We got the oddest letter from hubby's mother today. Essentially the message was "I've noticed you (primarily meaning David) gaining weight rapidly, and I'm really very concerned about you, because of your obesity-related health problems...
I don't understand the timing. I was at my highest weight when we married (7 years ago), and hubby gained quite a bit of weight in the early months of our marriage. Now, we're both about 80 lbs from our highest weight (80 lbs DOWN from our highest weight). Most of the weight for each of us being lost in the last year.
Hubby called and confronted his mother (not a conversation that went well -we were accused of lying about or exagerating our weight loss).
I really don't get it. Maybe I'm being intentionally dense. I want to believe that the letter was well-intended, if misguided. But she does have our wedding picture displayed promininently in their home, and I'm OBVIOUSLY much thinner, and hubs appears to be the same size (he gained about 80 lbs in the early months of our marriage, and we recently were excited to find that he could fit into his wedding suit jacket).
Hubby seems to think his mom's motives are manipulative (that on some level she is aware that we've lost considerable weight, and feels it's an implied invitation for comment. The goal sabotage or to claim partial "credit" for any future weight loss - or some other ulterior motive). She lost a considerable amount of weight (alluded to in the letter).
The psychologist in me, recognizes and understands some of the possible motives (intentional and less so), but it's still hitting me like a ton of bricks. Part of me wants to justify myself and PROVE the work we've done, but that would only reward the manipulative behavior. And the fact is that our results haven't been impressive, they've been modest at best. And even though we're very proud of them, we know how easily our slow progress can be turned against us. I don't how many times I've heard from my own parents over the years, "If you were really serious about this, you'd be losing weight a lot faster."
Aaagh, sometimes I hate people.