Tired of being the chew toy. . .so I bit back.

My husband has been "different" ever since he was diagnosed with diabetes, and it hasn't been that long ago.  He hates being reminded that there are limits now on what he can eat - and I don't imagine this is fun for a food addict - and he gets very surly and critical.

I've tried very hard to take small steps rather than large, traumatic ones - toward goals like getting him to eat smaller portions of things, not having three or for forms of carbs with a single meal, switching away from sugary sodas, things like that.  Sometimes he has been cooperative.  Many times, he has been belligerent and quite unpleasant.

After a fairly unpleasant week, I happened to remark last night (and I don't even remember what led up to it, but it was a natural segue), "You know, this marriage has been different from the very beginning.  I have always known that I had the resources to just head out the door and keep on going.  I wouldn't want to, of course, because I love you and you are a very special person.  But I know that I can stand on my own two feet and survive if I have to."

He didn't seem to react at all at that time, so I let it go.  Today, he remarked (after being exceptionally pleasant all day) that I had seemed "snippier" and he wondered why.  I couldn't really remember being "snippy," but I had made a point of spending more time by myself than usual today.

He finally said something about "Maybe I've been cranky lately, and you just decided to get cranky back." I just shrugged and said, "Well, maybe, but I don't like being cranky.  Do you?"  He said that no, he didn't, and the evening ended on a fairly up-beat note.

After reading what so many of you had said about how the moodiness and nastiness just get worse and worse, I thought I would put him on notice that I wasn't going to put up with it.  Maybe the message got through.  We shall see.