A Conversation

Today as I was getting the gray eradicated at the hair dresser we got into an interesting conversation. Ruth is the exact opposite of me size wise. I'm short and heavy and she is tall and very slender. We began talking about our similarities. Ruth has battled eating disorders all her life (she's about 42 years old) and for most of my adult life I have battled the bulge, yet we have the same thought processes about it all. Ruth has a man in her life who openly has problems with her being skinny and subconciously watches her eating habits and I have the same deliemma with The Hubby who has the same issues, only fat wise. She said that if she chose not to eat her rice at dinner then her guy would become concerned that she was backsliding whereas if I ate the rice and maybe a little more The Hubby would be concerned that I would gain another pound. The problem with all of it is that it is not about the food at all and our problem is with the unintentional attention the men give to us. They really don't mean it but it is there. My guy at one time even accused me of lying to him when we got married. The lie being that I got fat because when I met him I was a size 1, very tiny. It was an irrational idea on his part but he just didn't know how to cope with my increasing waistline (mainly from pregnancy). He's thin, his mother is and his brothers are failry nice sized so he had no reference to deal with. This conversation came on the heals of The Hubby being out of town for a couple of days and my desire to EAT. I can't explain it except that it would be eating without the cloud over my shoulder, eyeing every bite I put into my mouth. It is a strange idea and I've been struggling this week with it.