I finally left my husband at 46 after losing four stone on Ozempic

I know it sounds like a cliché – that people get to middle age and have an existential crisis and leave their partners. That wasn’t quite what happened to me; it was more like a whole-body epiphany, and I definitely felt that perimenopause was the beginning of the end. But primarily, it was dramatic weight loss. About a year ago, aged 46, I started taking Ozempic. I had seen friends doing well on it, their old jeans hanging off them after a few weeks. I’d been slim in my 30s, but after having two kids, I’d become a size 18. I felt so self-conscious. I hated buying clothes. I always said negative things to myself. My husband, Rob, never openly criticised my weight, but he once said, “That girl loves her food,” in front of a whole table of people at a friend’s wedding. That comment stuck with me for years. I’d been pregnant at the time. When we were watching TV, Rob would comment on shows like Strictly Come Dancing and say, “She looks amazing for her age,” or “You’d never guess she’d had kids,” referring to their figures. He talked about bumping into one of my friends and how fit she looked. He often told me, “Your legs aren’t your strong point, love.” It all made me feel worse, obviously. It made me feel ugly. Then I took up running, and Rob never congratulated me about any of the training. I did a 10km race locally, and the other husbands turned up to cheer their partners on. Rob stayed at home because he said the children would “kick off” if he brought them along. They were seven and 12 at the time; I think they’d have enjoyed it. To me, it was indicative of the fact that he didn’t care and couldn’t be bothered. Shorts I would sometimes get this repetitive phrase running through my head when I was around him: BARE MINIMUM. He did the bare minimum in terms of helping around the house. The bare minimum with the kids. And also in our relationship. I think he assumed that I’d settle for it. I often think men are OK with settling. Perhaps he thought that if he made me feel bad, I’d be too paranoid to leave him. When I first started Ozempic, I hated it. I felt queasy, and like I had a strange taste in my mouth when I woke up. I told Rob, and he teased me and said I’d end up looking weird. He never listened when I told him how unattractive I felt. He just told me I was self-absorbed and “needed to get a life”. Then I had a flirtation with someone I work with and this started to change the way I saw myself. At this point, I was early in the weight loss journey but he said I was gorgeous and then apologised. It made me reframe the way I looked. At first, the weight loss was dramatic. I lost 12 pounds in four weeks. I was worried it was too fast. I started swimming every morning and felt great. One woman at the gym came up to me and complimented me. Meanwhile, Rob didn’t say a thing. Our communication was functional – about what needed doing, who needed taking to where, that kind of thing. Twelve weeks in and I’d lost two stone. I was wearing a belt to hold up my trousers. I felt like my tummy had disappeared. I enjoyed the lack of food noise. I felt younger and had more energy. The only problem was I found myself thinking about my relationship deeply. Perhaps before, I would have turned to food for comfort. I felt angry that Rob wasn’t making more effort. We hadn’t had sex in eight months. Every night, he watched TV downstairs and I watched shows upstairs with my eldest daughter. I know it was my fault, too. I had given up. The more the weight came off, the better I felt about myself, though. And the better I felt, the more I realised I didn’t love Rob anymore. I was feeling more like the person I’d been before kids. I felt like I had options. Sure, I had wrinkles and a few grey hairs but I could wear dresses I hadn’t worn for years. After a year, I’d lost four stone. During that whole period, Rob never once congratulated me. When I challenged him, he tried to come up and give me a cuddle. “I guess you have lost a bit, love,” he said, but it was too late. It wasn’t that I wanted fanfare but just some positive encouragement. I think he thought it was easy to do the jabs, but it still took exercise and self-discipline. You can’t just eat junk when you’re doing it, so I was keeping faithfully to a high-protein, low-fat diet. It required work. Two months ago, after 16 months on the jabs, I told him to move out. He didn’t believe me. He cried and it sent him into a tailspin. He said that we could work things out. I said it was too late. He went to stay with his brother and now rents a flat nearby. I don’t think we can fix our relationship. I also take some responsibility; I didn’t put anything into it either. I took him for granted. I feel sad about the kids, of course, but I honestly think that they could see we were both bored and disengaged. They would sometimes ask us to kiss one another and we couldn’t even perform in front of them. I don’t feel desperate to meet anyone else. It wasn’t just the weight loss that caused me to end my marriage, of course, but it definitely gave me the push I needed. The jabs gave me clarity, made me see more clearly my life as it truly was.