Is Your Spouse Making You Fat?

By Bonnie Owens on December 8th, 2009

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Marriage bring love, happiness and companionship. But sometimes it comes with unwanted side effects too. Many spouses notice that they are carrying around a few more pounds than they had before they said “I do”. Could your significant other be causing you to tip the scale? And how can you fix it? Here are 5 common reasons the love of your life can make you fat. Food can be the perfect aid to keeping words inside. You use it to distract yourself from your negative feelings rather than addressing them. If you’re afraid to express yourself you could be keeping your unspoken words down with food. Emotional eating can be controlled once you are aware of it.

They don’t provide sweetness, so you look for it somewhere else

Human beings crave sweetness in life. Something to make them feel good, maybe even escape life’s realities for a few minutes. In a recent study, Rats preferred sugar to cocaine. The sweetness that you long for is love, tenderness, sex, and affection. Often when partners fall short of proving those things, people look to sweets instead. If you’re missing the “sugar” in your relationship some of your weight gain could be related.
You stuff your emotions down with food.

Expressing how you feel in a way that is effective is challenging even for the most mature and evolved people. Many people keep their feelings bottled up. It is especially dangerous for women to suppress how they feel. It is a lot easier to eat your troubles away rather than dealing with them. If you have a hard time speaking your mind, it may be showing up on your waistline. The good news is that emotional eating can be overcome once it is adequately addressed.
You eat to keep them company.

A woman might eat with her children at 6:00 PM and then eat again with her partner when they get home from work a few hours later. You want to connect with your spouse after a long day . There are other ways to keep them company. You can have a tea or coffee. And remember, if you’re not busy chewing, you get to do most of the talking while they listen and eat.
They have a different metabolism than you – and you resent it.

Your partner may be able to eat whatever they want and not gain a pound, while you simply look at food and gain ten pounds. This is unfair but a reality of life. People have different metabolisms. Don’t feel cheated. Part of growing up is realizing that we all work in different ways and need different things to thrive.
You eat to get back at them. It sounds silly when you say it out loud, but many people eat things to punish their partners. They know that their partner wants them to lose weight and they’re not giving. Eating is the way they assert their independence or punish a partner for bad behavior.