SAMANTHA BRICK: My husband started taking Ozempic. We nearly got divorced

Holidays for me are always destinations with a foodie theme. Indeed, I fell in love with my husband Pascal while on holiday in south-west France, where we now live.

For those who don’t know, our region is home to cep mushrooms, duck confit and walnut-flavoured cheeses. Over the last 17 years we’ve been together, whenever I go to a new restaurant in France I always have to try their tarte au citron and Pascal, 63, always orders the crème brûlée - especially if it’s homemade. It’s our tradition.

All of these culinary experiences have created memories which form the bedrock of our marriage.

Yet, four months ago, it was me who unwittingly introduced a third party into our marriage, an interloper if you will. One that would have life-enhancing health benefits for my husband.

Yes, I’m talking about the only mid-life conversation starter this year: Ozempic.

Yet when I see that bloody oblong blue and white box in my fridge, nestled between my salted Brittany butter and homemade fig jam, there are times when I’m truly tempted to chuck it in the bin.

And yet I never, ever will because ‘it’ is here to stay.

The box contains a month’s supply of Ozempic, an anti-diabetic medication that has genuinely worked wonders on my husband’s dangerously high blood sugar levels.

The bonus side effect is that it acts on the satiety centres in the brain, reducing the feeling of hunger - hence its reputation as a fat-busting miracle jab which has prompted the launch of new treatments such as Wegovy and Mounjaro, specifically for weight loss.

Yet it’s no fun living with someone who is never hungry. Pascal was prescribed Ozempic at the start of July and, while his blood sugar levels are now within a normal range, thanks to losing his lust for food, he has also lost ten kilos.

And my goodness, I don’t think either of us was expecting the impact that the words ‘no thanks, I’m not hungry’ would have on our social life and on our relationship!

I’m not being overly dramatic either. As a writer, I work from home and my husband is a retired carpenter. For the last 18 months, he has largely been confined to the grounds of our home due to ongoing health problems.

Since his retirement two years ago, he has never been far from a hospital. Hip replacement, knee replacement, digestive issues, heart problems - you name it, he’s had it. In other words, we spend a lot of time together.

I managed to find some joy in this because even though life at times has been dire, it meant I could care for him by cooking delicious meals. Accordingly, our days revolved around meal times and, on reflection, our kitchen has always been the heart of our home.

But, since the introduction of the so-called ‘wonder drug’ into our lives, the shopping bill has plummeted because he eats like a sparrow. The electricity bill probably has to be because I barely use the oven any more.

And he has lost a steady two kilos a month, which is, as far as we’re concerned, a triumph. I know, I know, I should be grateful!

Yet the change I hadn’t anticipated is the one in our relationship. More often than not we don’t eat together anymore. He takes breakfast in our bedroom to have with the cocktail of drugs he takes, lunch is ‘picky’ foods, such as slices of meat with vegetables, and in the evening it’s not much more than a Greek yoghurt, and what’s the point in preparing the table for that?

I’ve only got myself to blame because I was the one who needed my husband for months (and months) to explore the drug. After all, isn’t it always us women who are better informed when it comes to our other halves’ health?

He was reluctant and who can blame him? Googling the effects of the drugs brings up ‘after’ images of celebrities looking... well, odd.

But by the end of June, his blood sugar levels were persistently high. Pascal wears a glucose monitor which means he can constantly track his levels.

I was concerned as, at one point, the reading was so dangerously high he was at risk of falling into a coma. It was a sign (to me) that, even on the prescribed diabetic drugs he was already taking, his body was struggling.

Yet, living in rural France, I assumed I’d have to do battle with our GP to get Ozempic. After all, he still hand-writes our prescriptions.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. The GP’s eyes lit up and he proclaimed it ‘une bonne idée’ because Pascal would also lose weight. If I could have run to the pharmacy, I would have. What I hadn’t appreciated was that starting the injections in the middle of the week was not the best idea.

On the starting dosage of 1mg, the first 48 hours were tough.

My husband is half-Catalan and can be very black-and-white in his thinking. I was afraid he would simply refuse to administer another injection because the effects were pretty rough.

I didn’t mind supporting him through the first weeks when he had waves of nausea and was throwing up. Washing out the bowl after he’d been violently ill was made tolerable because his blood sugar was stabilising. And besides, the weight loss was impressive! Two kilos in the first week!

After a month of the jabs and a bit of research conducted by yours truly I discovered that if we moved the day of injection, the waves of nausea wouldn’t interfere with any plans we had during the week.

It took me by surprise how sudden the cut-off was when it came to food. He simply wasn’t hungry. Yet, because of his diabetes, he needed to eat regularly, and he did, albeit very reluctantly.

Breakfast went from yoghurts and bananas to just a half portion of both.

At lunchtime, he’d ask for protein yoghurt. In the evening it was more fruit and yogurt. I had naively assumed that this rapid reduction in appetite was a temporary thing while he adjusted to the medication. But no, his was a new way of eating.

The first time I noticed the impact on our social life was when my mum came to stay, the same month he started the injections.

She suggested we all go out for a spot of lunch but, seeing how much discomfort Pascal was in during the day following the injection, the idea was knocked on the head.

So neither she nor I got to indulge in a hearty French bistro’s cuisine.

I do appreciate that over the past few decades we have over-eaten, ignoring the amount of calories our bodies actually need, but there must be a balance. Every summer, we welcome my sisters and their families, along with my stepdaughter and granddaughter.

It’s always been a tradition for Pascal to man the barbecue, cooking for up to eight people at any one time. He gave it a go this year, but did he eat with us? Well, he sat at the table nibbling at the odd sausage, picking at his plate like someone with an eating disorder.

Previously, he’d take delight in doing a breakfast run to the local boulangerie for pastries: buttery croissants and pain au chocolates, still warm from the oven. Yet, now, because he wasn’t eating them it didn’t occur to him to offer to go and get them.

In the past, my family loved to take us out for a hefty three-course meal to say thank you for hosting them. Not this year.

I’m not saying Pascal’s a party-pooper - and he is probably as surprised as I am at how much his desire to celebrate life events with loved ones has gone by the wayside.

In fairness, he is still adjusting to his new eating habits, and we have now compromised. He will eat lunch with me at the table, but it’s usually just a slice of roast beef or a sliver of steak and some green beans tossed in a smidgeon of butter and garlic.

Don’t get me started on the barely-touched baguettes he insists I still buy, which now take up far too much room in our freezer. Every day I’m constantly researching new ways to excite his tastebuds.

I’m definitely not one of life’s feeders and I have always kept a keen eye on my weight. I jump on the scales in the buff most mornings to keep a check on my 65 kilos, scaling back meals if the needle fluctuates.

And nowadays I’m mostly vegetarian, so I have never minded preparing my own food. But I do like cooking for my other half. It’s how we show we love someone, after all. Besides, when Pascal and I first got together, our ‘coup de foudre’ occurred when he spotted me in a village bistro. Today, there is no guarantee we would have met because, ever since he started Ozempic, we haven’t eaten out as a couple.

On a recent trip to Spain for a week, we chose a five-star hotel on the Med. Pascal made the booking, including breakfast. I don’t know why he bothered, because he just picked at it.

We were there for a week and never ate outside the hotel. We usually adore trying local restaurants - but what was the point? I know Pascal must miss having lovely dishes too. He was a great one for posting something delicious on social media, but since Ozempic took over our culinary lives there have been no images of any gastronomic memories on his Instagram account.

I’ve had to find other ways to show up as a loving and attentive wife because being in the kitchen is a role I’ve always embraced (willingly, I might add), even before my husband was ill.

I’m sure I’m not the only wife who knows that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, using his favourite meals whenever we’d had a fallout as a way to make up. Food, psychologically, is about so much more than calories in, and calories out. When we eat together we connect, we rejoice, we commiserate and we communicate.

I’m currently booking up lunch dates with friends to see before Christmas, and in planning those lunches I will absolutely be checking who is jabbing and who isn’t.

As a guest, I’d caution everyone to flag if you’re doing the same, just as vegetarians do. Tell your host that you’re using a weight-loss jab because otherwise (trust me) they’ll be incredibly put out. I’d caution any couple going on this ‘journey’ to really think it through. It doesn’t matter which person in the couple is getting the jab because the other half’s life is going to be hugely impacted.

Today Pascal has the jab on Saturdays so the nauseous effects occur on a Sunday when we don’t do a great deal.

If you don’t sit down and honestly talk this through then I have no doubt we’ll be reading about the first Ozempic divorce in the not-too-distant future.

Waves of nausea and throwing up.

We don’t eat together any more.

© Daily Mail