‘Anorexia nearly killed my wife’

By Tom Cramer, as told to Brian Alexander

updated 1:55 p.m. ET Jan. 20, 2008

Psychiatric wards are places where they take sharp objects and shoelaces from patients. My wife lived in one for two weeks, when doctors feared she was a danger to herself.

The day Meg was admitted, she was 83 pounds, down from a healthy 109 on her 5'1" frame just five months earlier. Driving home from the aerobics class she taught, she had become nauseated and faint and had chest pains. She went to the ER, where they sent her to the psychiatric ward. When I arrived, I was terrified — and relieved. Maybe, finally, doctors could help her in ways I hadn’t been able to. It was the beginning of Meg’s fight to overcome anorexia, and the start of my own to help the woman I love so much.

Perfect beginnings
After my first date with Meg during my freshmen year of college, I came home and told my roommate, “I could see myself marrying her one day.” He wrote those words in his journal, and five and a half years later, read them aloud to the guests at our wedding. Meg became my best friend, someone who laughed at my goofy jokes, knew a lot about the Steelers and was scary smart. After we had our sons, Mikey and Ryan, she floored me all over again as a mother. Our happiness was clearly visible: People would ask me, “What’s your secret?” and I would say, “When you find the right person, everything else is easy.”

But not everything was easy for Meg. Before we had kids, she worked in child advocacy in Washington, D.C., and loved her career — but when my job transfer forced us to move to North Carolina and then to Pittsburgh, where both our families were, Meg became a stay-at-home mom. Living just miles from our parents, she felt she was under constant scrutiny, pressured to be the perfect wife, mother, daughter and daughter-in-law. I began to understand that beneath my wife’s tough exterior, she was a pleaser.

This desire for perfection extended to Meg’s body. She’d always compared herself to other women, pointing out ones who were thinner. After the birth of our youngest, Ryan, she was determined to lose the last 20 pounds of baby weight. Through dieting and exercise, the pounds came off, and Meg started to wear sexy clothes and exude confidence. When she began teaching and taking daily aerobics classes and cutting out most food, though, even our then five-year-old noticed the difference. “My mom is the queen of salads!” he announced once to a waitress.

I wish I could say that love led me to know what to do. But instead I was cocky. Eating disorders didn’t happen to perfect couples like us. Although I knew she was very thin, I wasn’t able to see that she had a serious disease. I remember bragging to friends that my wife was a hot aerobics instructor.

Wanting to fix things
My arrogance also made me think that I could fix things. As an engineer, I identify an issue and find a solution. “I can handle this,” I told myself. There was, after all, a simple answer: Meg needed to eat more, and I thought I could persuade her to do that. I reasoned that Meg’s job was to get her prescribed calories and readjust her thinking; mine was to take care of the house and kids while she did that. I became superdad: I made dinner for the boys and started cleaning. Every toy was in place, and one dirty sock became a reason to do the laundry.

Since that time, I’ve learned that anorexia does not have an on/off switch. What Meg needed from me was adult interaction and emotional support, not clean clothes. Which is why, under my brilliant strategy, we went from a couple that rarely fought to one that argued all the time about food and the gym.

The more I pushed her to change, the more she pushed back. She tossed the sexy clothes and adopted a uniform of baggy pants and shirts to hide her wasting body from me. We rarely made love. She had so little energy that she’d fall in bed by eight, just after the kids went to sleep. Her allergies flared and her periods stopped. I found myself making excuses for Meg’s gaunt appearance, telling friends and family that she had the flu or another illness.

Our arguments escalated until one night we went out without the kids and I ordered a cheeseburger for her. She refused to touch it. I begged. Finally I said, “If you really love me, you will eat this!” She wouldn’t. I knew she still loved me, but I was devastated. The plate sat there between us, untouched.

To Meg that meal was probably like so many others, with me nagging and her not budging. But to me it marked a milestone. I finally realized that this wasn’t an eating problem. Meg was fighting me as she never had before, and the problem was more than food. The flawless world I’d convinced myself we lived in had spun out of control. We weren’t perfect. And Meg was very, very sick. Two weeks after my failed showdown at the restaurant, I got the call from Meg at the hospital. Doctors said she’d almost had heart failure and that she was in a state of extreme emotional distress.

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