If you have an eating disorder and a partner, your disorder becomes a “member” of the family. As a couple you have to work out how this third family member fits in as you continue in recovery. You’ll need to come to terms with its impact on the relationship as well as each of you individually.
How does an eating disorder become a couples problem? For one, an eating disorder can affect your relationship by becoming a source of conflict between you and your partner. An eating disorder can also gain a dysfunctional role in managing typical relationship challenges. The following are tips on what you should look out for to make sure neither kind of problem interferes with successful recovery or the soundness of your relationship.
Conflicts can easily sprout as couples try to accommodate their relationship to the demands of eating disorder recovery. Common topics of disagreement include:
- The cause(s) of your eating disorder
- The appropriate steps for you to take in order to get better
- The role, if any, your partner should take with your eating disorder symptoms
- Your partner’s involvement in your treatment
- Your family–of–origin’s role with your symptoms and treatment
As you consider this list, here are some questions you might ask yourself:
- Where do you and your partner each stand on these potential conflicts?
- Have you openly acknowledged any differences you might have?
- Are you stuck or progressing on resolving your differences?
- Is unresolved conflict negatively affecting your recovery? Your relationship?
- What steps, if any, have you and your partner already taken to try to resolve your differences? How is your approach going?
If you and your partner can’t resolve your conflicts, it may be time to consider some kind of couples counseling. The stakes are too high to let things fester!
An eating disorder can also acquire a role your relationship, managing sticky issues or communicating what feels too difficult to express openly. For example, the presence of an eating disorder can:
- Create distance (boundary–making) You may be more closely involved with your eating disorder than with your partner.
- Allow one or both of you to avoid conflict Topics of disagreement may get swept under the rug because the eating disorder is always treated as more important.
- Give you an indirect way to ask for caretaking Some people feel so unentitled to ask for attention, affection or other needs, they fall back on their eating disorder and the demands of recovery to do the “asking” for them.
- Give you an indirect way to express anger Some people fear that they or the relationship won’t be able to tolerate open expressions of anger. If your eating disorder symptoms frustrate or rankle your partner, they can provide a back channel for getting your unhappiness across.
- Give you a way to experience control No one can make you stop restricting or bingeing or purging. No one can force you to participate in treatment. Sometimes this is the only power a person with an eating disorder has ever felt in relation to others. It can be a potent weapon to render a partner powerless.
It may surprise you to realize how your eating disorder has become entangled in the relationship with your partner. Most of the inappropriate “roles” for an eating disorder highlight an area where personal or couple growth is needed. Recognition can be a great call to action. If you’re really stuck, this may be another place where counseling could be helpful.
The way you resolve the relationship issues raised by your eating disorder will be unique to you as a couple. Working out individual needs and areas of conflict is good for your recovery—it protects a key part of your support system. But it is also good for your relationship. You and your partner are learning how to cope with adversity as a team. This always makes a relationship stronger.
