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[quote=Anonymous]I've been dating a guy for 2 and a half years now. We're very close, especially on account of some tragedies we went through in the beginning stages. I often jokingly say I feel like I've been married to him for 6 years because of our involvement.

My younger sister (16 years old) developed anorexia over the past year, and my SAHM has done everything in her power to fight it. My sister has had previous diagnoses of ADD, ADHD, and severe OCD, as in do meaningless rituals over and over again until they're "right" (although since getting a prescription for that, she has become much, much better besides controlling her food intake).

Based on my relationship closeness with my family, I've seen and been a part of the anorexia battle the entire time. My mom has done extensive research on how to best treat and/or discourage my sister from skipping food. It's been fairly successful, she still fights us on a meal about once every day or two, but she's getting better little by little.

With that being said, I'm starting to worry that my 28-year-old boyfriend is starting to develop symptoms, or at the very least some kind of body dysmorphia. He's 6 foot 4 inches and when I met him, weighed about 219 pounds. Being so tall, that weight was very even and proportionate on his body. He has the classic shoulders-broader-than-his-waist shape, and he's very athletic. At one point, he even had a goal to make it to 225 pounds by beefing up on food and working it out into muscle.

Nowadays, he's changed. He thinks out loud about his size, or outright complains to me that he's fat. Sometimes he'll look in a mirror and pull his shirt up and just look at himself sadly. Mind you, he is the smallest he's ever been since I've known him, about 205 pounds now. Since I know the advised way to deal with anorexic people thanks to my sister, I try not to say yes you are or no you're not. (Saying yes obviously validates their fat feelings, but even saying no you're not often gives them a resilience to continue, because then it's working and they must be losing weight.) I often quip, "Even if you think you're fat, is that really the worst quality you could have?"

I've suspected in the past that he could have depression, but he's tearfully admitted to me that the notion alone scares him. So it wouldn't be too far off to assume that, if he thought he might have anorexic tendencies, he would feel too emasculated by admitting it anyone, therefore he'd rather ignore it instead.

On the other hand, I have spent the vast majority of our days together with him physically (due to living situations) and we'd almost always eat lunch and/or dinner together. He's never obviously refused food or hidden it, and he'll still eat hamburgers and pizza and all that. He eats more than I do (I'm 5 foot even) and I know he doesn't purge around me.

My issue is...am I looking too much into this? Am I too afraid of what happened to my sister to tell him NO YOU ARE NOT FAT, and therefore might he be taking my silence as affirmation that he IS overweight? I am very affectionate with him and I do tell him often that I think he's very hot/attractive, et cetera. Does anyone have any advice?[/quote]

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