Might as well update again, since stuff happened today and I want to write it down before I forget. I'm going to have to start keeping an offline journal, I suspect.

Today our toddler was being really difficult, disrespectful and uncooperative. Together hubby and I imposed plenty of consequences and eventually he settled down. As long as hubby was taking an active hand in things, I stepped back and let him handle it, but I couldn't help noticing that he talked too much rather than acting. Whenever I reinforced what he was saying, the boy obeyed better, because he knows I won't tolerate as much from him. But eventually hubby got ticked off and the consequences started mounting. The damage was already done, though. Hubby complains that toddler is disrespectful, but I think even toddler subconsciously knows that hubby isn't maintaining frame and boundaries. I'm not great at it myself either, but I've gotten a lot better over months of weekdays corralling the boy by myself.

At one point, hubby made a weak innuendo about taking off his pants, but I didn't respond, so then he complained that I'm not acting at all interested anymore. I shrugged and didn't say much, at which point he said, "Spouses should always act interested in each other." Probably spouses that are attracted to each other are usually going to act interested, but I'm not going to fake interest I don't feel. (I said some of that but not so clearly in the moment.) The boy was with us and I didn't want to get into a big discussion about attraction, but I had to wonder if he'd forgotten the discussion we had the other day about how I'm not attracted to him right now. Plus I don't feel like a sudden innuendo out of nowhere shows interest in me.

Anyway, one of the consequences for toddler was that we didn't go out to dinner like we'd been planning, so then the ever-present "what's for dinner?" debate was reopened at the last minute. After tossing around takeout ideas, somehow hubby and I ended up in another discussion about how his definition of a meal is narrower than mine and we have to plan some more staple meals that I can make that are lower carb.

I said I'd asked him to help brainstorm ideas recently, but it seemed to never be a good time because he was always tired. He said he wasn't tired then, so I promptly got out a sheet of paper and asked him if we could start right then. But he said we first had to figure out the immediate issue of dinner that night, at which point I said I thought we'd decided on takeout so we'd have good leftovers for the next day.

Apparently I hadn't been clear earlier. I'd been talking about how I could eat for a week on what we had in the house even though we don't have all the pieces for more than a couple of the regular meals I make for all of us, because my definition of a meal is broader than his. But somehow he thought that meant I was planning on making dinner that night from what we have even though he'd already refused the regular meals since we'd had similar meals too recently.

At that point he just totally shut down. He sat silent and withdrawn for several minutes, then just got up and left to pick up dinner. So again, the planning didn't happen.

He was mostly silent through dinner, quiet through the boy's bedtime routine, and then completely withdrawn again when I returned from putting the boy to bed. I calmly got the paper again and cheerfully asked if he was ready to do food planning yet, but he said no, he wasn't in a planning mood. He said after the boy had been so disrespectful, and then when I got on his case about the food planning, he just couldn't take it. I didn't say much, just gave him a hug and then went and did my own thing. He literally just sat thinking, doing nothing, for over an hour tonight.

He was being even less interactive than usual, which is saying something when his usual routine is to read silently on his phone or computer if we're not doing anything together. This is extremely odd behavior for him. I've only seen it a few other times before, and mostly when something's really bothering him. I've been pretty quiet myself from time to time when things aren't looking so good, but while he's often low energy, he's rarely actually in a bad mood. We'll see what happens in the morning.

I'm definitely going to try beans in the pressure cooker once we get it. Also, hubby loved the egg muffins this morning. He said once he microwaved them a bit, it was like having a fresh omelette. But portable. We'll certainly keep doing those, then.

Y'know, with all the issues he already has, I have trouble understanding why he wouldn't have started working on the weight issue years ago. Well, he sort of did, but lost momentum. Plus the low-T makes everything harder. It's really a vicious cycle at this point. Too much weight, low energy, lack of motivation, etc.

But it's sort of like how people in debt often don't prioritize paying it off and keep buying extra things they don't really need with money they don't have. Being overweight is like a nutritional debt. You really can't splurge on extras (sweets, etc) until you pay off the debt and are healthy again. Otherwise you're just deferring the payment or even adding to the debt. It has to be top priority until it's resolved.

@Leticia It depends on the dish, I guess. Some things we eat are usually premade, so we just heat them up, like Indian curries. Other things I make from scratch. For enchiladas, I toss a can of black beans into a pan with sauteed onions and peppers, plus salsa and spices and such, then wrap and bake the mix in the oven. For chili, I just toss a variety of dry beans into the crockpot with the other veggies and spices and add plenty of water. After it's done, blend it up a little, then cheese and onion and oyster crackers on top...yum! (Might be time for another batch of chili pretty soon...)

Every so often he complains about tomato sauces causing heartburn, too. I make something Italian once or twice a week usually. The most recent time, he actually ate the bean pasta instead of the wheat pasta for once, when in the past he's complained about the bean pasta. But he didn't want the carbs, so that was his only other choice at the time.

This place has been a very valuable resource. I'm glad it's been here as long as it has. I understand the need to focus on what's most important, and I do hope this will free up more time for content creation and family.

But ten days isn't much advance warning. Is there any export function where we could export the content of critical threads before everything is wiped? There's a lot of wisdom here, and in particular I don't want to lose the insights that many people have shared with me on my own threads.

ETA: Looks like I'll have to save each page of my threads off to a PDF file, as that seems to be the fastest way to save what I want. Thanks.

@TooEarlyTooLate Of course I've told him to see a doctor and fix the low-T. I've been telling him that since last April when the low-T was confirmed. I just told him again tonight. I said I'm not forcing him to do a specific kind of testosterone supplementation, but I wanted him to start addressing the issue by seeing a specialist and finding out his options. He again refused and insisted that he was going to work hard on exercise and diet starting this weekend. He kept saying it's his body, and I shouldn't try to give him solutions for issues that involve his body. Well, it's not just his body that's affected.

I think the scale shocked him this morning, though. He's fifty pounds up from where he was after our exercise program before I got pregnant (three and a half years ago). He's actually more worried about the number on the scale than the number from the testosterone result. If that's what gets him off his butt, it's better than nothing, but I'm also not going to let go of the low-T issue for very long, either.

To be fair, it's against my usual nature to tell him to go see a doctor, so he's surprised to hear it from me on this. I am very much opposed to medical interference if there are any reasonable ways to take care of an issue without it. I never go to doctors for routine colds or injuries. I have a number of ways to soothe and treat minor issues at home and I use them as needed. But low testosterone is not a minor or simple issue. It's affecting our marriage and both his short and long term health. And I don't know any good ways to deal with such a severe case in a reasonable amount of time without intervention. It's possible that there are herbal or Chinese medicines that would help over time. If so, they apparently aren't well-tested enough or reliable enough, or they'd be listed in relevant reference books. If the T level was just a bit low, then sure, getting in shape may well do the trick. But it's severely low. His efforts aren't going to be enough, but he doesn't believe me when I say that. He's determined to try it for himself first.

In the counseling session tonight, the pastor told us that we scored a 0 on the conflict resolution section of the survey. As in, we disagreed on all of the opinion statements, and we gave negative responses to all the red flag items. Mostly that's because we both have a tendency to avoid conflict, and then nothing gets resolved. This will be an important homework to complete. We have to choose an issue and go through a whole formal exercise to work on resolving it. I don't know how we'll even choose an issue. I wonder if it would be effective to use the exercise on the problem of "what issue should we choose for a conflict-resolution exercise?" Lol. Meta ftw.