What happens when your partner is obese You live out your remaining 30-40 years completely alone after watching your partner die in front of you. Between the ages of 8 and 18 I lived down the street from a very sweet, old, retired couple.  By their age they already had their routine in place: they walked their dog every day, they cooked, shopped for groceries once a week in the Oldsmobile, did yard work, tended the vegetable garden., etc, etc... But surprise surprise, it was just the woman who did any of those things. She moved and walked better than some obese 20 year olds but seemed to always have a permanent expression of worry on her face though she never talked about her problems. I never understood it as a kid and, knowing nothing of her life, I still don't. Her husband was simple and conversely just had a glazed look on his face. At 400-500 pounds he only ever sat in the recliner chair watching their old black and white TV in the living room.  I don't have a memory of him ever doing anything else, but the couple were nice and quiet and as a kid I only noticed the stale old people smell in their house.  They were both in their 50's when my mom got a phone call one day telling me that the man had a heart attack in that very chair and died before paramedics could do anything about it. Life resumed back to normal fairly quickly though, the funeral came and went and I never missed looking at his droopy, lifeless eyes whenever I visited that house. Curiously the old people smell was gone, too. All that's left was the sweet old lady. Her husband died almost 20 years ago and she's still going strong like nothing ever happened, though I did see her break down once at the funeral but that was it. I don't know how she does it. It's just sad.