Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Delia Cai is filling in as Prudie for Jenée Desmond-Harris while she’s on parental leave. Submit questions here.
Dear Prudence,
I didn’t really understand that my boyfriend might have an eating disorder until we went on a long vacation this December. I also have obsessive hobbies, a limited desire for sweets, and am pretty active so I thought we were similar.
I knew he had a strict gym routine and was a careful eater, but I didn’t fully put the pieces together until I saw him doing this stuff every single day. He’s not technically underweight (I know because he weighs himself daily and tracks it)—he’s muscular with very low body fat. But he maintains that body with two hours of gym daily, nonnegotiable. We both had food poisoning on the day we left? He was still at the hotel gym. We went for a 12-mile hike? Gym afterward. He subsists only on lean protein, water, brown rice, and green vegetables, not just for daily life but for vacation too. He requested these things even when we went to cool restaurants. When he had a Christmas cookie, he thought he was sneaky in puking it up later.
Now that I’ve noticed this, I’ve realized that most of his friends talk about their bodies in the same way. None of them seem to be bulking so much as they’re mostly cutting. Where does the line fall between disordered and careful? How do I bring this up with him? And if I do, are there even resources for men in their 30s? Everything I’ve seen seems aimed at teenage girls or at women.
—Maybe This Is Fine? But Maybe Something’s Wrong
Dear Maybe,
Only a medical professional can make an official diagnosis, but it does sound to me that your boyfriend has a potentially disordered relationship with eating—one that reminds me of orthorexia. The current cult of personal optimization—which, for men, emphasizes a fixation on physical performance and mental discipline—certainly incentivizes extreme behavior. We as a society give certain passes on this kind of behavior to, for example, professional athletes. But you’re right that there’s a fine line between living a rigid lifestyle versus having an obsessive disorder, and it will take much more than an advice column response (or even a few conversations between you and your boyfriend) to figure out what’s going on. At the very least, the puking is a major red flag.
Whether or not your boyfriend has a diagnosable condition, it sounds like his regimented habits may at least be a problem for your relationship. I think I would advise you to first frame the conversation with your boyfriend more in terms of whether he is willing to compromise on some of his habits when, for example, you’re on vacation and would like to enjoy a nice meal together, or when you’d like to take a day off from the gym to relax. Communicate how important it is for you to be able to share those experiences together. If he’s completely unwilling to budge an inch on his regimen, then you can bring up your concern about whether these choices that he’s making are healthy, and how they affect your relationship. Before the conversation, you may want to read through a few resources for guidance on talking to a loved one about potential eating disorders—here’s one from the National Eating Disorders Association and another from Cedars-Sinai.
Overall, I deeply relate to your desire to figure out what’s “officially wrong” and to potentially help “fix” your partner for their own good, but in my experience, the only cards you have to play here are expressing your concern and deciding whether you’re coming along for the ride, should he make it clear that he’s sticking to his own course.
—Delia
Classic Prudie
I rent half of a duplex where the garages are in the back with a shared driveway. I also have the shaded side yard. Recently, a young family moved into the other unit and continues to make my life hell. The kids leave their toys and scooters right in the middle of the driveway so when I have to go to work, I have to get out of my car to move all their stuff.
