Dear DOCTOR Owen:

I need to lose 75 pounds. My marriage is on the rocks, my kids are unhappy, and our whole family is in upheaval. My husband and I have been fighting for over a year and are contemplating divorce. We almost never have sex anymore. I know my weight is part of the problem. He has admitted to having an affair. I accept blame for him not wanting me.

Rejected

Dear “Rejected”:

It sounds like your husband is pretty smart. Ha! He’s been running around and exposing you to potentially fatal diseases like AIDS, he’s manipulating your feelings, and now he has you ready to admit to the divorce court that this is all your fault. Ha!

Trust me, ma’am. It has nothing to do with your weight. It may have something to do with your husband’s lack of self-esteem, his choice to shirk responsibility, or the way his parents treated him as a child. Or, he may be seeking something that he cannot explain. He just may need someone (a bimbo) to listen to him; he’s found a manipulator who sees right through him. Obviously, you can’t because of all the guilt you have chosen to accept.

If I’ve heard your story once, I’ve heard it a thousand times. In most cases, the patient who comes into the office to talk with me about this kind of situation has neither yet figured out nor knows for sure whether his or her spouse is cheating. While it may be obviously true to me a couple of minutes into the interview, the patient hasn’t a clue. When I ask people in such situations if they think an affair is under way, they look amazed and say, “How could you think that?” Moreover, these patients “accept” blame. (Notice that I said accept.)

Obesity is a complex problem. Our culture—frequently unconsciously—has successfully heaped guilt and blame on the obese person at every turn: The way the checkout clerk in the supermarket smiles and falls over the thin, attractive person ahead of you but, stone-faced, looks right through you. Rejection on a job interview. Snide, ridiculing comments of late night talk show hosts. Perhaps even your children and other family members have suggested that your lack of willpower is a lack of character.

I would suspect that you, too, have accepted this subconsciously. Why not? All these people can’t be wrong. Perhaps your husband even perceives your acceptance as a sign of hopelessness and failure. At a very deep level, he himself may fear failure and not have the strength to admit his fear. Now he has a “honey” who tells him that he is wonderful and will not fail. Perhaps she gives the image of someone who is strong, who gets what she wants.

I seriously doubt that his indiscretion has anything to do with your appearance.

Before jumping into a diet program that you hope will solve this problem, get some psychological and legal help:

• You don’t need a psychologist to help you figure out why you’re fat! The psychologist will help you understand, however, why you accept all this “bunk” from your husband.
• You need legal help to prepare for battle—not divorce, but the battle of your life. If you continue to run from confrontation, you will run forever—probably into a similar relationship. Your legal counsel should be there to protect your interest and help give you courage. Insist that your attorney know you are seeking his or her help to save your marriage and need a base of support on which to wage this encounter. Once you know your ground, let your husband know what you have done and how you have prepared. Insist on marriage counseling for both of you. Tell him that you have made legal preparations to take care of yourself—including saving the marriage. Tell him that you are also taking charge of your well-being, which has nothing to do with him, and that you want to be healthy and thrive—your weight has been an impediment to meeting that goal. If necessary, tell his bimbo that you will win in a divorce proceeding: You have the power, she doesn’t. And, you have a legal and moral contract that you intend to keep. Emphasize that you have his children.

To succeed at anything, you must believe that it is worth the effort. So, ask yourself: Is my marriage worth the effort? Is my health worth the effort? How do my children perceive me? What am I teaching them about accepting failure?

I am very confident you don’t want to teach them to how to become losers. So don’t accept losing.