WLS & Divorce
The Star Jones divorce news reminded me that the divorce rate is supposedly much higher for weight-loss surgery patients. I was idly pondering this and ran across this post at A Smaller Target, where Espy says the divorce rate is 60-80% and speculates on some of the reasons for this.
Part of the reason is that some obese people “settle.” They may marry someone less for love / passion and more because they don’t want to be alone. They put up with emotional and / or physical abuse, financial irresponsibility, infidelity and the like because they don’t think they deserve / can find anything better. Then they lose weight and suddenly realize they can. The irony is they probably always could have.
She also cites jealousy, codependence, and sexual experimentation as possible reasons. (Of course in Star’s case, rumor has it that she’s not the one experimenting, if you know what I’m saying. Although she is allegedly dating Miami Heat player Dwayne Wade.)
I’m glad that the quote above touches on the idea of low self-esteem—of course, WLS is not the only or even the best solution to this problem—and that just because someone is obese, they should never feel like they have to “settle.” I also know people who have had WLS or who have gained or lost a lot of weight and whose partners stick by them. I don’t know that I have any answers, but I do find the whole phenomenon—and Espy’s list—interesting.
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Celebrities, Sex & Romance, Star Jones, WLS
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Would marrying someone who seems so obviously NON heterosexual fall into any of these categores??!!!
I’m chunky and have had little to NO dating success once I gained my weight. But I am confident enough in myself to dealw ith being alone rather than to settle for a sham of a marraige.
It could also be that:
1. People who have weight loss surgery for cosmetic reasons are insecure and therefore more likely to have difficulty sustaining a relationship with or without the surgery.
2. People who marry fat and then end up with skinny actually wanted to be married to fat. (just like the inverse)
3. Losing a lot of weight often makes people insufferable.
(I apologize for the fact that this comment reflects my extreme frustration with a certain bride to be who recently had weight loss surgery and is now a pain in my very large ass. )
Where I work, we had a client who was obese and did settle for a man who was an abusive loser. She admitted it to me, and said no other man would go for someone that looked like her. She did go back to this man and we haven’t heard from her in over a year. But you can be any size and still have this mindset. I’ve known quite a few thinner gals that would have no trouble getting men, but they’ve stuck with the jerks just because they have a man. That shows you how much a woman’s worth is determined, by if she has a partner at her side.
As for WLS, I find it disturbing that it’s now becoming more of a social acceptance solution than a physical health solution. That WLS will lead to getting cuter clothes and being treated with respect instead of scorn. Because as we hear just about everyday, fat people don’t deserve stylish clothes and being treated decently.
In the beginning WLS was deemed only for “morbidly obese” people with severe health risks and/or limited mobility. But now, it’s being forced upon anyone that has some excess body fat, regardless if their physical health is good and they can get around. Those lap band commercials have actors and actresses I would never suggest should have surgery if I were a medical professional.
There is also a marked change of how the person (post gastric bypass or large weight loss) intersects with society.
Before gastric bypass surgery, my partner was perceived as “other” by the world in general. She is a masculine woman and different for most. I was the big fat femme- the more “normal” of the two of us. I was the connection to the world. I was the committee member at church, the one on the go.
Post gastric bypass and her huge weight loss, I have become the silented elephant in the middle of the room. She is now the interface of the world for our family- the one people talk to more and trust more.
Not many couples could handle this shift in dynamics. We know of another lesbian couple that broke up for this very reason.
There are times I am ready to scream from it all. There are frustrations- as in any relationship.
And I think the thing that makes me the angriest is the perception of her so-called health. She can’t eat. She has no energy. I get home from work and put in a second shift while she regroups from watching kids all day. I am the one to take them to the park, to run after them when they ride bikes. She can’t keep up. Friends, family and acquaintances wonder when I will have my bypass to be as *healthy* as she is. I tell them the 12th of never.
Well, there’s something to be said for the many medical complications of WLS, too. There’s nothing like a big, complicated medical problem to break up a marriage. Sadly this is true in the case of cancer and many other diseases, especially chronic, long term ones. And WLS complications can certainly be chronic and long term.
My mom had WLS and for the first year it made her lose a lot of weight, but also made her awfully hard to live with. WLS starves you. It can’t be fun to be around anyone who is hardly eating and then upchucking part of what they do manage to get down. My mom also told me the surgery sort of made her hormones crazy. For awhile it reminded me of when she went through menopause. And then there was the part when the woman, who for fifty six years had never had even a hint of a problem with alcohol, suddenly became an alcoholic! And alcoholic who go drunk on two drinks- but couldn’t stop herself from doing it. My mom thinks that surgery gave her a lot of great years she wouldn’t have had otherwise, but I think she’s blocked out the difficult first year with her hair falling out and the hot flashes and anger and mal-absorption problems and the second year that sent her to AA. She’s not the only person who has had those problems and it sure isn’t a recipe for marital bliss.
Anyone else feel like we’re walking around in an Aldous Huxley novel?
Every time I think about having that lap-band surgery and tell my husband about it, he looks at me with pity and horror, then asks why I don’t “just walk around the block a couple of times and take my lunch to work instead of eating out.”
I’m never sure how I should feel about that.
Bree,
I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say WLS is being *forced* on anyone. Sure, it’s being marketed like hell as the solution of all problems, but I hardly think it’s being forced on moderately overweight folks.
I think that link needs a trigger warning and a Sanity Watchers warning! Those comments are all about her supposedly wanting bacon, etc. ugh.
Ugh – moratorium on the word “obese” anytime soon? “Fat” works.
“Friends, family and acquaintances wonder when I will have my bypass to be as *healthy* as she is. I tell them the 12th of never.”
Awesome answer, DivaJean; good for you!
Shinobi – yes, many if not most people who lose a lot of weight become insufferable; I don’t think it’s unfair to note that. In addition, with WLS you’re often talking about a prolonged period of illness (with an uncertain outcome), as others have mentioned. That is hard enough on say, a mother-daughter I saw where the daughter had the surgery and her mother could hardly bear to “eat” with her anymore. Not that it could be called eating – just a brief period of sitting at the table and suffering, then having to leave quickly. It’s no easier on a marriage even if that’s the worst effect you end up with. Then there’s the rates of substance abuse that go up, which make more problems.
Well others certainly disagree but I wish they’d ban the damn thing and get it over with. Instead they’re promoting it more heavily than ever – even by lying about it (60 Minutes, etc.)
My husband was very sick (not from WLS) the last couple of years; and it was very hard on us. I can really see how WLS with it’s starvation and neurological symptoms could break up a marriage. I also wonder if any of the people got divorced so that the sick person will be poor enough to get public benefits? I know sometimes the elderly get divorced so one of them can get needed medical care they can’t afford if they stay married.
I think the thing people are overlooking in terms of the relationship between WLS and divorce is the cause vs effect. When someone is finally realising that the long-term relationship that they are in is failing, they suddenly also are aware that they will soon be in the dating field again. Thus they are more likely to start worrying about how they look, and trying to do something about it… just because the WLS came chronilogically before the divorce doesn’t mean it was the cause. Perhaps the failing relationship was the cause of the WLS instead of the other way around. Of course, the WLS could be a last-ditch effort to make their partner pay attention and try to save the relationship – but alas, thin or fat we and our partners are the same people and sometimes relationships can’t be saved.
star jones is an interesting character…as are many celebrities. i try not to think celeb lifestyles are the NORM…i like to think my average lifestyle is more the NORM.
I had WLS recently after a lot of difficult soul searching and have my own take on the possibility (not, as some seem to think, the probability) that my relationship will suffer post-operatively. I think there is a lot of over-generalization when it comes to the concept of “settling”. Its not like we’re settling a homestead here folks! People change and evolve their own self-understanding of happiness in relationships at all sizes… sometime this leads to break ups or divorce. Nor is settling something that applies only to seriously abusive boyfriends and the desperate women who lack the self-esteem/resources/help to get the hell out. For me I see how I’ve “settled” into a life that was making the best of my situation rather than shooting for the moon dream-wise. For example… always thought I’d join the Peace Corps after college but had so many chronic health issues that were being exacerbated by my weight that the P.C. was just out of the question. I know that WLS isn’t a magical bullet that brings a life free of pain, illness, or heartache but I’ve started seriously looking into the P.C. again and see other opportunities as possibilities rather than hopeless dreams now. Those were my limitations, such as I accepted them, and this is how I define my success now–overcoming the limitations that had nothing to do with my health and everything to do with my attitude. However just because some of this is mental rather than physical doesn’t mean the two things don’t operate hand-in-hand. What I wanted to add is that whether my relationship lasts the next few years won’t be depending on whether my partner and I still have the hots for each other or if I suddenly realize I could do better but on the sheer challenge of facing so many new and exciting choices that may steer us in different directions. If I join the P.C. we’re pretty much not going to attempt anything long-distance. Maybe facing down my own self-doubts will make me want to strike out on my own for the sake of freedom. That’s ok, but it won’t be because I lost the weight. It’ll be because I’m going after my dreams (some of the obstacles to which WLS helped remove). One last thought–I think there’s a fallacy here at work in which the demise of a relationship post-WLS is treated as some proof that there’s an insidious superficiality fueling such surgery’s popularity. Sure there’s a limit on when and if WLS is appropriate but I object to the whole attempt to quantify patients’ relationship stability as evidence pro or con.
When I was contemplating weight loss surgery, this was actually one of the big things I was SO worried about. I think a lot of people assume that it is just what they said in the article- all about self-esteem, but the comments here are really great because it points out that there’s more to WLS than just losing weight.
I know that my depression is a real strain on my relationship, mostly because my S.O. just doesn’t know how to deal with it. When I’m sick, he goes crazy; When I’m really down, and need him to take care of me more than usual, I can tell that it frustrates him. So I know that WLS would be a HUGE strain! I mean, it’s not a bouquet of pretty flowers where you lose weight and everything’s hunky dory. It’s essentially supervised sickness.
So I don’t think it’s surprising that it strains marriages. I bet if they looked at some of the more chronic health conditions, they’d find the same thing. It’s just that it’s more “acceptable” to have a relationship break up because someone had WLS than it is because someone got sick.
gina, I’d have an earful for your husband, especially if I was already doing all that he has suggested (we’re not even going to get into the fact that “a couple” of walks “around the block” does not necessarily a body-changing mitochondritic change make, particularly if one is female, with more estrogen, which makes more fat, proportional to other bodily compounds, than the male body has to cope with, which is the perspective point from which he’s making his judgments, since he has one of the latter, yes?) —
but then, he’s not my husband, is he?
Give it time. Remember when the cutoff for “normal” blood sugar was lowered from something like 27 mg/dll to something like 22?
And didn’t they do something similar recently with the BP? (I’m at 118/70, but I’m almost waiting for it to go up in response to this mess, since I don’t have time to meditate 24/7)
Anybody want to take bets on the over-under?
This is Amerikka. And we’re in a recession. How much does anyone want to bet the insurance CEOs are sitting around telling their medical and accounting staff to “show me the money”?
How do insurance companies make money off of weight loss surgery, exactly? Hospitals and doctors obviously make money off it, but don’t insurance companies spend money on WLS?
“but don’t insurance companies spend money on WLS?”
This is sort of off the top of my head, but for the ones that do in fact cover it, I would imagine that their actuarial staff would have cranked out a formula where they only cover a certain percentage of the cost, which is always going to be less than the aggregate of the premiums that they’ve charged — and progressively raised over time — for all their clients, with additional increases for the clients that actually have it and have additional problems that need medication and assistance as a result of it.
My wife had the lapband surgery about a year and a half ago. My wife has lost about 90 pounds since. But eversince she has lost the weight, she’s seems to be neglecting me more. Before she lost the weight, we didn’t go out much. Now it’s like that’s all she wants to do. Now she doesn’t even want me to go when she goes out with her friends. She says she is not in love with me anymore but that she loves me because of our kids (Alex, Ruben, Samuel). She says she doesn’t want the kids to grow up without their parents.
My wife won’t even kiss me or even talk to me after she’s been gone all day working. I am a stay at home dad.
I love my wife with all my heart, but it seems she doesn’t feel the same way about me. She says she just needs time to think about us. She wants me to give her space.
I tell her to let’s go and talk to a marriage counselor, but she won’t have anything to do with it. That tells me she probably wants out.
Should I give her the space she wants or should I keep fighting for her? I love my wife and if something happens and she wants out, I will be devastated. Please help me.
My wife had GBP surgery a year ago despite my wish that she not do it. I’m not the begging type, but I literally begged her not to do it. So far she’s lost about 100 pounds, but I think that about 20 pounds too many. The army sent me 1600 miles about a year and half ago, and we couldn’t afford to take a loss on the house, so she and my son are still there. So, we already have stress on the marriage from that and I feel that the weight loss has compounded it. We’re in counseling right now, and in the last session the counselor asked her 3 times if there was someone else. After mulling it over I think there is a strong possibility that there is.
My observation is this: many women lose a lot of weight and start receiving attention that they weren’t before the surgery. For some it’s too much temptation. In my case some other….”person” may have seen an opportunity and stepped in. This is just speculation, but I will find out.