Weight Loss Surgeryand Relationships

Janet M FolkmanLicensed Clinical Social Worker

Pre-op Pictures

Weddings, Funerals and Weight Loss Surgery brings out the best and worst in

people…

Seriously!

Relationships:

• Self• Spouse/Partner/Significant Other

Your perspectiveTheir perspective

• Children/Other Family Members• Friends/Work Colleagues• Dating

“The GOOD” (sort of)

• Improved HEALTH is the GOAL!!!• You will be able to do more activities that your life wants you

to/ demands you to!• Usually self confidence/esteem grows• Some people discover their intimacy (sex) is better• More willing to risk things such as a new job, asking for raises

and becoming assertive…• You will have CHEERLEADERS!• Invisibility /”passing”• Less tolerance for what used to bother you• What used to be a defense mechanism losses its appeal…who am I?

“The BAD”

• The divorce issue is disturbing -- and the numbers in our whole culture, but especially for weight loss surgery post-ops, are high. According to a study USC is in the process of doing, it's about 60-80% within 5 years of WLS surgery (that's a lot higher than the national average which is calculated over all marriages over a lifetime). However, it's no higher than the rate following any sort of major family crisis -- example: birth of a disabled child and the like.

Why?• Reliving a lost adolescence or stunted emotional growth• BTN’s• Fat was the excuse to not be intimate…• Food intake: your own judgment and then there is “The

Food Police”• If you had an enabler….THEY did not change• Control issues/abuse by the spouse/partner• Size issues/activities/“you’ve changed”• Relationships are forever evolving but this is such a

significant change in a concentrated time, the spouse/partner/family/friends need time to adjust as well

• Differences become highlight especially if the relationship was food oriented and sedentary

“The UGLY”

• “When someone says ‘you’ve change’ it CAN means that you’ve stopped living your life their way”

• Regain and “I told you so’s”• Complications• Jealousy unfounded and founded• Affairs ‘grass is greener” or is it?• Their feelings count too…and you may not like it!

Children/Family members

• Activity levels will change! But the food around it may not…ahhhh Holidays

• More involved parenting may be met with resistance or “your always out syndrome”

• What to do when you see eating issues with your child? “Will we ever have

Potato chips again?”• When you become the smaller sibling/family member

Friends/Co-workers

• Buffet buddies• Jealousy/when you have NOT been the

competition and now you are• People who will push you away• People who will talk about you• It’s the "the easy way out”• Pulling back from food oriented activities and

aren’t they all?• Resentments…what was wrong with me before!

Dating:• The younger…perhaps the more insecure…

loose skin: How do you explain THAT? How do you explain eating small amounts and when do you tell you have had the surgery?

• Body Image & wrapping your head around it at any age

• Insecurities with new people• Little if non existent dating history and the

panic!

What can be done/do?

• Counseling before you get surgery• Counseling after the surgery• Support group attendance together• Involvement in doctors appointment and for

everyone to remember you did this for improved HEALTH!

• Make the changes from food oriented activities to other things before the surgery

Loosing relationships do happen and new people become friends that you never could have imagined…if you look back at times of transition in your life, this is true at almost every turn.

No one asks to be fat and no one ever ‘invites pain willingly into a relationship’. Compromise is something we are not born with as a skill and have to learn.

Taking care of ourselves and putting ourselves first is a foreign concept for most of us…some people embrace it and some people resent it…

Closing Thought

NSV= Non Scale Victory

What will be your NSV be in your relationships?