{"id":25027,"date":"2014-08-08T08:00:34","date_gmt":"2014-08-08T15:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=25027"},"modified":"2016-05-20T20:01:25","modified_gmt":"2016-05-21T03:01:25","slug":"if-my-wife-wont-lose-weight-am-i-justified-in-leaving-her","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/dear-gt\/if-my-wife-wont-lose-weight-am-i-justified-in-leaving-her","title":{"rendered":"If My Wife Won’t Lose Weight, Am I Justified in Leaving Her?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I really appreciate the authenticity with which you present your situation. The guilt you are feeling for writing in\u2014and even for having the thoughts feelings you have\u2014is palpable.<\/p>\n

It is clear how much you love and care for your wife. You express concern about her physical and mental health and feel fearful that she will not survive long enough to grow old with you. This suggests that you want her to be around to grow old with and you know she needs to be healthier, both physically and emotionally, in order for that to happen. That said, you can’t control your wife’s choices and behaviors; you can only control your own choices and behaviors. In that vein, I think it could be helpful for you to consider engaging in your own therapy<\/a>. You are dealing with fear<\/a>, shame<\/a>, guilt<\/a>, and anxiety<\/a> about the uncertainty of your marriage. This is a lot to carry around. Therapy can provide a safe place and a strong therapeutic relationship to support you as you sort through these issues.<\/p>\n

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Find a Therapist for Relationships<\/a><\/h2>\n\t
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From your description, it does sound entirely possible that your wife could be depressed<\/a>. She may also benefit from therapy. Again, you can’t control whether she goes to therapy, but you can encourage her to consider it and ask her to do it<\/a>. If you do decide to enter therapy and you share the benefits of your therapeutic experience with her, she might feel the inspiration and motivation to get started herself. If she doesn’t feel ready for her own individual therapy, maybe she would be willing to go to couples therapy<\/a> with you or even just come to some sessions with you and your therapist.<\/p>\n

Of course, it’s possible your wife won’t change, or even attempt to.\u00a0It’s understandable that, if this plays out, you may consider walking away from the marriage. It’s also understandable if you decide to stay, in spite of your concerns, because of how you feel about your wife. There’s not really a wrong answer here.<\/p>\n

I guess the bottom line is this: You both seem to be hurting, and it seems to be damaging your marriage<\/a>, but there also seems to be a lot of love<\/a> here. If you can each make a commitment to working through this to get to a healthier place, you’ll be off to pretty strong start.<\/p>\n

Sincerely,
\nSarah<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Noel, MS, LMHC, responds to our latest reader-submitted Dear GoodTherapy.org question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[625],"tags":[522,423,25,41],"class_list":["post-25027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dear-goodtherapy","tag-dear-gt","tag-health-iillness-medical-issues","tag-psychotherapy-issues","tag-marriage-counseling-relationships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}