Is She Married to Me or to the Gym?
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, A Workout Ate My Marriage, reflects, “newleyweds have long recognized the risks of potential sickness, infidelity and ill fortune. But few foresee themselves becoming an exercise widow… The exercise widow often wakes to an empty bed – a sure sign of a morning workout – and many find dinner plans spoiled by a sudden avoidance of anything heavy before a night run.” Unfortunately for many couples, infidelity does wreak havoc on relations; it just doesn’t come in the form expected. The other man is Ed, an eating disorder.
Very often an eating disorder is mixed with an exercise addiction. Like purging, exercise can be a way to frantically get rid of calories consumed. Exercise can serve as a compulsive expenditure of not only calories, but of excess anxiety. It can be an attempt to self-medicate intolerable feelings and to exhaust nervousness. Like any addiction, exercise can become an absolute obsession. I have had clients who wake at 4 am to get in a workout before a full day, stand during class instead of sitting, cut class to workout, run in hail storms, rock and shake in the corner to burn calories, or skip out on social outings because it interferes with an exercise routine. Four, six, even 8 hours a day. Until even that swim across the English Channel can’t seem to separate them from that persuent unrest and that ultra-marathon can’t quite create enough distance between them and those frightful feelings.
Many people with an eating disorder will confess that they feel like they are having an affair. When someone suffers with an addiction, it consumes their full attention, affection, desire, energy, and focus. Their life is devoted to the protection and maintenance of their compulsion. It is their best friend and lover. Of course, not everyone who enjoys endurance training is an exercise addict, but often when more time is spent on the treadmill than cuddling with a spouse, intimacy is formed with that gym rather than in the relationship. In fact, the exercise may even be an attempted escape from difficult dynamics within the marriage itself.
Furthermore, someone with an eating disorder or exercise addiction is using their behaviors as numbing agents for severe pain. This disables them from being emotionally available or from truly connecting with another human being. Eating disorders are ridden with shame, lies, and secrecy, poisoning any chance of true intimacy. This leaves many spouses feeling lonely, pushed out, and neglected. Addiction is a family disease; the un-addicted spouse is affected just as much as the one struggling with the addiction. Tragically, exercise addictions and eating disorders destroy many marriages.
For these reasons, couples therapy can be a very useful element of treatment. This can help couples to better communicate and understand one another. Couples can also use this time to learn how to better support one another throughout the recovery process. In addition, letting go of a love affair with an eating or exercise addiction can surface fears and anxieties in the marriage relationship pertaining to vulnerability and sexuality. If there is past sexual trauma that has been driving the addiction, these issues will need to be addressed within the safety of couples and sex therapy to help the couple develop a loving and trusting relationship in this area. After re-establishing a solid connection, some couples choose to recommit their vows to one another or to perform another ceremony rededicating their lives to each another. With hard work and dedication, many couples who persist through therapy find that they have a more intimate and honest relationship than they ever had before.
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