AITA that I used my husband’s own words and credit card against him to prioritize my health?
My husband is always making comments about my weight and how he thinks I just don’t care about my health anymore. For background, I was once a marathon runner, competed in CrossFit and was in far better shape and ate healthier than he did when we first started dating. The past ten years I have gained a substantial amount of weight after our second child, and then a serious accident left me unable to walk for almost a year let alone work out like I used to, despite trying desperately to get back into shape after. Then , perimenopause came and losing the weight became even more challenging. Needless to say I am not happy about the way I look either, and it has caused me to be very my depressed and the weight has also made it harder to run or do a lot of physical activity that I actually enjoy doing. His comments and lack of empathy have been very discouraging and I have told him many times that if he were more supportive instead of cruel then it would be easier to boost my self confidence and not raise my cortisol levels which are also inhibiting my progress.
His excuse is that he is just trying to help but it doesn’t. He has been pretty hurtful saying how it embarrasses him to go on vacation with me being that he is so “in shape” and I am not. Needless to say I have tried GLps, and a slew of drugs, none of which worked, and had all kinds of tests that just turn out to be normal. It has been incredibly frustrating to be doing everything I can to lose weight and yet being told by him I am lazy and just don’t try hard enough. So when I told him that there was a specific gym that I wanted to join for their specific class they had, but I felt guilty about spending the money, he agreed to pay for it for me.
A few weeks after, I signed up our oldest child for tennis because they really had been wanting to play. When he found out, he was furious and asked why, if I could pay for our child’s lessons, why could I not pay for my gym membership? I told him that I am not one to spend money on myself and feel guilty because I am always prioritizing my family and home before myself (which he never seems to notice). We got in a big fight and he said that I needed to “prioritize my health first”. I told him i dont want to spend money on myself when that money could go toward the children. I assumed that he was doing a nice thing by paying for the gym membership for me so that I didn’t have to feel guilty about doing something for myself for once. I do try to work out at home but with the kids always needing something and not wanting to take time away from his workouts, it made it harder to find time, though I usually could make it work. Anyway he blew up at me for this and I just felt worse because I was under the impression he had agreed to pay for my monthly gym membership as kind gesture to absolve me from guilt but it was not the case at all. I now realize it was just because of his notion that I don’t work out enough and he thought me going to the gym would solve my problem when in fact, I just wanted to have some “me “ time which i thought was “prioritizing my health.”
After the blowup and feeling like complete crap , I decided that if he was going to say that I need to “prioritize my health” I should take that to mean that i should no longer feel guilty about spending money on my version of health after suffering from his mean comments and depression for so long at my current weight. So I used his credit card to get a massage, get a pedicure, and buy an expensive meal delivery service which I had never done before. When he found out he was furious and I told him these were all things I needed to “prioritize my health” and isn’t that what he wanted all along? I feel like I am finally not only prioritizing my physical but also my mental health, given the verbal abuse and body shaming I have suffered for so long and if he really cared about my health he shouldn’t be such a cheap bastard. AITA?