My Wife Saved My Life

Months ago, I came home from London and my wife informed me that the doctor had my blood results. Because of my weight, my doctor wanted me on medication.

My wife made it her mission to make sure I live as long as possible. "I can't live without you" she emphasized.

Our honeymoon September 2021 in Istanbul, Turkey

Online there is always this bickering between the sexes, highlighting the worst of us to exaggerate these individuals as being the norm to make us feel disillusioned about relationship dynamics in the modern era.

But what about the partners who will do anything for you, including saving your life? My wife is one of them.

Recently, I posted about my loss of 50 pounds in 4 months with the majority of it coming from intermittent fasting scheduling. However, the other part of it was fixing my bad eating habits and becoming smarter about my food selections.

Prior to me losing weight, I would rationalize an occasion fast food order, drink multiple cups of coffee that was just sugar bombs causing my blood sugar to spike and dip, and devour large portions of food on the regular.

Sometimes you need a rock bottom or a shock to the system to wake up and take things seriously. Those blood test results woke my wife and me up from the habitual routine of an unhealthy lifestyle we were indulging in.

I believe it had an even greater effect on my wife because less than a year prior we lost her father and he struggled with his health for years, surviving on multiple medications. She imagined if we didn't do something while I'm still relatively young, that could be my future.

The image of me cycling through pills that are combating each other's side effects and not being able to live my life to its fullest potential alongside her thrust her into considering the possibility of my mortality coming prematurely.

My wife saved my life by helping me when I was struggling to help myself. Despite her working a full-time job, she embraced the role of being our cook for every meal, 7 days a week.

Even with her getting a promotion at work and dealing with these new stresses, she always made sure to meal prep for the week or come home to cook a healthy meal. She rarely complained because she saw the bigger picture: my life was greater than her being tired.

For my wife, food was the way to save my life as it was the mechanism that was slowly killing me. Her ensuring that she's using the healthiest oils, correct portions and organic options was her way of showing how much she loves me and values my existence in her life.

Over time, we encouraged each other to strive for better results as we fasted together and worked out together. The days I was up for a workout and she was feeling lazy, she couldn't stand seeing me go without her and she was glad after the workout that I helped pull her along.

While I've lost over 50 pounds, my wife has lost over 22 pounds all due to us coming together and motivating each other to be the better versions of ourselves.

Where she is weak, I am strong, and vice versa. We compliment each other and I think this message is missing from the relationship dialogue. Her cooking for me wasn't to satisfy some patriarchal concept of what a wife is but her expression of love and care for me.

My motivation to get even healthier is to not disappoint my wife by dying unnecessarily early and leaving her alone to grieve my preventable absence.

Marriage means it's no longer just about you and we both understand this: I just wish more people did.