I have committed infidelity.
This thought occurred to me as I fished through the plastic bag for the telltale receipt.
I needed to get rid of it.
The caramels were already gone.
I love my husband, but it did feel as if I were having an affair.
Crumbs on my sweaters were the proverbial lipstick on the collar.
Mostly, I paid in cash.
Chris and I could have used some more early-morning togetherness.
Each night, I was surprised to see him walk through the door.
It’s not that my husband didn’t know what it was like to have a fat wife.
When we met, I was at my heaviestabout 360 pounds.
We walked together, worked out together and (the most wonderful calorie burner of all) made love.
With Chris, I did things I’d always dreamed about, like hiking and traveling.
Along the way, I lost weight.
Six years into our relationship, we celebrated my 120-pound weight loss by trekking up Mount Kilimanjaro.
I was the happiest I’d ever been.
Yet my weight and eating habits have always been touchy topics for us.
Chris is an average-sized guy, content with three square meals and a snack.
One birthday, he gave me a book about healthy eating, and I exploded.
“Who buys a diet book for his wife on her birthday?!”
No wonder he hesitated about being on calorie patrol.
But I needed patrolling.
For me, eating has almost always been an illicit activity.
Things got worse when I turned 12.
The only way I could think of to elude his grasp was to say, “I’m hungry.
Do you want something to eat?”
Later, I crawled into bed with her, finally telling her what had happened.
The next morning, she called the police.
I ended up eating most of them.
I broke the 200-pound mark by my junior year in high school.
Later, I heard his pals ribbing him about kissing the fat girl.
I put on 10 more pounds that summer.
I met Chris after college, at age 25.
Then, at 32, I got pregnant.
At my first prenatal visit, the nurse said, “Congratulations!
Say good-bye to having control over your body.”
It didn’t happen that way.
I started hiding food again, something I hadn’t done since my teenage years.
I also stopped exercising; I felt too lousy to move.
But although I hid my bingeing habit from my husband, the effects were clear.
Chris first said something after a hike with his family.
Later, he told me he was worried about me.
“I can’t diet.
I told myself Chris didn’t get it.
As an adult, he kept up his candy-drawer habit.
Two weeks after I gave birth, I went for Chris’s drawer.
So, on the sly, I dug into Chris’s private stash of peanut butter cups.
But over the next few days, I dipped in again and again, until the candy was gone.
I hoped Chris wouldn’t notice that his replacement bag lacked hearts.
Back at home, I made a beeline for Chris’s drawer, the candy hidden in my jacket.
“I ate them,” I said.
“I wanted something sweet.
“You were trying to hide the fact that you ate them, weren’t you?”
Chris asked, shaking his head.
Apparently, he was on to me and my unfaithful ways.
“It’s just chocolate,” I said, trying to make light of the situation.
“It’s not the chocolate.
It’s the deception.
It makes it hard for me to trust you,” he said angrily.
I know!I wanted to shout.
I didn’t say any of this to Chris.
Instead, I retreated down the hall, utterly ashamed.
I was tired of lying to myself, my husband and everyone around me.
I’d always used food to distract myself from pain.
I needed to take control again, starting with being honest about my eating.
I was up 50 pounds from before I’d gotten pregnant.
If I kept going down this path, I would return to my peak weight and beyond.
Since the peanut-butter-cup incident, my husband has been more aware ofand more vocal aboutmy eating patterns.
“I had some the other day,” I answer, perhaps a little defensively but always honestly.
If I’m going to eat something, I’m going to own up to it.
I love seeing his look of pride when I make a healthy choice.
But I love relinquishing the extra weight of my old waysand the guilteven more.
Photo Credit: Steven Puetzer/Getty Images
