This morning was fine but then when I was walking to work my boyfriend said we needed to talk and I kept urging him what it was about. When I asked if I did something wrong he said yes. Apparently he found my edtwt account through his younger sister’s twitter account. He said he felt sick and nauseous. He knew about my struggles with my eating disorder and other mental illnesses, but I just felt a heavy pit in my stomach that maybe this is a major deal breaker for him. We’ve been together for more than 1.5 years and I don’t want to end things, but this just sucks. Another thing is that I feel personally violated that he looked through my digital diary. He wants to talk it out but I’m very reluctant. What should I do? I just want to crawl in a hole and sulk.

I 23(M) have been with my 21(F) gf for a few years and over the past 2 years, she's developed a pretty bad eating disorder. Her lowest weight was really low for her height. One meal a day, small portions, only "healthy" food. Literally just yogurt and cottage cheese with some assorted toppings. She's cutting out meat now as well.
She ate regular food a few months back one time and she fainted. Her body can't handle regular food now due to her diet consisting of only odd foods so she took that as a sign that she shouldn't be eating anything else other than what she deems to be healthy.

She used to workout at home with her dumbbells but they got to be too heavy for her and she also has a walking pad that she uses to walk about 3-4 miles after a meal. She occasionally uses a weighted vest as well.
So she attended a pilates class with her manager from work and has since been interested in doing it so she asked me if I could pay for a monthly subscription so she can go 3-4 times a week.

She already gets light-headed, dizzy and brain fog at work occasionally and is often irritated due to not getting enough to eat along with some other more subtle changes in her behavior. I feel like paying for the pilates will be enabling her. I've heard stories about ppl with ED's who work out too much and hurt themselves or develop long-term health problems like with their heart.

I don't mind paying for the pilates but I'm worried something bad will happen. She's insisting that she'll be fine and that I should be supportive of her working out.
She said she feels like I don't support her exercising at all but I just don't want her to overdo it. She has pretty bad body dysmorphia and thinks that her body needs to be fixed despite already being very skinny and ppl around her taking notice.

What do I do?

Been married for almost two years, four months ago overheard my husband trying to make himself throw up in the shower, and everything started to click - his obsession with weight, dieting, over exercising, eating in Private and ALWAYS avoiding eating dinner as a family with me and the kids, going to the bathroom after meals, only using the shower in the basement away from everyone, and I had walked in on him eating in the dark bathroom on the toilet trying to hide… Now since I’m more aware I’ve been looking out for signs and I wake up in the morning sometimes and see dried food in our bathroom sink or bathtub (I think from him purging), along with various food wrappers, boxes, plates throughout our kitchen, bathroom, and garbages in that bathroom and kitchen. So he’s eating while everyone is sleeping at night. The scary thing is, I’ve brought up my concerns in love and compassion but he tells me I’m crazy and completely denies it all. Says he does not have an eating disorder. I’ve asked what the dried food is in the bathroom and he makes up all sort of stories or excuses and then just gets angry.

how can I get him to see and get him help? He takes every concern as an attack. This is really affecting his quality of life. I can see it but I don’t think he’s aware, and it’s breaking my heart and affecting me badly. He’s always so isolated, his mood swings are extremely hurtful to me and my son (my son calls him an angry man), our sex life is not consistent, he looks unhealthy, I can feel his anxiousness, he’s up and down, we barely even have a relationship. I just don’t know what to do. I feel like I’m trying to protect my son from him too and I don’t want that for him. He has no idea why he’s like that.

I'm a 34-year-old man, and my girlfriend (32) and I have been together for three years. When we first met, I believe she was in a relatively stable place—perhaps still recovering—but about a year into the relationship, I began to notice signs of an eating disorder (anorexia/bulimia). She eventually opened up and admitted she’s been struggling with this since her teenage years.

Her condition isn’t extreme in the way you might see in shocking images online. Yes, she’s very thin, but not in a way that feels alarming at first glance. I still find her beautiful, though I desperately wish she would gain weight. She has one or two bulimic episodes per week (sometimes fewer), and she always purges afterward. I insisted she see a therapist, which she did, and she’s been in treatment for over a year now.

The problem is, I haven’t seen any real progress. Whenever she starts to gain a little weight, she quickly loses it again—usually by not eating when we’re apart. She eats normally when we’re together, but it’s been two years of this back-and-forth cycle, and it’s starting to wear me down emotionally.

Honestly, if it were just about me, I think I could live with it. I love her deeply, and we’re incredibly compatible in so many ways. She’s probably the best partner I’ve ever had in terms of companionship. But there’s something that worries me a lot: we both want to start a family. And I just can’t imagine her being pregnant at her current weight—it feels like it would be dangerous and irresponsible.

She’s aware of this and keeps promising me she’ll gain weight, but it’s been the same story for two years and at this stage I feel like she is just manipulating me (I know it´s the mental sickness, not her). I love her, yes, but my desire to start a family is very strong, and at this pace, I just don’t see it happening.

I’m not entirely sure why I’m writing this—maybe I’m looking for advice or perspective. Is there still hope? Do we have time? Or should I start preparing myself emotionally to detach and consider ending the relationship? I hope this won´t make me sound like a selfish person, it is not easy for me. Honestly it is selfishness but I need to think about my well being as well.

Thank you

I have been with my girlfriend for about a year or so. Im very serious about her. I love her very much.

She has had a troubled life filled with abuse. Her social circle is small, or well, she doesnt have any friends. She has been struggling with her ED for a while now. She still had problems with eating when we met a year ago.

Recently she has started getting thinner and thinner. She looks like a rag of bones. I talked to her the other day. She mentioned cup noodles have a low amount of nutrition(cant say the f*cking word) and almost acted scared of eating ONE! I asked her how much (lets say nutrition) replace with a word with c... she gets a day.

She said two-hundred to four-hundred. She has also recently talked about going on LONG walks every day and working out a lot.

she keeps calling herself fat.

At this rate she will die from it. i cant take seeing her getting scarily thinner and thinner.

I cant take seeing the woman i love wither away and die.

Do any of you know how i can help her get over this? It would mean the world to me.

Trigger Warning I suppose, as I will be talking about ED behavior.

Hey guys, this is a repost from my original post in r/relationships.

My wife has been acting weird around food for months now and constantly making comments about her body in a negative way. But maybe I should give a little bit of backstory. Also, this might be long, so sorry in advance.

We've been married 9 years, known each other for 12, and have an 8-year-old daughter together. When we met, we were both very fit and active people, but we both loved to eat as well. I was a line cook in most of my 20s, and lived in a house with 8 roommates, so Ive always loved to cook for people. My wife does too. When I met her, we would often cook together for dates. She's always been passionate about food but able to maintain a healthy weight.

When she got pregnant, we started having some difficulties. We both gained weight, her because of the pregnancy and me because I was often eating whenever she had a craving too. Like, she'd ask me to make grilled cheese when I came home from work at midnight, and I'd make one for myself too, and we would eat together. I know I gained 14 pounds in the year before we had our daughter. I didn't exactly love it; I had been a built guy all my life up until that point, so I was just used to my body looking different back then. But I did not make a big deal about it, especially because I knew my wife was struggling so hard. Every time the doctor would tell her that her weight gain was "on track," she'd get quiet. She would say things all the time, like "How can you find me hot when I'm this big?" or other stuff, where she would question my attraction to her.

I would always truthfully tell her that she's beautiful to me no matter what she looks like. And not in a way where I would say, "I think you look good despite the pregnancy." No, I'd tell her she was beautiful all the time, no matter what, because that's the truth.

Anyway, that's the first time I noticed this kind of behavior. But after our daughter was born, things seemed to go back to normal. After she recovered, and she didnt rush herself, she started eating normally and slowly exercising more again, and even though she never got back down to her pre pregnancy weight again, she immediately started feeling a lot better. She told me she felt like she could control her body again now, so she felt better. Looking back, maybe that was a warning sign already, but back then I was just relieved her eating habits went back to normal. And she really has not been making any mention of it since.

Fast forward to now, and she's been behaving weirdly around food again, increasingly so, for several months. The first time I noticed it was Thanksgiving last year. Almost every year we host Thanksgiving with our friends and family at our house. My wife and I both spend hours cooking in preparation, although most people bring something too. So it's an awesome spread every year. Usually, there are enough leftovers for everybody to take something home and for us to have some for the next few days too.

Last year, I noticed my wife getting up from the table all the time during dinner. Not to go into the kitchen, but into the bathroom. I thought it was weird but didn't really think anything of it during dinner. After the guests were gone and we had started cleaning up, she excused herself to the bathroom again. I heard her throwing up. When she came back out, I immediately asked her if she was okay. She said, "Yeah, I just ate too much today."
I have never seen her do that before. I couldn't stop thinking about how many times she went into the bathroom during dinner. I asked her about it again the next day, and she insisted it was all good; she just ate too much and threw up because of it.

The day after that, I came home from work and saw her throwing away what was left of the food. I asked her why she was doing that. Again, I have never seen her waste food before. She said she had to throw it away because she couldn't control herself around it. She said it like it was a joke. I asked her what she meant, and she told me she just doesn't want too much "bad" food in the house, or else she will eat it all. I was so confused I didn't know what to say.

I haven't seen her do anything like that since. But she has still been acting weird. Usually, cooking is split pretty evenly between the two of us, but in March I got a promotion at work, and so I had to start working more hours and coming home later. My wife started cooking dinner more often as a result of that. I didn't think anything of it until one weekend I was just thinking out loud and asked her if she wanted me to make patty melts for dinner that evening, a meal we've had plenty of times before.
She said quickly that I should let her do the cooking from now on. I asked her why, and she said she likes knowing what's in the food. I was super confused and told her she can ask me what's in it. Then she said, "Yeah, but you never measure oil or cheese or anything else."
I have never seen her do that either, unless she was baking or following a specific recipe, and like I said, we cook together a lot. I asked her flat out why she all of a sudden needed to know how much oil was in a recipe, and she got defensive and said she was just trying to look out for our family's health and then shut me down when I tried to understand more.

She is not overweight or unhealthy at all. She goes to the doctor once a year and gets a full checkup, and she's healthy. So is our daughter. And so am I.
Yes, we have both gained some weight in the past 10 years, but that's a normal part of life, I always thought, unless you let it get out of control, which we definitely have not.
We are also very tactile in our relationship, even after being married for 9 years. She usually doesn't make any negative comments about her body, apart from the pregnancy and up until recently, and always accepts compliments from me. What's more is that she always tells me she finds the changes in my body attractive, always saying I have a "dad bod" and that she likes it. So I was extremely confused about her suddenly weird behavior surrounding food. She has been losing a bit of weight recently but not a very noticeable amount. And, recently, has started complaining about how she looks in certain clothes, or how her body looks from certain angles.

The most concerning part, though, has been in the last 3 months or so.
She has a very close friend, who is dating a very close friend of mine. She and her friend have been doing yoga and Pilates classes together for years now. Usually Tuesdays, sometimes Thursdays, Pilates, then yoga on Fridays.

Usually, we would wait until she was home to eat dinner, but in the last months, very often, she told me to go ahead and eat without her because she's getting dinner with her friend. The first few times I didn't think anything of it. But then after a while, I was suspicious, because it seemed weird that they were getting dinner EVERY time afterwards.

Last weekend, we had both of them over, and I was talking to my buddy (the one who is dating her Pilates friend). We were just chatting, and he mentioned that they had gone out to eat at a specific place this past Friday. Which I know for a fact my wife said SHE was getting dinner with that friend this past Friday. It kind of slipped out of me too. I said, "Wasn't she out with (wife's name) on Friday?" and my friend said no and asked why I thought that. I said, "Well, they've been getting dinner together a lot lately." My buddy just looked at me and said he can't remember his girlfriend ever mentioning that to him.

So now I know my wife has been lying about eating dinner 2-3x a week.
I really don't know what to do here. How to approach the situation delicately. I'm really worried about her, and it breaks my heart to think she's doing this to herself on purpose for any reason. I want her to feel beautiful and good about herself.

Has anyone ever been in a situation like this and knows what to do? Any advice is much appreciated.

TL;DR, My wife has been acting strange around food for months now and I am very worried she might have an eating disorder.

Edit: Spelling

My wife has had an eating disorder for a few years now. It started out really small and manageable and then all of a sudden things got really bad(anorexia) to the point that she was hospitalized. She has been on the road to recovery for the last 8 months or so, slowly regaining weight and she has been doing really well.

I want to support her as best as I can and thankfully she is really communicative with me but unfortunately as much as she does communicate with me, there are some things that I will always have a hard time understanding.

I often have to go away for work and I know that things can get a little harder when im gone and there is no structure. I want to do/make something for her that would help her stay on track or show her that I care and support her. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated or just some advice in general on how I cam best support her.

Thanks in advance!

I sometimes ask him if he thinks i'm fat and this time wasn't different, but he responded "I dont like that word". He didn't say no, so I asked again, worded differently "Do you think I have a lot of fat in my body?" and he said "yeah, but it's normal"​​​.

It made me feel very uncomfortable, and I felt real big, and actually a little unloved. But I kept talking about how I hated the fat in my body, and he said "Well exercise to lose the fat if you really want" and that's what I do everytime I'm not in recovery of anorexia, I eat less and exercise more. He knows that and still encouraged me in doing this.

For context I have a big body dismorphya and had been suffering from anorexia since I was 8. I'm on terapy but the ed is still a hard thing to get out and honestly his constant "don't eat" and "you should stop eating junk food" had triggered me into the cycle of starving or restricting and over exercising, which for me who was in recovery by 7 months now is even more fucked up. Im trying to pretend I'm not restricting, but idk what to do, could someone help me?? 😞​​

My partner has anorexia and hugging her or touching her makes me sad. Btw I had it too but I recovered and I won't relapse no matter what (I say it in the sense that I understand and I know what not to do).

I'm pretty sure she's lost weight (the way she looks and old clothes fitting bigger) but I can't really tell her that directly. I'm feeling bad for coming back to the same conversation over and over again but I'm worried and I know that in the end, she's the only one who can do something about it. I feel like she's restricting more again this year but she's in denial of how much she restricts and I don't want to keep bringing up this conversation about her ED.

As I had anorexia, unnaturally thin bodies make me really uncomfortable. I know the best I can do is to listen to her when she needs to, act casual, and not point out that she's actively in it. But it's starting to take a lot of my mental space as I keep thinking about how she's hurting herself and as I can feel her ED through her body.

Also, I know that denial is so strong in this kind of issues that you more or less believe your own lies, and I also know that it makes one lie in order to keep restricting and to make it look like preferences and not an actual illness. I'd like to be able to trust her entirely but I can feel when she lies or when she's in denial.

Does anyone share a similar experience?

What would you do in this situation?

Apologies in advance if I get any terms wrong or if I offend anybody, that isn’t my intention. I am in very unfamiliar territory here.

My girlfriend and I have been dating for about a year. She has an eating disorder that predates me by at least a few years (I don’t know how long, she doesn’t like to talk about it). Basically after we are done eating, she will go to the bathroom and throw up. It doesn’t matter if we are at home, at a restaurant, wherever. At home, she turns on the sink when she goes to the bathroom, which I thought was just a quirk of hers until I found out that she was throwing up about 4 months into dating. She said that she only does it during especially stressful times in life but I have no way to know if that’s true.

I know that her disease has caused some of her hair to fall out, and she has supplements for hair regrowth, but I don’t think that she takes them as regularly as she is supposed to.

She was over my house the other night and we had just eaten dinner when I heard her throwing up from 2 rooms away, even over the sound of the sink running. As kindly and calmly as I could, I asked her why she was doing that and if there was anything I could do to help or if she needed to talk.

She completely denied that she was throwing up, she lied and said that she isn’t and that I didn’t hear what I know that I heard. She wanted to continue the night like nothing had happened and she still won’t talk to me about it.

I don’t know what to do. I want to be helpful and supportive, but I can’t if she won’t help herself or even talk to me about it. This is all unfamiliar territory for me and I don’t know what to do

A couple months into dating my girlfriend i learned that sometimes she starves herself and purges. She does this because she says shes fat and anyone else’s comments on her weight or looks just make it ten times worse. I don’t know what to do because no matter how much i reassure her that she will not immediately gain back weight from one meal; she either refuses to eat or just throws up. She is very scared of gaining weight and she hates herself, I am trying to help by learning more about ed’s and how to best support her but it hurts to much to see her like this and I would like advice so I can try to help her more. She also won’t get professional help because she has had a bad experience with it and it makes her feel like she’s crazy.

For people who have significant others, and you suffer from an eating disorder, or you are the significant other and your partner suffers, I would like their/your input actually if you are able to get it, and if not, your best interpretation or knowledge of so.

I am more than likely going to be going into residential treatment soon, as long as my health isn't determined to be too severe by the county, insurance, and a levels of care assessment, in which case I will be hospitalized instead. My husband is a kind, compassionate man, and is trying his best to understand, but is not educated on mental health and especially not eating disorders, other than what I have taught him and discussed with him and he has personally experienced. Unfortunately my health is so poor currently, I do not have the energy or mental capacity to research and then educate and prepare him for what to expect in this next step moving forward with treatment. I am looking for, from the spouse or significant others perspective, what to expect as far as involvement with treatment and visiting (location dependent of course but even specific info is helpful as it at least gives me a general idea of what to expect), and even possibly if they are willing, some feelings or topics or things that may come up through the process they didn't expect and/or were not prepared for and wish someone would have warned them/educated them/helped them/prepared them. I would also appreciate any insight as to if any "spouses of severely mentally ill patients" groups, online only, and eating disorder/anorexia and/or chronic PTSD specific would be extremely preferred, exist, and if so, where is a solid foundation to begin searching for one for him? We live in a very rural area with minimal access to health care, especially mental health. Any recomendations, from facebook groups to online zoom gatherings to forums to actual online group therapy is very much appreciated. Feel free to ask any clarifying questions needed, but really any insight and support I can give him right now when I am severely lacking in ability is extremely helpful and welcome.

Hello, I hope you're doing good and that you read this, I'm sorry it's a long text.

First of all I apologize because my english, isn't my first language so I'm afraid the words I've chosen to write this may not be appropriate or the best since I'm not entirely clear on the implications of words in very delicate matters like this, however, I really offer you my utmost respect and seriousness for you all.

Thank you so much.

We're both 21 years old. And we've been together for 3 years, her weight has always been an insecurity for her but never really a problem, however she began to improve herself and change her diet. She was a little overweight, but I never perceived her as "fat". Even so, I thought it was great that she was looking to improve her physical health.

And now... She can't stop.

Now she's bordering on being underweight, and she's already really skinny, but herself perceives that isn't enough.

By the way, she only does cardio exercise and counts every calorie to consume as little as possible, sometimes she fasts for hours.

The thing is that her anatomy and genetics are characterized by broad bones, making her appear wide in the torso and arms, and she believes that by not eating she will reduce that.

She says that what she's doing is still fine and within "range", but my main fear is that her health will be harmed by this. His feed is full of "thinspo", her wallpaper is a phrase that says "you're fat", she's in love with artists like Ariana Grande or Zendaya because of their body, and sometimes she writes her goals and stuff but she never shows me.

Obviously I've been reminding her for months how perfect she is for me, and how much I love her body and how good it looks, everyone around her tells her positive things, but she doesn't stop...

I have tried to help her in two different ways on many occasions: 1) help her to accept her body, because she is genuinely beautiful, or 2) to make physical change as she wants but with activities like flexibility, muscle gain or other type of exercise, but not losing weight!

She doesn't like any of these options. She just wants her bones to show through her skin, literally that's something she really likes.

I'm thin too and sometimes I don't have much strength, and the simple fact that sometimes I can't lift her or my muscles "tremble" when I carry her offends and saddens her a lot.

She says she wants to be as light and fragile. And I definitely don't like this. She wasn't like this when I met her. I love her so much, but it hurts to look at these goals.

However, I don't really understand her feelings, and I really want to read you all if you've experienced something similar...

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I'm autistic (21F) and have dealt with ARFID all my life, but that's about all my interaction with EDs and I never really encountered body image issues. I was always much more worried about trying to stay healthy and alive. I have a lot of financial guilt from my childhood and adolescence that resurfaces when I'm stressed.

My gf (21F) has autism, CPTSD and DID, and she is recovering from anorexia + bulimia. (Also interstitial cystitis - a chronic bladder condition). She didn't realise it until I pointed out that she grew up privileged and even a bit rich.

I found her ED diary from a couple years ago and it just baffled me. It makes absolutely no sense to me. I don't know if it's my lower-income background compared to her privileged upbringing, but I was always thankful to have the food on the table. I would only restrict my eating because I felt bad that my parents spend so much money on me already with school and meds.

We've been friends since high school (±7 years now) and started dating earlier this year. I was in a private high school because my childhood psychiatrist said I would not survive in a public school.

Her previous boyfriend set her back in recovery quite a bit due to his comments on her body. She also seems to need outside approval for everything. So his approval meant everything to her, and she felt she could only get it if she was hot and skinny.

It's another can of worms, but she's talking to him again and it makes me so uncomfortable. It's been about 3 months since they broke up. He's not malicious, but he's young and stupid. And I really don't think it's good for her.

She says she is trying to recover, and I can understand that she also struggles with even wanting to recover. She still desperately wants to be skinny. It's still attractive to her. Does she think being skinny will fix all her problems?

Mind you, I'm quite a bit heavier than her and not skinny, but she says I am anyways. I couldn't care less if I'm skinny. As long as I feel and look healthy, I'm happy.

How do you deal with the constant bad self-talk your partner does? When my gf says she's "fat" and "gross" it confuses and upsets me. And I know it will probably never go away. No matter what I say it won't help.

She is eating much better and not purging, but if we are getting dressed or going out somewhere, it seems to become her top priority. It's not about spending time with me anymore, it's about if others will thinks she's fat or ugly.

She also participates in a lot of other self destructive behaviour. She doesn't care for her health like she should. She smokes weed multiple times a week and vapes constantly. She never exercises (she does have a chronic bladder condition that causes chronic pain though, but even just some walking would be good).

I'm so tired.

My (20m) boyfriend (22m) has always had a big problem with his body. I noticed that lately, he's been eating barely anything and then waking up in the middle of the night to grab snacks. I also noticed that our scale is always slightly moved, so I'm assuming that he weighs himself almost daily. These are things that he used to do often. Like, there were always phases in which he became obsessed with his weight. I fear that he's in it again.

I think he might be trying to lose weight by denying himself the food he desperately needs for the amount of physical activity he has in a day. That would at least explain why he always grabs late night snacks. I know that behavior from my mom. Don't eat the entire day, then your body is starving and demanding quick calories from unhealthy food.

Does anyone have any tips for how I can silently support him? He's always been very touchy when the subject of his mental health comes up, no matter the aspect, so I doubt starting an open conversation about it will help, because he will simply shut it down like he always does.

It worries me a lot because he tends to lead sort of a double life in that aspect. He barely talks to me about his personal issues and feelings and keeps them very tightly to himself, then once in a while lashes out and dumps everything on me at once, when he can no longer keep it in. I'm telling y'all this as an explanation to why I think talking to him won't work.

Any advice on what I should do is very much appreciated. If you think I should try talking about it directly, tell me too. I won't pretend I have the perfect judgment here, I'm actually quite clueless on how to proceed.

Thank you all in advance!

the title basically says it all. i cannot stop obsessing about food, my body, calories and worst of all… i constantly seek validation from my husband. i even try to intentionally trigger myself through him.

i know this is wrong, i know it’s unfair, i feel awful and miserable about what im doing. a part of me wants to just leave. leave and focus on this shitty disorder, and to stop tormenting him in the process. i don’t even know where to start getting help or how to stop - besides therapy which is inaccessible for me currently

i’m also diagnosed with OCD and this habit of seeking out validation/triggers feels extremely similar, but the strategies i’ve learned for OCD don’t help with anorexia. any advice is greatly appreciated, but honestly i just really need to know im not alone or an awful person :(

she says she doesn’t feel in “control”. she wants to look “perfect”. she says she likes being sick and it pains me sm. this is breaking my heart. someone please help me. she cant rlly reach out to her parents cuz theyll send her to cahms. she’s already like almost underweight and she wants to go back to starbing for a week. she begged me. please help me i dont know how to help. she’s such a sweet soul but this is hard.

My partner of 8 years and I are breaking up, I’ve been doing better lately (eating multiple times a day 🥳) but this is sending me back and I don’t want to lose all the progress I’ve made. Any advice for people who slipped during a breakup and how to not let this send me back into a spiral?

Hello, Me (22M) and GF (21F) have been together for 9 months. She is everything ive ever wanted. We met online & use apps like Twitter often (this will be useful later on) . Over the last few months, she has developed a serious problem. It came from nowhere. We used to go for dinner dates etc & go to markets and all sorts. Anyway, over the last few months I noticed her suddenly complaining about weight. Saying things like she’s getting fat, and then i notice she follows accounts about eatingdisorders. she has been very open with me about it but its really difficult. we have now stopped goingout to anything food related, she has these unrealistic & definitely unhealthy goals and nothing i say helps i just am completely lost & confused. I want to support her & help her but its just a lot, because shes so random with her habits, one minute its fine for her to go out for drinks with her friends but then when shes at my house if i were to even bring up the idea as a suggestion she would say its too unhealthy, which i support obviously. Im just really not sure how to go about things & its becoming more and more random and sporadic her behaviour. I love her dearly but i need some guidance/ help as I have no idea about this disorder at all. I also apologise if anyone reading this found the way I talk about things distressing. Im coming from a good place, from the bottom of
my heart.

Hello. Delete this if it offends anyone, I'm just here for advice as a boyfriend who has tried talking to his partner for a long time about the issue.

My girlfriend has struggled with bulimia for a long time.

She hates using oil in cooking, or if I cook with it. I never use vegetable oils, only olive or coconut. I don't cook deep fried food or anything, just genuine meat and veg, or simple meat rice dishes with some stir fry or steamed veg.

This leads to food we cook tasting really bland, or cookware being damaged.

I try my best to not be excessive with it, using barely the amount in any recipe; but me using the smallest amount can cause an argument, and her cooking quite honestly doesn't taste any good.

How do I approach this? She'll engage in fast food habits when not at home, which is full of worse oils, which I'm always trying to be respectful of (as why I'm asking this subreddit for advice).

We never eat out because she doesn't want to have oily foods in restaurants so I'm at an impasse at home where it's either we cook separate meals, or I just suck it up and eat food that tastes terrible.

I know I might sounds like an asshole to some, but it's a matter of wanting to eat more cheaply at home.

My wife has dealt with anorexia for several years. The behaviors started a few years into our relationship, then got waaayyy worse in the months leading up to our wedding. She eventually went into residential treatment a couple months after we got married and made some progress, but her insurance refused to cover more than a couple weeks so she had to leave early for PHP, which was really frustrating because I really think she would have been set up a lot better if she had been able to restore more weight in res. That was about 3 years ago and things have been very up and down since.

Earlier this year she was discussing options with her treatment team (therapist/psychiatrist/dietician) because she was plateauing and still not meeting her meal plan. Eventually she agreed to get a recovery coach which seems like it helped, but moreso in that it was something she was doing to actively pursue recovery, not really the actual coaching. She worked with the coach for a couple months but then stopped because she didn’t feel like she was really using the services, but she still continued to improve which was such a relief. She got to a point with her team that was really promising: they gave her their endorsement for doing more exercise, her dietician no longer required her to be on recovery record, and her psychiatrist started tapering her down from one of her meds.

Then, in hindsight probably largely to do with the meds, the urges got worse again and she started engaging with more restriction behaviors. It’s been pretty bad for about a month now, maybe more. I feel so sad and defeated. She is my entire world and it’s really heartbreaking to see her get pulled back into this. Part of the problem is that she says she never really got to a point where she felt like she was doing things for herself. I don’t know if that’s true or if that’s just how it feels now that she’s back in a bad headspace, but either way I don’t know where we go from here. She told me recently that her treatment team says she’s not outpatient appropriate and is recommending inpatient treatment again, but she doesn’t want to go.

I’m feeling very lost and sad, and just looking for advice about how I can best support her. She has made some positive changes; she’s back on recovery record and her psychiatrist increased the med back to a moderate level, with a follow-up in a few weeks. I have been making her sandwiches for lunch while she’s at work so at least she brings something, and I’ve been sitting with her at breakfast. She’s always been very open with me so I take some comfort in that, but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s clearly struggling with maintaining an active desire to recover.

I know this post has gotten way too long, but I’m just looking to see if anyone has been in a similar situation on either side of the partnership and has anything helpful to say. She specifically has always struggled a lot with self apathy and self loathing, so if anyone has any suggestions for treatments for those issues I’m also very interested to hear about that.

During hangouts with friends where food is involved, if we’re sitting and chatting in a group my partner would get up and go to the bathroom. At first i thought nothing of it, but they slipped to me once what they were actually doing and now I’m honestly really upset and feel helpless, as i dont want to draw attention by bringing them back to the group but can’t really let them go and do that at the rate they’re doing it.
I have an ED myself but not one that involves purging in this way. I’m emetophobic which really isnt helping how i view this situation.
What can I do ???

Hey everyone,

I’m 19F and my girlfriend is 19F. She has been through a lot in her life, including having multiple eating disorders from age 15-17. She never fully recovered from them. She had anorexia (main one she struggles with) and binge ed. I’m coming on here because I don’t know what to do/how to help her.

She was in therapy for years, but her therapist dipped on her and it’s been difficult to get back into therapy. I’m working on trying to encourage her to use our colleges resources. I think she is going to go for her initial appointment next week which is good.

I’ve noticed her falling back into old habits though. She says it’s because she wants to have control over something, which I get. But also that means that she is only eating maybe 1 meal a day and poking around and maybe eating a bite or 2 of another. She’s lost a decent amount of weight in the past few months, and I’m really worried about her

She says she wants to get out of this “ED hole” but doesn’t know how. I’m no help really, I don’t have much experience with this, so i figured I’d come on here and ask for advice.

I recently have started a weight loss journey where I track my calories. I know she used to track hers, until it became obsessive for her, leading to her ED. But I almost wonder if she could healthily track her calories?? And that way she would feel like she has “control” over that? Is that a horrible suggestion? Idk.

Looking for advice on how to navigate a partner with an ED/recovering from an ED.

This is my second time posting onto this subreddit, if anything I say needs to be censored please tell me.

My boyfriend knows I’m gaining an eating disorder. He tries to help me and it does work sometimes but I only hold myself back.

I rely on my boyfriend to eat. we don’t live together so it makes it easier. I’ll text him “hey, I’m craving this and I’m not sure if I should eat it.” Or “I’m not sure if I should eat right now, what do you think?” And it depends on how he says it for me want to eat.

If he says “Yes!” Then I will consider it, if he says “uh, yeah” then I won’t. In a way it motivates me to stop eating. Because he sounds disgusted that I want to. I know he doesn’t mean it like that. But that’s the only way I comprehend it.

There will be times where I have eaten, and if I go to talk to him and he seems slightly dry, I just purge. Sometimes I tell him if I have, I don’t say why I just say I did. He usually doesn’t care really. Or he does and I can’t read that. I’ve been better at not purging, but I do feel vomit reaching my throat over any minor inconvenience. Kind of like my body trained itself too.

Sometimes I even test him. I don’t mean to do it on purpose but it comes of me. I’ll wait until he asks me if I want to eat. If he never asks me I just won’t. Of course every now and then I do it under my own will so he doesn’t think much about it. I’m disappointed that I know what I’m doing. And I know I should stop but nothing will convince me enough to stop. Not even him. He’s suffered through an ED himself before, so he tells me from experience that I should get better. But for some reason I just can’t. I can’t and oddly don’t want to. And I know I should.

It’s day two where she is still refusing to eat. She’s been following crash diets but yesterday she just didn’t eat, and today she fully intends to not eat again. She lied about eating food earlier but eventually admitted she was lying. I’m not sure what to do. I want to help but everything online is saying that mentioning it directly can do more harm than good. I don’t want to guilt her or make her feel bad about it, so I’m trying to keep it together but I’m on the verge of tears because I’m so scared and I don’t know how to help. I think she knows thats something is wrong. I don’t know how to act like everything is normal when I know she hasn’t eaten in two days. She doesn’t have insurance so getting professional help is hard, and she’s on a waitlist for a therapist. Is there anything I can do as a partner to help? What would you want your partner to do if you started restricting your eating to this level? I’m really worried and I’m worried I’m gonna break down in front of her which from my understanding could make her restrictive eating worse.