Husband not physically attracted to me anymore

:flowerforyou:

Quote: I wasn't attracted to me anymore, and that affected my marriage. I have noticed a HUGE improvement for us since I started improving me!


AMEN

WOW you are not alone!

Six or Seven years ago my wife said she found me repulsive to look at and sex would be a non-option unless I did something about myself.

I wasn't really interested. I loved food and drink that much. I loved my suicide-on-the-installment-plan lifestyle more than I loved my family, my wife, or myself. I was at rock bottom and didn't know it. In between being told I was repulsive, I tried to lose weight with some half-assed effort, Weight-Watchers, The Sugar Blues, South Beach, and ultimately Overeaters Anonymous. I'd yo-yo and show some progress but I never change my lifestyle. I never met my wife's expectations for me because I wasn't interested in changing.

She is a fabulously beautiful woman, always has been, and never has a weight problem, even after 4 children. 5-foot 10-inch and never over 135 lbs. She (unlike me) takes care of herself habitually. I fight against myself to take care of my appearance.

I consider taking care of myself to be vanity and vanity is a sin! I think the real reason I don't take good care of myself is because I don't think I'm worth it. Or didn't think I was worth it.

Last month one of my daughters turned me on to MFP, and a gym was recently built in our neighborhood with $10/month dues and no contract. No excuses now.

So the process of losing weight, learning to love myself enough to be lovable, putting my body back into shape so I can navigate the last 30 or 40 years of my life in style, the honest change in lifestyle so that I can be someone my sweetie wants to jump, has begun. Thank you MFP.

Your story is both the same and different. But we need each other to keep ourselves going.

Just wantedt to know if anyone else's weight has affected their marriage?

Your husband is a complete moron, you are gorgeous and he should feel lucky to have you! Who does he think he is? Channing Tatum? pfft

Here...Here!! I have a friend who's husband thinks she needs to look like she did back in highschool. That's not reality. She has 3 children, a full time job and back in highschool she was way to thin. Y do some men think a woman needs to be Angelina Jolie thin???

get a new husband... or get permission to rent one

You can rent husbands??? Damn where have i been??? hahah jk

Positive side effect of weight loss....better sex! LOL

Not necessarily. My husband told me after the last "encounter" that he didn't like how my breasts had become small and wrinkly (extra skin when lying) and that we can't afford a boob job so he'd rather I just do it the old fashioned way and put weight back on so they fluff up on their own. :noway:

ps. My husband has gained at least 50 pounds since he was the slim man I first married...but with men, they lose stuff as they get bigger instead of gain it... and gain it back as they lose weight...I haven't thrown this in his face. yet.

Omg.

A lot of people put their own past baggage into their response. Doesn't mean it's bad advice, just not very objective.

1) Do you want to improve the state of your marriage?
2) Are there other things besides your body (external forces, personality change) that might be contributing to this situation?
3) How were things when your relationship was 'better'? How is that different from how they are now?
3) What will it take to improve your relationship? Change from you? Him? Both of you?

Those are questions only you and he are really able to answer. Good luck.



Physical attraction =/= Love.
Someone gaining weight isn't an excuse to treat them like ****.
Coming clean about how you are feeling means you can work to solve the problem.

I wasn't attracted to me anymore, and that affected my marriage. I have noticed a HUGE improvement for us since I started improving me!

Yep!

Just wantedt to know if anyone else's weight has affected their marriage?

nope, i love big women.

I am not married but been dating some one for a year. He asked me out when I was big and hasn't even noticed that I lost 20lbs eventhough we work out together. He said my size didn't matter because I was comfortable and confident with myself which made me even more attractive.
I guess maybe it isn't your size but how you feel about yourself. Just a thought being I don't know you.

well i think you're gorgeous!

It was actually my weight loss which started the problems with my marriage. It's a long story, but to be brief, doctors told me to clean up my ways, or die early (like my father two months previously). I chose to clean up, the (now ex) Wife said she didn't want to change, nor would she be supportive of it. A year later she moved out.

Her loss, in my opinion. I couldn't be happier with my life now.

Wow! I couldn't even imagine being non supportive of my husband wanting to get healthier! Doesn't anyone remember that sometimes in a marriage sacrifice is required??? Even if that only means sacrificing your junk food! Sigh... Im in my second marriage, spent a good six years single between the two. I couldn't be happier. My husband is my BEST FRIEND. He encourages me and lets me know how proud he is of me for wanting to get healthier. He loved me at my heaviest, 161 pounds on my 5"2' frame and he has always been attracted to me.. I am four years older than him and he tells me every day that I'm beautiful no matter what. I told him to stop saying that so much because I really need to lose weight! Lol. But since I've gotten serious, so has he. He will eat anthing I cook, he's cut out pop, he's even starting to lift with me!

Oops, hit post too soon.... My point is I'm sorry you lost your wife over getting healthier, or maybe not because that's just crazy! Never settle for less than a best friend and someone who will support you! Good for you for sticking to your guns

My sister's mother-in-law gave me advice (since I got engaged) she told me to take one day at a time and remember everyone changes. It isn't cool for him to talk to you like that. Even if you have felt that way you def don't hurt someone by telling them that.

yes, both good and bad....and its all due to my ego.

i dont know if your husband said to u that hes not attracted to you anymore, or if you are just thinking that it how he feels...but depending on what kind of man he is, seeing you do something positive for youself that can potentially be making you more attractive to other men could be making him jealous. maybe he likes you chubby because he thinks youre less attractive to other men and it makes him feel more secure. lots of men LOVE a woman with confidence and lots of men have trouble handling a woman with confidence too. whatever is happening in your life, just dont live under thumb! its bad for your kids to watch and itss soooo outdated, haah...seriously tho.

Can I just say reading this thread makes me so sad I just don't understand how so many people want to make others feel bad or keep them at their worst simply to make themselves feel better please everyone, this is NOT human nature. It indicates a serious personality flaw and it's a form of emotional abuse. In a normal healthy marriage, there will be problems, but you will be each others support system, each others best friend. You are supposed to be partners, getting through this journey of life together helping each other be the best versions of yourself not putting each other down.

To the op: it sounds like you had a painful conversation which is the starting point of getting to the root of the problem. I'm not going to bash on your husband because it sounds like he had a hard time coming clean about what was bothering him and i dont think he was trying to hurt you. Attraction is a complicated thing sometimes, he may actually just pin the lack of attraction on your weight because that's easy for him, he may not truly even know why. And it may be your own lack of self confidence or whatever, but bottom line I think the best thing to do is keep communicating and try to get to the bottom of it. If you love each other, this may just be a phase you can work through. Or it may indicate more serious problems. Find out what his intentions are. Does he want to get past this? Does he want his attraction to grow again? Does he just want you to be on the same wavelength as he is about health and fitness? What is he saying? Nothing can be 100% all of the time, but if you love each other and have a great marriage otherwise, I really think you may just be experiencing a "stall" which may or may not have anything to do with your weight. A while back, my sex drive was nil. It was because of stress and myself and feeling lazy and heavy, and lack of sleep and too much work and blah blah blah. My husband caught me off guard one night and asked if it was because he had gained about 30 pounds. After constant questiong, i actually said "well maybe"... Because that may have had something to do with it. But I regretted saying it and was terrified that I hurt him. Believe me, he had to PULL that one out of me. I have encouraged him ever since and made sure to tell him how gorgeous I think he is, because he really is! And as I work on myself, he's working on himself as well and we both feel more confident. But i stil worry that I did some serious damage to his self esteem. He is the most wonderful man I've ever met and I would never want to hurt him. My point is sometimes things are said, that doesn't mean they are one hundred percent truth because we sometimes try to oversimplify complicated things. I hope I'm making sense marriages have ups and downs, everyone has moments. If your marriage is good and happy otherwise, consider this a moment and keep communicating and figuring out what truly needs to change, because my guess is it isn't just you and a few extra pounds.

My wife and I have both fluctuated with our weight and we are heavy now and working on loosing but I can say our sex life was much better skinnier than it is heavy! So yes it definitely can affect a marriage.