How eating disorders affect couples

Eating disorder and partnership

Researchers are now looking more closely at the dynamics of couples in which one partner has an eating disorder, and this scrutiny has revealed an entirely new dynamic. When an eating disorder sits in the middle of a marriage, it may not be because the woman is bringing it to the relationship; rather, the relationship is bringing the eating disorder to her. Bad relationships or even the external stresses of partnership - who moves where for whose job, for example - can tip a fragile woman toward eating issues that help her cope.

As more and more married women with eating disorders are showing up in therapists' offices, marriage counselors are contemplating not only how the eating disorder is affecting the relationship, but also how the relationship is affecting, and sometimes triggering, an eating disorder.

Not surprisingly, researchers are now looking to couples counseling as an avenue of treatment, along with individual therapy. The idea is to help women sort through their unresolved issues, and to allow men to sort through their baggage as well. If together they can find and use therapy and communication tools to build their relationship, they can salvage what is necessary and leave behind what is not.

The dynamics are complex and best understood by looking at them from three different perspectives: hers, his, and theirs. The goal is to understand what each partner is bringing to the relationship, what each had hoped to get from the other, and, ultimately, how the eating disorder can be taken out of the partnership. If together they can do this, the couple has a chance not only to survive but also to thrive in a new relationship built on true intimacy.

Her perspective

A woman with an eating disorder, one who is partially recovered or perhaps on the brink of healing, comes to a relationship in an adolescent phase of her psychological development. She is weighing the prospect of a partner, not yet having realized her true self. As a result, she acts in one of several ways: She may choose someone whom she hopes will correct or compensate for her adolescent deficits. Or she may subconsciously select a partner who re-creates negative patterns from her youth. In another scenario, she may deify a lover, making him into some fantasy figure who will save her. If she has not yet individuated in a healthy way from her parents, chances are that she will try to re-create a parent in her partner.

This troubled woman, no matter how severe her eating disorder, falls into one of a handful of categories. What follows are descriptions of the potential patterns that weave through her primary relationship. These are by no means clear-cut: a woman may find parts of herself in each category. But overall, the descriptions will help illuminate why a woman with an eating problem is behaving as she is with her partner, and why she chose him in the first place.

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