke).

For the past 6 weeks I have been on the recumbent bike cycling 12 miles a day. I log everything I eat and drink and make sure that I always burn at least 1000 more calories than I eat in a day. According to the software I should be losing 2lbs a week, but I haven't lost an ounce.

He spent 20 minutes demeaning me and ridiculing my efforts and health problems last night.

I wish I could just disappear.