When A Loved One Won't Change

Subtitle: ”Why Can’t You Do This For Me, for the kids, for yourSELF?!”

Here is the Mad Libs version:

Your _____________________

(spouse / partner / sister / father / best friend / child)

Needs to____________________

(lose weight / get his blood sugar down / get her cholesterol down / stop smoking / stop drinking / wear a seat belt)

Although he/she insists it has nothing to do with you, and that your nagging is only making things worse, you feel______________________

(betrayed / angry / worried / massively betrayed)

Sound familiar, anyone? I bet it does!

Today, instead of telling you what to do from my standpoint as a health practitioner, I want to share with you the other side of the coin.

I was your spouse. I was the one who was willfully disregarding my health and my family’s future all in the name of getting my next binge. I hope that if you can see things from your loved one’s perspective, you will be able to find some peace and clarity.

Several years ago I tried eating myself into oblivion while my husband was the one to be angry about my growing body and frustrated by my resistance to change. The more he pushed and threatened me, the more I ate and the fatter I became. I truly felt that it was MY business and had nothing to do with him. I seriously resented him making it his problem, even though somewhere in the dim recesses of my mind, I kinda-sorta understood how my health and weight ultimately WOULD impact his life and the lives of our children.

I was in Stage One: Pre-Contemplation (click that link to read the post I wrote about the 5 Stages of Change). I was only dimly aware that there was some sort of a problem but feeling like I was a victim of intolerable levels of stress with food as my only lifeline. I could no sooner have given up over-eating than I could have gone without oxygen.

You can read about what advanced me from Stage One to Stage Two HERE. Basically, I finally understood that my actions were causing my outcome, plain and simple. Change my actions and I’d change the outcome. But more than that, here was this man, Tony Robbins and he had done it himself. And all the thousands of people who followed him, they were taking this kind of action in their lives. I understood for the first time that it could be done and people were doing it. I could change my story and change the way my story would end.

So this is my message to you (and when I get around to publishing that post about overweight kids it will be the same message):

Shut Up and Walk Your Own Talk.

End of story.

People do not hear what you say as much as see what you do. Ghandi said “Be the change you want to see.” You – be the change. Model the behaviors you want others to adopt. SHOW don’t say. Work on Yourself. Be the best you can be. Be Inspiring. Make the people around you WANT to reach higher. Show people what is possible.

Married folks: I realize how painful it feels for you, that your partner is betraying the agreement you made when you got married. He/she is digging an early grave and will leave you holding the bag. But go back and read the stages of change. People who are not changing likely do not believe that it is in their power to do so. No amount of screaming and threatening is going to change that.

Those Stage Oners need hope and belief. They need to come to understand that they CAN reverse their problem. They need to move from helpless victim to artful designers of their own destiny.

Model it for them and then butt out.

P.S. I am not suggesting you stay with a partner bent on self-destruction. You may decide that you need to leave a relationship in order to take care of yourself. That is modeling healthy self-care as well.