It can be tough to come out of a bad relationship and then build a new one that is healthy. For one you have that luggage, and for two sometimes you yourself are "guilty" of using past experience to ascribe intent or motivation, or to use behaviors that aren't "fair" if they've gotten you results in the past. When you add the other person's past into that - hoo boy! Sometimes things can get hard!!
T's ex was a master of using tears to get her way. Unfortunately, I am one of those people who cry easily and under a lot of circumstances (happy, sad, angry - all tears). And then you add peri-menopause and you really can get the waterworks! His reaction to tears is to get angry because he feels like he's being manipulated. My reaction to yelling is to cry or run away because it scares me. This was not a good combination and has led to frustration on both sides. Once we talked about it we were able to understand the dynamic and break the cycle. A very good thing about T is that he can talk about his feelings and he listens. That means that we can change the dynamics.
Recently I'd gotten frustrated and upset about some stuff and I was ascribing motivation - to the point that I drove to work the other day in tears. Once I had a chance, I closed my door, sat down, and wrote out my feelings in the form of a letter on a piece of paper. I then folded it up, sealed it in an envelope which I stuck in my purse, wiped my face (because of course, tears), and moved on with my day.
It was amazing how just the act of writing those feelings down was a release. And once I had a bit of emotional distance, I had a chance to ask myself if the motivations I assigned were realistic, or were they based on my ex's behavior? Not surprising, the answer was the latter. I realized that a lot of my hurt and anger was due to where I thought T was coming from, not what he was doing - that had nothing to do with me.
It's been good. We've really been able to talk openly and honestly about weight, emotional eating, and how your mind can create causation from correlation. For example: Say a loved one dies near Christmas and going forward, that is always a sad time for you because of the memories. Christmas doesn't make you sad - it's remembering the pain of losing someone that makes you sad, but the two events occurred very close together and become intertwined in your brain.
If you were behaving in a self destructive way the last time you were thin, is a part of your brain afraid that if you lose weight again you will repeat that pattern? Part of what we need to do is recognize that the two things aren't really related even if they happened at the same time. You can lose weight and not engage in negative behavior. T has some pretty negative stuff associated with losing weight and being thinner, and he needs to work on decoupling the two in his brain. He's been holding himself back, and engaging in a bit of sabotage. But by being able to talk, it's not only helped us both, it's helped our relationship.
Being healthy - caring for our bodies in a healthy way (food, exercise, sleep) and getting to a good weight is so tough because there is so much mental and emotional work involved. Almost everyone that has been significantly overweight for a long period of time has to deal with these issues - you can't "white knuckle" the rest of your life. It isn't always easy, but when you can start to unpack that luggage, the way forward is lighter and easier.
Take care.
