I’m not sure what to do. My boyfriend has diabetes and keeps on forgetting to take insulin or just forgets in general. I know is tough, I’ve growing up with family that also has diabetes and forgetting happens but it happens every day almost and instead of working on a routine to help himself, he will complain and put himself down. But I always comfort him and love him and try to help him work on it but it’s been 4 years and it’s only gotten worse, I want him to take care of himself but I’m getting really frustrated. I don’t want to give too many other details. I always try to encourage him and help him remember 24/7 or if I don’t he will get sick.
Before I forget, he does take care of himself but like everything I said above, someone usually always has to check on him and make sure he’s doing what or he’ll forgets, and when he can he’ll snack like crazy and it definitely messes up things. But it’s been like I said almost everyday it goes pretty high but every other week now. 2 to 3 a week, it’s been going up to 500 or so “his blood sugar”
Does anyone have any advice or some way to encourage someone to work on these type of things better?? Also thank you in advance.
TLDR : Boyfriend has diabetes and hasn’t been care of himself really.
27 comments
stop checking on him and bugging him. He’ll figure it out. Sometimes, you have to let people fail for them to succeed.
I’m sorry, Op, but if HE isn’t going to manage his diabetes, what are you supposed to do? Run after him asking if he’s taken his meds? Look over his shoulder, call him every ten minutes to ask what he’s eaten? You are not then his girlfriend but his keeper.
Taking his insulin is like every other necessity like brushing your teeth, showering, changing your clothes EXCEPT you can have dire consequences if you miss your insulin.
He may be in denial and refuse to accept his diabetes so maybe a talk with his doctor where the consequences are explained to him might help but that’s still on him.
I had a coworker who’s husband refused to do his insulin and watch his food intake. One day, she sat him down and told him she had made an appointment with a lawyer to write up his will, his living will and check on his life insurance, funeral arrangements because of how he was living (noncompliant meds, eating habits). THAT woke his goofy azz up!
This is not on you to manage. It can be hard to watch someone you love not take care of themselves. But he is a fully functioning adult, and he should care more about his health than you do.
You can tell him that it’s too stressful for you to try and manage his health and that you will no longer do it. That is exhausting for you and it is making you frustrated and upset. And that you find it very unattractive to have to be his parent. From now on, he has to manage his own health and if he has serious health consequences, then it’s his fault.
You also have to decide for yourself if you want to be his mom or if its healthier for you to pull yourself out of this situation.
You are far too young to have a 23 year old son.
I have a co-worker that died of diabetes after years of mis-managing it. She was 42 years old. You can’t help those who don’t help themselves.
I don’t know how long your boyfriend has been living with diabetes, but I’ll assume it’s Type 1 given his relatively young age. Burn out is extremely common with T1D. You never get a break from it. Ever. You have to think about everything you eat, so you can properly dose. You have to think about how much insulting you have on board and plan your activities around it. If you decide to go out, you have to make sure you have access to quick snacks and/or sugar in the even your blood sugar drops. You have to monitor your blood sugar frequently, so you can properly treat. It is absolutely non-stop with no breaks ever. Period.
Sometimes T1D patients just hit a wall and don’t want to care about it. It doesn’t matter how much anyone tries to talk to them about it, the words won’t have any impact. In fact, well-meaning friends and loved ones trying to prod them into taking better care of themselves will often have the opposite effect. If his burnout has hit that stage, he may need to sit down with a therapist and just unload some of the bullshit that he’s built up mentally about his disease.
If he is having this much trouble with blood sugar management, he should probably see his doctor and get prescriptions for a CGM and a pump that has some automated dosage/loop capability. It won’t be perfect, but it does take some of the constant work off. And if he won’t do a pump, then at least getting a CGM will make it easier to keep an eye where his numbers are with less work than typical testing.
Your boyfriend has a phone? Phones have alarms you can set to ring every day with a reminder. “Forgetting” is not an excuse.
You can’t make him do this. He has to want to take this seriously. And if he doesn’t, it’ll probably kill him. Even if it doesn’t, there are life-altering effects besides that.
Do you want to be with someone who won’t take care of themselves? It won’t stop with this. He knows he has diabetes, he’s had it for years. Sadly, if he’s this cavalier about it, he probably won’t take it seriously unless something really bad happens. And by then, it might be too late.
OP honestly you are probably making it worse. I had a bf who didn’t take care of himself either but with his eating and working. I started trying to motivate him and started checking in on him and he got a bit worse, but he seemed to be into my efforts and appreciated me helping so I helped out some more and started helping him plan meals and I started checking in on him to make sure he went to work. Well fast forward however long and I’m asking him why he didn’t go to work and he has the audacity to tell me that I didn’t remind him enough or motivate him enough. He would actively blame me for him gaining weight and he stopped showering too.
That dude took absolute advantage of me and used me as his caregiver. I personally think you should dump him.
If you don’t you should literally tell him you nolonger care about his health and will not be around if he chooses to get sick.
When I dumped my bf I was worried he would just die without me caring for him but magically he started doing all that shit on his own. Turns out he was capable all that time.
You cannot fix other people.
I’ve had type one for 38 years. Never forgotten to take insulin – I am far too scared of the consequences of not managing this disease properly. I would rather keep my eyesight, all my limbs and avoid heart attacks and strokes. It’s simply that serious.
If his condition is not controlled, he will be feeling awful, physically and mentally. But is that something you can sort? No. Can you support someone who wants to do better? Yes. But he’s the boss of it, not you.
Until he wants to improve his health, you are just a bystander sadly.
Assuming you live in the western world here. Why not set a follower app and an alarm on his glucose sensor?
If he doesn’t care about his health, he doesn’t care. There is nothing you can do about that. I’m sorry OP.
I would think a continuous blood glucose monitor would help. It would alert him like you are basically doing. He would still have to not ignore it and act accordingly.
>it happens every day almost and instead of working on a routine to help himself, he will complain and put himself down. But I always comfort him and love him and try to help him work on it but it’s been 4 years and it’s only gotten worse
He’s learning that acting helpless and putting himself down is a way to get comfort and attention from you. If you want him to get better, stop rewarding bad behavior.
He needs to learn how to manage his own diabetes and also his feelings of failure when he doesn’t. Right now you’re trying to do both for him, and he’s never going to learn that way.
His health is his responsibility, not yours, do not treat him like your child. There’s nothing difficult about remembering one has a condition (especially diabetes ffs) they need to tend to and that they need to take care of themselves, your bf is irresponsible and immature and you’re enabling it by comforting him and making sure he does what he’s supposed to. He needs to grow up and take control, that’s nobody’s job but his.
this is absolutely not your job. the extent of what you should do for him is: set an alarm on his phone to go off daily when he needs his medication. you do that once and then you are DONE until he asks you for help on a specific task. you’re not his mother or his caretaker, he’s an adult and needs to take care of himself. this isn’t something you “work on,” it’s something he just has to do.
if you take care of this for him you’re enabling him to be a mindless slob. i’m not using “slob” to mean anything negative about his body or his disease—i am using “slob” to refer to his neglect of his own body to the point that he could die. he could be a jacked millionaire but this is slob behavior and it’s deeply unattractive to be around adults who can’t take care of themselves.
do you really want to be with someone who cares so little about themselves? and who cares so little about your relationship that he’ll casually risk his life out of laziness and inconvenience?
Do you want to be a mother/nurse to a grown-up who doesn’t want to take responsibility for their own health? Eventually your life will be centered around taking him to his cardiologist, nephrologist, vascular surgeon, ophthalmologist, endocrinologist. Later in the course of his life it’ll be making sure he doesn’t miss dialysis sessions, helping him deal with life after amputation, stroke rehab, etc. That’s the sad truth. Maybe he needs therapy to help him understand why he doesn’t want to take care of himself. But, that’s not your responsibility.
Don’t set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.
He’s gonna end up without feet.
It sounds like he may have ADHD and avoidance issues as well. Might be good to try an ADHD therapist, and possibly get him a medication for that such as Adderall. But obviously would need a diagnosis first. And the best way to create a new habit is to attach it to an old habit or routine. My wife has ADHD, and we joke about how it’s so ADHD to forget to take your ADHD medication. So that’s some thing I help her with. You could try setting, reoccurring, alarms or reminders on his phone as well, but if he does have ADHD, he will probably just ignore those.
This sounds more like a burnout/depression issue or a lack of drive/responsibility issue than the actual diabetic condition issue (even though I know the first greatly affects the latter and vice versa).
If he isn’t already getting extra support, he needs to be encouraged to check in with his primary care physician and then seek help from a counselor on an ongoing basis about his food choices, memory, hygiene, etc.
As you likely already know, a life with someone who cannot do the basics of taking care of himself this early on does not seem like something to easily and happily look forward to. We all have our faults and our idiosyncrasies, so you have to weigh this against all the good that he does bring to the relationship. But, these factors must affect so much of your relationship regarding intimacy, time management, crisis management, physical abilities and stamina, self-reliance and on and on… and I would be thinking long and hard about spending much more time in the relationship or committing further without having some long, difficult conversations with him and seeing improvement in his action on these topics. Otherwise (and again, you know this), all of these get worse over time and as he ages – not better.
Maybe his parents, siblings, and you can band together as a united front to have some of these difficult discussions together with him.
So my grandpa had untreated diabetes and ended up having to get a toe amputated. It couldve been a lot worse like death but there is risk of losing limbs if he doesnt get it taken care of and if that doesnt at least scare him the prospect of dying might. He can also lose his vision as well. Diabetes is not to be fucked with
Does he have other issues with his executive functioning? If so, he may want to seek an evaluation for conditions like ADHD, as that can open up avenues of treatment that can help improve his functioning.
Also, he should talk to his doctor about options that involve less intervention from him, like a CGM and insulin pump. He should not be making this a problem for everyone around him; there are options out there to help him that don’t involve deputizing everyone else to manage his health condition.
As a diabetic, I feel your pain. He’s either going to get a handle on it, or he’s going to end up getting his feet cut off at 50 because he ignored his blood sugar for too long. Maybe he hasn’t seen the ugly/bad side of how diabetes can destroy your life as you get older – I’ve seen it first hand a half dozen times, and I’m doing everything I can do make sure it doesn’t happen to me. At 22, you think you’re invincible.
500? He’s going to die, sooner rather than later. Maybe he just doesn’t care?
Maybe suggest he put reminder alarms on his phone to help him remember to take his insulin… do you guys have a good meal prep and good food in the house to help somewhat manage the blood sugar
⚠️⚠️YOU ARE NOT HIS MOTHER⚠️⚠️
There are reminders he can set on his phone to take his meds (I have such reminders).
If he’s like this NOW, expect to be his full time MOTHER when you both get married.
His behavior alone is grounds for “either you start taking care of yourself or I’m OUT of this relationship “.
This was basically the story of my boyfriend. He’s now my husband. I love him dearly, but him not looking after his condition properly is a serious problem in our lives. I know he tries his best and It’s definitely due to ADD that he doesn’t manage his type 1 all that well, but let me just say – know that if you do stay with him you are signing up for a lifetime of your needs being second to his illness.
I’ve called two ambulances in the last two months for my husband because he went too low. Hands down two of the most frightening experiences of my life. I don’t have any help at night with our baby because being up at night screws his blood sugars so badly. At times, the needs of his illness are all consuming. I love him so much, but my heart breaks regularly watching this horrid disease make him (and thus myself) suffer. And it’s so frustrating to watch him make the same errors over again, even if I know it’s due to him being burnt out. Let me tell you, it’S easy to love someone, but it’s very hard to keep giving all of yourself and still watching someone suffer from a chronic disease and be very slow or unable to change habits.
You alone can decide if this is the kind of life you want, and if you can sign up for a regular roller coaster of heartbreak and fear to go alongside the joy. I would be very surprised if it got better for your boyfriend if he isn’t taking care of himself now. I never imagined our lives would be so ruled by my husband’s condition. I love him, but it’s very hard. Please think fully about your own needs before deciding to commit long term. Please know that you are not a bad person if you say goodbye to someone you love if they can’t look after themselves – it’s called self preservation. Good luck! I’m sorry to hear you are struggling. It’s a very hard situation to be in.
I had a relevant situation with my uncle. He has a diabetes and did not take care like pills and regular sugar measurements
It ended up that he slipped in winter and hit his hand hardly, they made the operation and now he is in hospital for 6months as all the other organs do not function well and the wound does not heal properly due to diabetes, infection is spreading to other hand parts. Now he realises the control of health is important and I hope it’s not too late for him. I’m not scaring you but you try to explain to your bf that however you care much for him, this is his responsibility to be serious about the disease and make all the effort needed from his side as he’s really young and has much yet to do, unfortunately people rarely learn from others example
Wish you all the best
This is a form of co-dependency. It can be health oriented too and your bf sounds like he has gotten in to a negative spiral and he doesnt sounds like he is feeling too good with himself. Sometimes lifetime long health issues make you go in to a depressive mode. You do exactly everything to try to live as if it doesnt exist bc out of sight, out of mind. The reality is to much to bear.
That makes the responsibility on those close to the who is ill up to take too much of the serious aftereffects. Thats making the relation dynamics rock in its core and its very exhausting. The reactions he has is normal but tiresome. And he has the responsability to manage his reactions, thats not your thing. If your relation shall survive, he has to take action and seek help bc he doesnt manage his diabetes well and thats not only make him ill, it scares you and puts you in a unhealthy position. Yes, you should support him but if you do, he has to take the responsability of his illness. Yes, its not fair, I know, but life give curve balls and you have to play them. You cant live like this bc he is placing this in your lap and thats not your job. You have and has to have a good life too, you cant be his caregiver too plus being his partner bc he doesnt care. Sorry if you find me blunt but I have lived with really serious conditions in my close relations and I know that co-dependency is a love killer in the end. Please take care of you. Then you can be a supportive partner to your bf.