Dating, Marriage, Male Entitlement, and ‘My 600 LB Life’ TV Show
This is going to be one of those posts that meanders all over the place.
I’m not really sure where to start.
I’ve been watching a cable TV show called “My 600 LB Life” for over a year now. Aspects of content I see on this show remind me of some of the subjects I blog about on here.
I’m not sure exactly why I watch this show, but I find it riveting, and sometimes horrifying. It’s a reality program. Each show features a real-life person who is 600 or more pounds over-weight.
I do not watch the show to make fun of or laugh at the obese people.
I watch, I suppose, because I am interested in their life stories and what drove them to cope with life’s problems by over-eating to the point they become morbidly obese.
I also tune in to learn medical information about what happens to a body once it gets up to 600 pounds.
I learned from this show that not only does the body get a lot of fat on it (obviously), and the heart has a harder time pumping, but obese people can and do develop all sorts of secondary issues, such as painful bumps, scales, and swelling on their legs (which are referred to as, or the result of, things such as (Link): Cellulitis and (Link): Lymphedema).
The majority of the time, I feel empathy for the obese people on this show.
I am wishing them all the best and hoping they lose the weight and recover and get over whatever childhood horror and pain led them to over-eat (most cases of this show consist of someone who turned to food as comfort after they were neglected, molested, or abused in childhood).
There have been a few cases on this show, such as Steve Assanti, Chuck, and James K., where I have little to no empathy at all, because the person is whiny, ungrateful, abusive, rude, or incredibly self-absorbed.
It seems like most of the patients on the show are obese women, but they do occasionally feature an obese man.
Because I normally discuss topics such as singleness, dating, and marriage on this blog, I will point out I am dumb-founded to see so many of these obese people on this show have spouses or are dating someone.
I am a thin, attractive woman and cannot so much as get a date on a Friday night, but people on this show, often with serious weight issues and a mountain of psychological hang-ups, never-the-less get spouses and dates – it makes little sense to me.
Matter of fact, on one show, one obese woman and her husband divorced, and she shortly there-after (like in a matter of days or a couple of weeks) began dating some other guy she had been friends with for 12, 13 years. I don’t know what the trick is there. I am normal, educated, have a great sense of humor, and am thin, but can’t get a husband, but women with a volume more issues than I have get married easily.
Now, granted, some of the significant others these morbidly obese people attract and are with are not winners at all. Their SO’s are often weirdos, dim-witted, or have their own set of problems. I maintain it’s better to be single than date or marry a loser, a weirdo, or someone who is abusive.
STEVE ASSANTI
The Steve Assanti guy, at the time of the airing of his episode, was 33 years old. He weighs around 700 pounds (by the end of the episode, I think he was bordering on 800 pounds).
I’m just mentioning Assanti in passing because he is one of the most horrible, obnoxious, self-absorbed, manipulative, emotionally abusive people I have ever seen in my entire life.
Assanti is rude and abusive towards his brother, Justin, (who is about six years younger), to his dad, and to hospital staff.
Steve Assanti, as far as I’ve been able to ascertain, is single.
I don’t see Assanti ever getting a girlfriend or married, unless he gets a personality transplant. Quite obviously, I don’t think most women will want to date or marry a 700 – 800 pound man, but given what I said above, some apparently will – it beats me as to why.
But Assanti’s main problem is his terrible personality and how he mistreats people – that is far more repulsive than his extra weight.
Even if Assanti loses weight – down to a proper weight for him, which would probably be around 180 or 200 pounds – he’d still be awful.
You could transplant Assanti’s brain (his personality and morality) into someone like movie actor (and sexy hottie) Brad Pitt’s body, and Assanti would STILL BE REVOLTING and UNDATEABLE and UNMARRIAGEABLE.
This Assanti guy is one of the worst people I have ever seen in my life, and certainly the worst patient they’ve had on the “My 600 LB Life” show. He’s even worse than patient James K. whose episode aired about a week before Assanti’s.
You can read more about Steve Assanti and watch videos he made of himself at the following links (Steve Assanti goes by the screen name “FatBoyGetDown” on sites such as You Tube – he sometimes goes by his middle name of John):
This is a You Tube video channel by Assanti’s kid brother, Justin – features videos about his brother Steve:
(Link): Living With FatBoyGetDown – You Tube Channel
(Link): Steve Assanti’s You Tube Channel (under the name John Assanti)
This might be another You Tube Channel by Assanti:
(Link): You Tube Channel
(Link): The REAL 800lb man: Morbidly obese man who claimed he was a victim after being thrown out of hospital for ordering pizza is caught on camera harassing a nurse and mocking taxpayers who pay for his treatment – Daily Mail article
(Link): My 600-lb Life exclusive: Brothers tell how childhood hell led to horrific obesity
(Link): 800-pound man determined to slim down and “shock the world”
Assanti used to have his own You Tube channel, under the name FatBoyGetDown, but removed it. However, others online saved his videos and put them on their own channels, such as:
(Link): Fatboygetdown – My Humps
CHUCK AND NISSA
Sometimes, some women can be manipulative or selfish. I’ve known a few myself. Some of the obese women on this show are selfish and self-absorbed, there’s no doubt about that.
However, I feel that the sort of entitlement and self-absorption and selfishness we see among the obese men on this show is more prominent in men than in women.
American women are conditioned to be the opposite of self-absorbed.
Myself and many other American women were raised, from the time we were girls, to think that being a girl and woman meant always putting other people and their needs before our own.
We women were taught when we were girls, and we get these same message into adulthood, that we were supposed to be warm, giving, and nurturing to those around us.
So, we ladies grow up never getting our needs met, and sacrificing our needs, wants, dreams, and goals to support people around us, especially boyfriends and husbands.
American men, by contrast, are usually not raised in such a manner but are taught to view women as the “needs meet-er.”
American men are raised with the belief and expectation that their needs, dreams, and goals are more valid, important, and worthy than those of the girls and women around them. Furthermore, many men expect the woman they are dating or married to support them emotionally, materially, and in other ways.
If you’re a man reading this, you probably got the idea from your parents, your church, or from media you consume (TV shows, video games, movies) that women exist to put YOU first, to cheer you on, and meet your needs.
You, if you are a male, probably feel as though women “owe” you something – a smile, an encouraging word, a pat on the hand in sympathy when you’re down, a date, sex, a sympathetic ear, to clean your dirty dishes for you, or rub your shoulders after a hard day at work – whatever it is. This brings me to the following obese men featured on the “My 600 LB Life” show.
The first one I’d like to discuss is a guy named Chuck who was married at one time to a woman named “Nissa.”
Chuck had been married prior to Nissa. His first wife died. I think he claimed his over-eating was triggered by the death of his first wife.
Chuck later married Nissa, and the program showed that they had a toddler son together (I cannot remember if the boy was a kid from a previous marriage or was adopted).
Nissa was not only raising the toddler, but she was also a college student and had a job.
During all this, her husband Chuck, who weighed 600+ pounds, did not lift a hand to help her. From what they showed on the program, he spent all his time in bed.
Chuck would only waddle out of their bedroom in the evening, when Nissa would bring dinner out of the kitchen to the den.
Nissa a time or two in the show said she felt like she was a single parent.
She was having to do everything on her own – which she was. She came home after school or her job to find that Chuck had not done any house-cleaning while she was away during the day, but Chuck had spent all day in bed, just laying there.
During one portion of the program, Nissa said earlier in the day, before she left for school or her job, that Chuck had agreed to clean the stack of dirty dishes in the sink but had not.
The TV crew filmed her cleaning the dirty dishes herself – the dishes that Chuck said he was going to clean.
Chuck later got weight loss surgery from “Dr. Now,” (a doctor who is in Houston, Texas), and Nissa was his nurse, his care-giver at home. She helped him to recover.
Later, when Nissa when in for weight loss surgery herself, Chuck was a lazy ass.
There was a scene where Nissa and Chuck were in their den, watching TV, after she got home from the surgery. Nissa asked Chuck if he would run down to the Wal-Mart to pick up her pain medication, because she was hurting a lot.
The dumb ass (that would be Chuck) sat there snacking on pop corn or cake or whatever, and he whiny-ass-complained something to her like, “Do you really need for me to go RIGHT NOW?”
The lazy ass was wanting to sit there, stuff his face some more, before going to get his wife’s pain pills.
(Actually, I got the feeling that Lazy Ass Chuck didn’t want to get her pills at any time, not ever.)
You could tell the guy was not concerned that Nissa, his wife, was in pain. She probably would have appreciated Chuck playing care-giver for her and “babying” her during her recovery time. But did he ever? Nope.
A lot of you men act like wussy babies when you are sick, and you want, enjoy, or expect the woman in your life (wife, girlfriend, or female friend) to “baby” you when you are sick – to bring you home-made chicken soup, fluff your pillow for you, kiss you on the forehead, and so forth.
But do most of you men do this for the women in your life when THEY, the woman, falls sick? Hell no.
Why? Because you are selfish, sexist a-holes who think care-giving and babying someone who is sick is a task only women can or should do, or only men are entitled to be coddled during recovery. It’s this selfish mindset that plays one big role in why so many women divorce men.
There is no point in being married if the guy you are married to – like our friend Chuck here – is a consistent selfish and lazy dumb ass who shows no concern for you, your pain, your health, and whines about having to get off his ass to run down to the store to get your pain pill script filled.
(But I think Chuck was still expecting Nissa to get HIS pain pills after HIS surgery and to feed him and their toddler son.)
You are better off staying single then marrying a guy like this.
And screw the anti-divorce Christians out there, usually the “gender complementarians,” who pressure women to stay married to these self-absorbed, lazy ass losers, and they tell women it’s God’s will and design for them to stay married to a waste of space such as this guy and guys like him.
No, it’s not God’s design or wish for any woman to stay married to a loser like this. No.
I kept thinking during this show, “I sure wish Nissa would divorce this selfish guy.”
She finally did, by the way.
Well, before it got to that point, the TV show filmed her telling Chuck she was filing for divorce, but it was not final yet.
She tells him this in their car on the way somewhere, and the man-child starts crying and saying and blubbering, “Don’t do me like this Nissa. I promise I will change. I will lose the weight for you.”
Nissa had enough, though, and wasn’t falling for this, smart lady!
As the show went on, Nissa did decide to put off the divorce and give Chuck another chance.
See there? I’ve said before on older posts about male entitlement in dating and marriage that most women, most of the time, will give a man ample warning if she is about to break up with or divorce him. Most women don’t just dump a guy “out of the blue.”
So I am so sick and tired of divorced men on the internet who complain and whine on forums and blogs, “I can’t understand it! I cannot believe my wife dumped me! I never saw it coming. I was the perfect husband, too.”
Anyway.
The network did a “Where are they now?” follow-up episode in regards to Chuck that I think took place about a year after the first one, and Nissa did end up finally divorcing this guy (Go Nissa! Go Nissa! Good on you for divorcing the train wreck that is Chuck!).
Chuck later remarried some other woman.
Someone on another site followed the timeline of Chuck’s life by scouring different online news articles, and they pieced together that Chuck has been married three times, to three different women, over a ten year period.
(Chuck’s first wife, who was like 15 years his senior, was murdered by her adult daughter. Nissa was his second wife. I forget the name of the third one. I wonder if he’s still married to Wife 3, or if she has bailed on him.)
My god. This obese, train-wrecky, self absorbed douche napkin (Chuck) manages to marry THREE times in his life, and I (I who am thin, who has her own flaws, but not NEARLY AS SEVERE as Chuck’s) cannot even make it down the aisle once.
Here is a link or two about Chuck (I have more commentary below these links and excerpts, so please keep reading):
(Link): ‘My 600-lb Life’ Chuck Turner 433-lb weight loss wows, but reasons for weight gain horrify
Excerpt:
Nissa (Chuck’s second / ex wife) previously said Chuck’s massive size and immobility made their marriage akin to a carer-patient relationship
(end quote)
Yeah, notice that excerpt – this is one recurring comment or attitude I see from the spouses on this show.
It’s certainly true when the genders are swapped – I’ve seen thin male care-givers who are the husband or boyfriend who assist an obese girl friend and wife, but again, it seems that this entitled mentality, where a person expects their romantic partner to act as a parent figure, is usually, or more often, a man.
I have seen a number of these girlfriends or wives who are married or dating these 600 pound men say that they feel more like a mother, care-taker, or nurse to their husband than a romantic life partner to these Jabba the Hutts.
It’s not a mutually beneficial relationship of equals but one where the woman assumes the “Mommy role” and will literally wipe the ass of the 700 pound man because he’s too lazy or immobile to wipe his own (seriously. See the bit below about James K.)
I was engaged to several years to a guy.
My ex fiance’ was not morbidly obese (like the men on this show) – my ex was thin – but he was so irresponsible, selfish, self absorbed, and stupid, I ended up being more akin to a “mother figure” to him than a girlfriend. And I really grew tired of it, I resented it.
My ex would periodically expect me or ask me to fix problems he had in life – to pay his rent for him, help him with traffic tickets, etc.
So, while I sat there and paid my ex’s bills for him (using my own money), cleaned his various apartments for him, fetched him medicine and such at 2 a.m. when he called me saying he was sick – this self absorbed assh*le never did that sort of stuff for me.
I see this dynamic on this TV show about obesity – you see these terribly over-weight married men on this show who expect their wives to do everything on their own: take care of all the housework alone, do the grocery shopping alone, to cook for the husband, take care of their kids (if they have any), and to bathe the husband (most of these guys are too obese to get off the bed, walk around, take a shower in a tub – or they claim they are so, but I suspect some of them cannot be bothered to clean themselves).
I completely understand where Nissa is coming from when she says in the online articles or the TV show that she felt like a single parent with Chuck.
Chuck was in his 40s at the time the show was aired, I think, but all he did was lay in bed all day and eat.
Chuck was like her second son – the other son being the blond toddler boy she had adopted. I can totally see how she felt more like a mother or nurse figure to Chuck than a wife, and I do not blame her one bit for feeling hurt, angry, disappointed for all that, and divorcing his pathetic ass.
And I cannot BELIEVE there are Christians out there – the “permanence view of marriage” advocates and gender complementarians – who would say this Nissa person is in error or sin for divorcing this Chuck loser.
They would argue that Nissa should have stayed married to Loser Chuck.
None of them, none of the Christian gender complementarians or “permance view of marriage” advocates would want to be trapped in a marriage to such an enormous parasite as Chuck….
Nor would I think they would want a daughter of their own to remain stuck to such a loser guy like this – but they would have no qualms about shaming or pressuring another women to stay with a guy like him. Their religious views are terribly sick and twisted.
AGE – LOOK OLDER THAN THEIR YEARS
Something else I’ve noticed on this show is that people who are the same age as I am now, or around the same age, or maybe only a decade older than me, appear way, way older.
This Chuck guy, who is in his 40s, appears to be in his 60s or older in some of the photos, and on the TV show.
In another episode, there was a 56 year old woman caring for a mid-40s fat guy, but the woman looked so haggard and run down, I would’ve guessed she was in her late 60s or older.
CHUCK IS NOT A VICTIM
From the Daily Mail article about Chuck:
‘The people in my church never condemn me,’ he said. ‘All they did was support me and pray for me.’
–(end quote)–
I would usually think that’s a great thing, because most Christians are awful about providing non-judgmental emotional support to a hurting person (I would know, as I’ve been there), but with food addicts such as Chuck, they need tough love, not more coddling and hand-holding.
If you’ve watched this “My 600 LB Life” show as often as I have, you come to find out that most of these people (like Chuck) do not take personal responsibility for their situation, and they typically let pain, resentment, hostility, or bitterness from the past keep them in “victim mode,” which in turn keeps them stuck in over-eating mode.
Instead of working at letting go of the past, they marinate in it.
If you’re in your 30s and older and are pretty sure the reason you are obese is that you are using food to deal with painful stuff from your childhood or early adulthood (or something like grief over death of a loved one), you have to choose to get over and through that.
If you keep turning to cookies, Twinkies, Coke, and pizza and what have you, to keep the sadness or anger at bay over old wounds, that is a choice YOU are making – your former abuser is not shoving the pizza down your face. You cannot bring back your deceased loved one by eating another pizza.
You’re only hurting yourself when you won’t deal with the sh*t from your past in a constructive manner, which would mean, maybe, something like seeking therapy or taking on a non-food related hobby – not eating another piece of cake.
These obese guys like Chuck need people around them to give them a kick in the ass once in awhile, hold them accountable, not give them more hugs, kisses, prayer, and the sort of support Chuck is talking about. That sort of support isn’t going to help them.
As one commentator said below the Daily Mail article about Chuck (and I fully agree with this):
Comment by Daniel:
Stop making this seem like he’s [Chuck is] a victim. I watched that episode. His first wife was murdered and he took out all his rage and anger over it on the second wife. She took care of him when he had the surgery and when she had bariatric surgery, he let her fend for herself. He treated her like a slave, not his wife. Good for her she left his ungrateful butt.
(end quote)
I totally agree with Daniel’s comment.
Anyway, I’ve gone through some very painful ordeals in my own life, and I’ve been practicing what I preach about above.
When my loved one died, I didn’t turn to drugs, alcohol, or over-eating – and in spite of the fact when I went to Christians and family for emotional support, I did not get any. What I got from them was judgement, scolding, shaming, and criticism. But still, I did not turn to over-eating as a coping mechanism, nor to alcohol or drugs.
JAMES K. FROM KENTUCKY
I’d say that Steve Assanti is the number one worst patient I’ve ever seen on this show, but James K. is in definitely second place.
I don’t even know where to start. James K. is an even bigger train wreck than Chuck. At least Chuck, to his credit, got with the program and lost the weight. I’ll give him that.
Not James K. The guy started the show weighing around 750 pounds and by the end ballooned up to around 800.
James K is the single most cry-baby, whiny, man-child candy ass I’ve ever seen on this show, or possibly my entire life (including real- life encounters).
Here are a few links about James K, some of these are to videos on You Tube (there is more commentary by me below these links, please keep reading):
(Link): TLC’s ‘My 600-lb Life’ finds a patient who won’t be helped
(Link): My 600 lb Life S05E11 James K’s Story ( MARCH 15, 2017 ) FULL EPISODE – video
(Link): My 600-lb Life – James’ Health Scare – video
(Link): Morbidly obese man with congestive heart failure weighs in at 843lbs after GAINING 158lbs in just four months – despite his dad remortgaging his home to pay for weight loss treatment – Daily Mail
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
It boggles my mind that Christian gender complementarians, or “no divorce no matter what” Christian advocates, would insist that any woman stay married to this useless sack of poo poo.
Not that James K. is married right now – the woman who is with him as shown on the program is his live-in girlfriend, Lisa.
If these two were married, though, certain Christians out there would insist it’s her duty to stay with this blob. No, it is not.
CODEPENDENCY
Lisa shows definite signs of being codependent. (I’m a recovering codependent myself and can recognize it in other people.)
Lisa is not obligated to stay with James, married or not. I wish she would realize that and leave him.
But Lisa stays with him out of a sense of duty and guilt and perhaps religious conviction, from what she said on the show. Lisa, you are wasting your time and energy on this guy. Please move on already!
I hope Lisa reads books such as these, as they will help her do things such as break free of codependency, help her to be assertive and to stand up to James, and to break free of James (again, I have more commentary below this set of links, so please keep reading):
(Link): The Nice Girl Syndrome: Stop Being Manipulated and Abused — and Start Standing Up for Yourself by Beverly Engel
(Link): The Disease to Please: Curing the People-Pleasing Syndrome by Dr. Braiker (only small number of sample chapters available)
(Link): The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans
(Link): 12 “Christian” Beliefs that Can Drive You Crazy: Relief from False Assumptions by Henry Cloud and John Townsend – both doctors are Christians
(Link): When to Say Yes, when to Say No to Take Control of Your Life by Henry Cloud and John Townsend (unfortunately, there are no free preview chapters at this link)
What Lisa is doing with James is not Christian, godly, compassionate or charitable, but given her comments on the show, that is what she thinks she is doing.
In reality, what she is doing is ENABLING James.
Lisa’s enabling of James (continuing to bring him banned food) is one reason Dr. Now was screaming at her on the TV show.
The most “Christian” thing Lisa can do for herself and for James would either be to break up with James and stop being his girlfriend, or, if she stays, to stop caving in to his demands, and allow James to experience the natural, negative consequences of his choices (which includes over-eating).
If Lisa would get some therapy and read books like the ones I linked to above, she would not cave-in to James and bring him the banned food, no matter how much he yells, screams, complains or verbally abuses her.
She would have the backbone and self confidence to simply get up and leave the apartment for a few hours, or go back to her room and put some ear buds in and listen to music while he rants.
JAMES K – SELF ABSORBED TODDLER
Steven Assanti, who was on a different episode of “My 600 LB Life” is a jerk, twisted, and malicious, but James K. is like a toddler stuck in the body of a 40-something (when the episode aired, they said he was 46 years old).
I did not get quite the same level of maliciousness off James as I did from Assanti, though I do think James K is emotionally and verbally abusing Lisa.
James K. is a brat. He’s immature.
James quickly wore on my nerves, and I was only exposed to him for two hours on a TV show. I cannot imagine how awful and grating it is to have to LIVE with the man-child on a 24 hour a day, seven day a week basis.
Apparently, James K. and his girlfriend, Lisa (who is about 10 – 15 years older than James) do not work. They are not employed.
THEIR HISTORY
Here’s their story: Lisa used to be married to some guy and had a few kids with him. The guy was abusive (I think it was physical abuse.)
During that time, Lisa struck up an affair with James, who fathered two children with her, a son and a girl named Bayly.
So, Lisa’s (now ex) husband raised these two kids, probably thinking they were his own biological children (they were not).
I don’t think it was until years later that Lisa told the two kids that slobby James was their biological father.
At this stage, James weighed about 400 pounds, was still mobile, and would go on outings with Lisa. He gained more and more weight as time went by and became bed-bound.
At some point, Lisa left her abusive husband and moved in with James. Lisa became James’ care-taker.
I assume that James and Lisa are, and have been, on food stamps or some kind of government assistance.
They lived in Kentucky, where James’ family is located.
By the mid-point of the show or a bit later, they move down to Houston, Texas to seek treatment from weight loss surgeon “Dr. Now.”
At first, though, while James is still living in Kentucky, Dr. Now video chats online with James. (Dr. Now and his practice are in Houston, Texas.)
Dr. Now tells James in the video chat that he wants James to stick to a 1200 calorie a day diet and to lose X number of pounds (I think it was 30 pounds) by the time James makes it down to Houston in X number of months.
If I remember correctly, Dr. Now e-mailed James a dietary list to follow.
James and his girlfriend Lisa struggle to come up with financing to get James to Houston. James is too wide to fit into the back of their mini-van.
The TV crew shows James then eating a big stack of forbidden food (the stuff Dr. Now had just told him in the video chat to avoid eating), because he’s bummed out that he’s having problems getting to Houston.
Nobody is donating money to the couple on the couple’s “Go Fund Me” page that’s supposed to help get James to Houston (see that “Go Fund Me” page (Link): here or (Link): here – there are, or were, several “Go Fund Me” pages for James, that is just one or two. Some were deleted).
The couple was initially requesting a donation of I think $15,000 dollars on one of the pages, or some ungodly amount of money. They only ended up getting about $400 in donations on one of the pages.
Because James K. and Lisa cannot afford medical transport to Houston (if you’re watched this show before, you know it’s not medically safe to transport an obese person by car or plane if it can be avoided – there are medical risks associated), so James’ father, an elderly guy, puts a second mortgage on his own home so that James can make it on down to Houston.
That turned out to be a waste of money.
First of all, had James been following the diet while in Kentucky (as he was supposed to be doing), he would have lost 30 – 50 pounds but did not, because he “blew off” the diet given to him by Dr. Now and ate whatever he wanted (lots of biscuits and gravy, fast food, etc).
Once in Houston, after visiting with Dr. Now, James does NOT follow Dr. Now’s advice or diet, but manages to gain 150 pounds over a two month (some online say it was four month) period.
James was supposed to have lost X number of pounds in those initial months in Houston, but packed on about 150, which is discovered at his weigh-in at the hospital or clinic where Dr. Now works.
James tells the nurse at that point, “You must be reading the scale wrong.”
James and Lisa manage to get an apartment while in Houston.
The tire on their mini-van breaks while they are in that apartment, and they say they cannot afford at that time to pay for a repair, but they can afford a lot of Chinese food take-out.
That’s right. Instead of sticking to Dr. Now’s diet, James complains to Lisa that he’s tired of chicken and fish, and he starts pitching a fit, complaining to her the way a three year old would, that he wants Chinese food, including “fried rice.”
Lisa tells him, “But the doctor’s list says no rice on it [he’s not supposed to eat carbs].”
He replies by saying, “But it’s fraaaaad rice!” – that’s “fried rice” in his thick Kentucky backwoods accent.
As if the rice being fried makes it healthy or acceptable to eat – it does not. He’s still cheating on his diet.
I don’t know how it is this couple claims to be too broke to pay for a tire repair but they have the money to pay for take-out food, which can be pricey.
James is immobile. He spends all day in bed, looking at the internet on an i-pad.
If I am remembering an early scene correctly, Lisa and Lisa’s daughter, Bayley, are shown cleaning up James’ urine and excrement.
They have to have their adult friends or family members come over each day to help flip or scoot James over so they can remove the pee-pee pads under James, and to clean his butt.
BAYLY ENSLAVED DAUGHTER
The couple apparently pulled their teen daughter Bayley out of high school for the specific reason of helping her mother take care of her Jabba the Hutt father.
In this show, early on, James tells Lisa he has defecated in the bed, and needs her to change his pad and scrub his ass.
Someone else on another site said they re-watched this episode, and they said you could see James’ diarrhea puddles or marks on the pad on his bed when the family hoisted him up to scrub him. I guess I missed that when I watched, but I have no reason to dispute that.
They showed Lisa and Lisa and James’ teen daughter, Bayly, scrubbing James’ nude ass of his urine and/or excrement. Revolting. Lisa and Bayly should not be doing that for James.
OW MAH LEG, MAH LEG
I think it was during the segment when they showed James being delivered to Houston, to Dr. Now’s office, where the EMT guys (who deserve medals for all they did for this guy) were gently pulling James on his gurney off the ambulance, that James kept hollering to them,
“Ow, mah leg! Mah leg! Don’t drop me, don’t drop me! Don’t let mah legs fall! Oh mah leg, mah leg!”
Previously in the show, when the EMTs (and were there firemen too?) were moving to get James on to the ambulance, he was blubbering and whining at that stage as well. He kept screaming at them not to brush his arms and legs up against the railing, or don’t drop him, whatever.
James’ non-stop whining was so annoying. This guy is in his 40s but behaves as though he’s a toddler.
This episode with James K. just produced out-rage after out-rage.
I’ve never seen anything like it, other than the Steve Assanti one.
In one scene at the apartment, at night, Lisa tells James good-night. He’s set up in a hospital bed in their apartment, but she is going to go to sleep on a bed in a bed room in the back.
However, James basically tells Lisa he wants her to sleep on the floor by his bed (they don’t have a couch in their den in this apartment) so if he urinates or defecates in the middle of the night, she can clean his pee pee pad and his dirty ass off.
Lisa protests at first and says she can sleep in the back, and he can call her name in the night if he needs her, but he says no. So she puts a sheet down on the floor and sleeps by him.
I think it was around this time that Lisa was shown on her own, looking into the camera, looking very broken, exhausted, and depressed, and said something like, “The moment he starts to walk, I think I am going to leave him.”
And I don’t blame her if she does. I think she should. I think she’s wasting her time and energy on this James guy… and I don’t think James appreciates her. He may if she ditches him, but in the mean-time the guy comes off as being incredibly self-absorbed and selfish.
James does not care that his choices – he’s choosing food over everything else – are negatively impacting those around him, including Lisa, their daughter Bayly, or his father.
The guy only cares about what he needs and wants, and he expects his girlfriend Lisa to cater to those needs and wants.
This is an example exactly of how men are taught or conditioned by culture and Christian gender complementarianism to think they are entitled to take advantage of women, to get their needs met, while they ignore the needs of others.
Yes, there are selfish women out there, but men are much more indoctrinated by secular culture and churches to think this is normal.
You don’t see this sort of behavior or sense of entitlement as frequently from the majority of American women.
It’s mostly a problem with men, and things like complementarianism bolster this world view by teaching anti-biblical things, like women were created for men to be men’s “help meets,” which some Christians take to mean, “Women are second class to men, and created only to meet a man’s needs.”
Women in America are usually conditioned in the exact opposite manner as men in some of these areas – we are taught by parents, school teachers, movies, churches, etc, that to be feminine and properly lady-like, it would be selfish of us to get our own needs met, so we should stifle our own goals, needs, and dreams, and we exist only to cater to those around us.
LIFE LESSONS
You can learn some life lessons from some of these relationships featured on “My 600 Pound Life.”
You can certainly see how dysfunctional relationships or people can become.
I know it’s better to stay single than marry just any old guy. It’s better to be single than to live with, date, or marry, men mentioned in this blog post, such as Chuck or James K. These men are so selfish.
The men like the ones on this program do not make the lives of their girlfriends or wives easier, but are an additional burden these women are carrying, on top of their jobs or other stresses they have in their lives – until they finally get fed up enough with it to walk out and leave, as Nissa did with Chuck.
One thing I’ve seen time and again on this show is that most of these people become obese because they deal with their past pain and disappointment in an inappropriate manner.
I’ve really had it made clear to me from this show what the Bible means about letting go of the past, striving for the future, forgiving those who have hurt you, and letting go of anger.
If you do not let go of the past, and hold on tightly to past hurts and so forth, you can end up hurting yourself.
When I was younger, I used to wonder why Jesus would ask sick or blind people who approached him things like, “Do you want me to heal you,” or “What can I do for you.”
I used to wonder, “Well, Jesus, isn’t it OBVIOUS what the leper guy wants or the blind guy wants? They obviously want to be healed, they want their sight restored or disease healed. Why are you asking them what they want??”
Now that I am older and have life experience under my belt and have sat through countless episodes of shows such as “My 600 LB Life,” I’ve learned that some people say they want to be healed, but in reality, they do not.
Some people, like some of the obese people on this program, are content or happy in some weird way with being a perpetual victim.
They like the attention they receive when they are sick or obese in bed all day.
Some of them like being waited upon hand and foot – their wives who bring them meals as they sit propped up in their beds.
I think they are more comfortable being sick.
Getting well can and does bring changes, and change can be scary for a lot of people. Getting well entails hard work and taking up personal responsibility, which I think some of the people on this show are trying hard to avoid.
Not all sick people want to be healed and be made well. They prefer or find security in being sick. I get that now.
There are times I am glad I never married and remain single, and some episodes of this show really drive that home.
It’s better to be single and on your own than in a relationship with a time-sucking, money-sucking, time-wasting, whiny, selfish, verbally abusive, and/or candy- ass man, such as Chuck or James K. of “My 600 LB Life.”
The fact that some very awful people – such as Chuck and James K. – have been married or in relationships puts the usual Christian marriage propaganda to waste.
That is, growing up, I read an awful lot of Christian magazine articles or books, and later in life, blog posts, that said if you are still single past the age of 25 or 30, it’s because you don’t “deserve” a spouse from God.
Most of these Christian articles argue that a person has to be godly, perfect, skinny, pretty, intelligent, charming, and whatever other great qualities, before God would grant the person a spouse.
Christian authors will speculate things like, “If you are still single past 30, maybe God is cleaning you up to make you acceptable for matrimony.”
Now, when I watch shows like this, the “600 LB life,” I see morbidly obese people with horrifying, gross, disgusting bumps and scales on their legs, with big rolls of unappealing fat flapping around all over their bodies, and some of these folks have corrosive psychological issues or nasty, hateful personalities – yet, they have girlfriends, boyfriends, or spouses.
Quite obviously, if unattractive, immature, verbally abusive, and selfish jerk weeds such as Chuck can get married three times, and James K can nab himself a live-in girlfriend, God is most certainly not in the business of holding up strict criteria for who gets a spouse or lover.
Related Posts:
(Link): ‘My 600-lb Life’ Participants Not Only Lose Pounds, They Also Lose Their Husbands
(Link): Utah lawmaker targets women with new divorce barriers so men aren’t ‘surprised’
(Link): Why Don’t Some Men Realize A Relationship Is Over Until It’s Too Late? by N. Reilly
(Link): Male Entitlement In Dating and In Marriage – Single Christian Men Who Feel Entitled – Part 1
Christian Pundit 
I searched a bit and found the name of Chucks 3rd wife….Marvincha Turner