There were days when Darren would call me from work to ask if I wanted to go to my favorite restaurant for dinner, and I’d say that I didn’t feel well or that I’d eaten a late lunch and wasn’t hungry.

I felt guilty making up these excuses but would have done anything to stick to my routines and to keep Darren from knowing about my eating habits. A few times, he said that I seemed distant and preoccupied. ‘Are you okay?’ he’d ask. I’d reassure him that I loved him and that I was fine, just a bit stressed out about whether I’d get into grad school.

“I dreaded intimacy with Darren and tried to avoid it at all cost. I no longer dressed or undressed in front of him. I became so self-conscious about my body and how fat I felt that I was unable to relax when Darren tried to make love with me. I sensed that he felt hurt and rejected by my emotional and physical distance, and I hated myself for making his life miserable. Was I afraid that Darren would leave me or end the marriage? Vaguely. But I never talked about these fears-or any other emotions for that matterin part, because I was only marginally aware that I had them. I’m ashamed to admit this, but had Darren given me a choice between keeping the relationship or keeping my eating behaviors, there was a point in the darkest hours of my illness when I would have selected the latter.

“Luckily, he made no such ultimatum. That is not to say he never got mad at me. Sometimes he’d ask, ‘Why can’t you just eat?’ And when I’d start to become defensive, he’d get exasperated and leave the room. Other times, he begged me to eat, and when I refused, he’d grow impatient and blurt out, ‘Sybil, I’m sick and tired of your food problems. I just want to go back to the life we used to have together.’ On numerous occasions, Darren expressed concern about my health and urged me to seek professional help.

I wasn’t sure what treatment involved, but I assumed that it would make me fat, so I wanted nothing to do with it. What I didn’t understand was that professional care would help me feel better.

Darren was so worried about me that he called my parents. I was furious about that. Between the three of them, they convinced me to see my primary care doctor.

“The weeks immediately after my discharge from the hospital were, I think, particularly hard for Darren. At least part of him had expected me to come home ‘cured,’ and when he realized that I still had eating problems, he was understandably upset. Since I had very little to say to him, he started leaving me handwritten notes. At first, he’d write just a few sentences, highlighting that he loved me and that he was there for me. He didn’t know it at the time, but those quiet reassurances meant the world to me and touched me in a way that his attempts to ‘talk reason’ to me had not. Later, when I continued to struggle with my food problem, he wrote me two letters that revealed some of his private thoughts about our relationship. The second one had a particularly powerful effect on me:

Dear Sybil,
I write this with some hesitation. On the one hand, I don’t
want to upset you-the last thing I’d ever want to do is set
off another bout of starving or purging. On the other hand,
you and I both know that things between us are not the
same as they once were. I’d like us to mend the gulf, and
I’m hoping that airing my feelings in this letter will be a
first step in the right direction.

When you are under the power of your eating disorder,
I sometimes feel that I am irrelevant or even a nuisance to
you. It seems like you care more about whether you can get
to the gym by 5:00 than about spending evenings with me;
I hope that isn’t true. I miss the days when you and I were
equal partners, when you were stronger and fun to be with.

I don’t know how to say this exactly, so please excuse me if
it comes out wrong, but sometimes I’ve felt that your eating
disorder changes you from the vibrant woman I married
into a sick person who needs to be taken care of. There
are also times when I feel that maybe our relationship, or
maybe something I’ve done, has contributed to your eating
disorder. Will you help me sort these questions out so that
we can both be happier?
Love,
Darren

“I wish I could say that Darren’s letter turned my life around.