Husband has dropped a massive bombshell

[Robinred81]

Posting in AIBU for traffic.
I’ve been with my husband for almost 6 years and we got married 7 months ago (both in our mid 30s with no kids).

On Saturday morning he woke up in a bad mood which is very unlike him so I asked him what was wrong. He then just blurted out “I think I just love you as a friend”.
This was completely out the blue as we have been very loved up and there has not even been the slightest hint that there was any issues in our relationship. He hasn’t been acting differently on the lead up to Saturday and we seemed very happy.
I was obviously completely shell shocked and after demanding more information he admitted he has never had sexual attraction towards me and he thinks I’m overweight.
I’m 5ft 7 and a size 14 so I’m a bit overweight but as I’m fairly tall and only carry weight on my lower half I don’t look really “fat”, just pear shaped and a bit chunky. We have been having sex 2-3 times every week for years and he’s never hinted that he doesn’t enjoy it. Quite the opposite in fact and he’s all over me and seems to love every second of it. I should also add that I’ve always been the same size since he met me so it’s not as if I was really slim and then gained weight throughout our relationship.

I did wonder if he’s maybe met someone else or having an affair but he 100% denies this and my best friend is a receptionist where he works and has said he always works his set hours and doesn’t ever leave early or stay late etc. When he’s not at work he’s always at home (his friends all live about 500 miles away so he rarely ever sees them) and he’s not secretive with his phone or computer either. Leaves them both unlocked around me all the time.

He’s told me we can potentially save our marriage if I lose 2 stone as he’ll then be physically attracted to me.
I feel humiliated and so shocked as it’s all completely out the blue.
I don’t want to throw our marriage away after just 7 months when before Saturday I felt like we were really happy together. But equally I feel like it’s going to be difficult to come back from this. It’s a lot of pressure for me to quickly lose weight to see if he can fancy me properly or not.

We don’t have kids (we don’t want any) and we live in his house (although as we’re married he can’t just turf me out immediately and he has said if we do split up I wouldn’t have to leave until I’d found somewhere else I was happy with).

Any advice would be very welcome as I don’t feel able to speak about this to anyone in my real life yet. Do you think I should make a big effort to lose weight over the next few months and see what happens with him, or would you want to end the relationship over it?

About 95 posts on this thread urging the OP to lose 11-12 stone of husband. Guys, it’s been DONE TO DEATH.

💐 to you OP. The guy is a Grade A Bellend,, no mistake.

I am overweight but my dh loves me, all of me, and I see his smile when I walk into the room and his eyes light up. You deserve the same. Love is not dependent on I'll only love you if ...you lose 2 stone, or anything else he thinks up. You know that op. Go and see a solicitor, don't tell him yet. Tell your Mum what he said and how he hurt you. See what she thinks about him then. If he did not love you he should not have got married to you. If he works with all men, could he be bisexual?

Another vote for an affair. He has loved you, he has found you attractive. But he's now trying to rewrite history to justify his own shit behaviour.

@Robinred81

We’ve had a massive conversation and he’s admitted even if I lose the weight he’s just not feeling a spark with me and just sees me as a friend no matter how hard he tries to pretend otherwise. He definitely wants a divorce and has said he will give me enough £ to move on properly. I suggested counselling etc but he’s adamant he won’t have those sorts of feelings for me no matter what we try. He said he proposed and married me as he desperately wanted it to work as Im his best friend but he can’t force it anymore. He’s been very apologetic about the things he said at the weekend and said he was self sabotaging and it was wrong

Six years is more than enough time to figure it out. He realised staying married longer would give you rights to the property/assets and only now has money motivated him to be honest.

He's a coward and a liar. It it not your body that's at fault... it's that he has no balls.

Well at least he’s been frank now. It’s not you it’s him there’s nothing you have done. You didn’t force him to marry you.
Get some real life support. Don’t be a pushover. Please see a Solicitor asap.

Hi OP, I know you have had lots of good advice here on the practical elements of what you should do next. But, after your last update, I just wanted to ask how you are? I hope you have told family or friends what is happening, and at least have had a big hug and support (even virtually) from someone who really loves you.
You need some good emotional support right now, you’ve had a massive shock.

A partner should love and support you regardless. He's manipulating you into losing weight, rather than saying, "let's eat healthily/get fit together". I'm so sorry, this is coercive behaviour. Get support for yourself and suggest to him you pursue counselling together, if he refuses, go for yourself. Good luck.

Heavens - don’t get counselling together!

Do you think he may be gay. X

God this has made me angry. What a fucking shit!

So glad other posters have picked up on gaslighting. My exh was an abusive bastard in an emotional, sexually coercive and controlling way.

Early into our relationship.. actually a few months after we moved in together he told me he had been on the point of dumping me previously. We talked it through and got back on track. I didn't see it at the time but massive red flag. Get you onside because you'll be scared he'll do it again.

And he calls the shots about what he gives you to leave does he? Fuck that! Get angry. Get a lawyer. Do not leave or he'll have no motivation to sort finance and you'll have no leverage.

Play nice for now but I seriously am fuming for you!

@lisaandalan

Do you think he may be gay. X

Occurred to me earlier today, was to busy dealing with a funeral to post. But it did make me

I suspect he sees his house and impending inheritance and now considers himself to be “punching below”… The arsehole. He is probably trawling Instagram and looking at “lifestyle hotties” or “influensters” and sees that for him. He clearly doesn’t have the charisma or EQ to have a relationship with anything other than a mirror. Please seek out the services of a really good solicitor as well as a counsellor.

Because you lived together for years beforehand I think people saying that you won't get a 50:50 split are misinformed. No rubbish about ringfencing his deposit either. And go for half his pension as well. The idea that he pays your rent for a "nice place" for a few months would make a solicitor grimace. It certainly made me. I find it almost more galling than the weight comment. (I'm not a UK solicitor and our family law is very different but I am fairly sure your years of living together count towards the length of the marriage for division of property purposes.) He has been very cruel and wasted years of your life and money may not make you happy but it is easier to be unhappy in comfort and with enough to get into your own place. So good you didn't put the inheritance into the house. Please go and see a solicitor as soon as possible to have a clear idea of your rights- have your facts straight and copies of relevant documents if you can.

He's done you a favour. He showed you the real man he is, he let his mask slip now you are married. He's a vicious, spiteful, cruel man. He enjoyed your suffering so much, it turned him on. That's proper fucked up. That's an abusive man. Thats a man who would get a kick out of paying for sex. He already has you home alone working, all he needs to do is grind your spirit down and he can tell himself he deserves affairs as you are so fat and boring.
You are not fat. You do not need to lose weight. If you lost every ounce he wanted you to lose, then there would be another issue and there would be more and more unfixable issues. You would live in a state of constant anxiety. Reading your posts, you have not mentioned things he could do with fixing, like putting muscle on, straighten his nose or growing his hair back on his receding hairline. And I'm sure he's perfectly ordinary and you were content with that. He thinks he is perfect and if you stay with him, you will waste your life thinking you aren't good enough. You will think he deserves prettier women, arm candy. He's training you to keep you down. I speak from experience. You can be so lonely in a nasty relationship, you are young enough to enjoy your youth with your lovely family. You will now think of lots of red flags you ignored because you loved the idea of him. Or you blamed things on his ex/mother/family. Get away from this man before he wears you down, until you become a passive bystander in your own life. He is a bully. Go live a good life.

I wondered then, as I do in your situation if the fellow has some sort of hang-up where he needs the approval of others for him to live and love... if yours felt he was keeping up a charade, who was it for?

This made me think. There was a sex and city episode (www.imdb.com/title/tt0698661/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl) where Carrie had a male friend who was all about appearances. Then he meets a very plan woman, who he has great sex and conversations with, she's everything he wanted in a relationship except....she's not pretty or glamorous enough. So he likes her and dates her but doesn't like being seen in public as she's not the right 'type'. Finally, he realises he's being a superficial jack ass and decides to commit fully to her, except she isn't interested anymore.

Also reminds me of the latest Love is Blind season where one of the contestants only likes blonde, blue eyed women but falls for an Indian girl and absolutely fancies her when they meet. Hands all over her grabbing her bum etc. But over the course of the season you can see him wrestling with the idea she is not the petite, blonde girl he thought he'd end up with. He calls her his best friend though and thinks attraction will grow, and is ready to marry her as they get on so well. Luckily, she realises how superficial he is and dumps his arse. His own mother tells him the girl deserves to be with someone who isn't deducting points for her appearance!

Both these blokes incidentally and skinny and meh - and will likely always stay single as the girls they want, don't want them. Doesn't stop the delusion though! And I suspect they rush marriage as deep down they know their personalities suck and they're getting on a bit.

So, I think your man is similar. Does fancy you (hence the sex) but something recently has triggered his own insecurities that you are not what he expected to end up with. Maybe something on social media, maybe a male colleague showing off photos of a new gf who's more his type, maybe his dad said something. Whatever it is, you deserve a lot better than this twat.

So take a page from the books of Libby the Cheese girl (Sex and the city) and Deepti (Love is Blind) and dump him. Never look back. Talk to a solicitor and get what you are owed for giving this ungrateful, selfish twat 6 years of your life.

This screams coercive control, if you bend to this you will bend to whatever he wants and by the sounds of it he wants to be in charge of it all.

After all he has said for you, for you to then offer to go to counselling is not the way he would appreciate, he would have to give away control and that is that last thing.

Personally i think you will come out on top, the sooner you tell people in RL the better, you can then wash this crud out of you hair, get a decent solicitor and then forget him let the solicitor work for you, divorce and settlement.

You are worth so much more do not let him grind you down, he is obvious an unworthy and undesirable person, who is now showing his true colours. HE is the LOSER not you my love, he's nothing but an ugly shallow reprobate

So sorry you're going through this, OP. He is a horrible man, but it will take you a while to severe your emotional connections with him.

I think pp may have suggested it too, but I get a strong feeling he may be gay and in denial about it.

Hi op, my ex partner told me he didn’t love me anymore out of the apparent blue. Swore there was no one else. A month after he moved out he was posting about how much he loved his new girlfriend!
IMO He only told me there was no one else so I didn’t kick him out immediately.
Do not try to lose weight for him. As other posters have said you’d never feel ‘safe’ in your own sense of self.

Wow. Just wow.

I cannot believe what I have just read. What an absolute scumbag.

I agree with all the great advice here. Get yourself speaking to a solicitor and make sure you get whatever you’re entitled to. Don’t let him just fob you off

For what it’s worth, I know you probably don’t feel it right now and you are chastising yourself for stuff, but I think you’re being incredibly strong about this. The fact that you’ve reached out for advice and support in itself shows how strong you can be. And despite the hurt and sheer bewilderment you are currently feeling, you’re still trying to take next steps/action to move on. And for that I commend you, because it’s bloody hard when you feel the way you are feeling!

You’re bloody brilliant and don’t ever forget it!!

He's not gay, he's just an abusive, misogynistic piece of shit.

Get on to that solicitor ASAP. Protect yourself from this man. Good luck OP

I’m with the others that think something else is going on. Does he go away with his work ever? Maybe conferences or something like that?

Either way there’s no going back from the things he’s said LTB. There’s a lovely kind amazing partner waiting for you somewhere but this definitely isn’t it

He's using your weight as an excuse. I also think he wasn't turned on by your distress, because going off his comment that the regular sex was him wanting you to be happy, it seems he uses sex to manipulate you & shut you up. He's met someone or he's gay was my take. I'd be doing some digging & getting a Solicitors appt asap. As it's an all male office is there a work colleague he's always mentioning. As all his friends live hours away, does he go to a gym or have a hobby where he'd meet people & have an excuse to be out of the house? Has he reconnected with anyone from his past lately? I also think the marriage was him convincing himself that would make it work for him. It hasn't , so he's bailing. I've had several male coworkers admit they knowingly married the wrong woman because they thought marriage would improve things. God knows why, I totally don't get the logic tbh.

See a solicitor you may only have been wed for 7 months but the length of the entire relationship, especially whilst cohabiting should be taken into account.

"The length of time a couple have lived together before getting married is also relevant. Where there has been a period of ‘seamless cohabitation’ before the marriage that period of time is often also added to the ‘length of the marriage’."

So sorry OP what a shock. He's a disgrace.

Weird that he wanted to save the marriage over the weekend. Now it's Monday and he's been back at work and suddenly he is adamant it's over again. Almost as if someone's given him a kick up the arse at work? I think there's someone else.

So sorry OP.

@lisaandalan

Do you think he may be gay. X

I was just thinking that myself after RTFT. Would explain a lot.

How would you feel, OP, if he came out to you?