Husband won't have children and sex with me until i lose weight

[atacrossrossroads]

This is my first post...

ISSUE: he doesn't want to have children yet because he says he isn't ready. I have questioned him about starting a family over the last 1.5 years on and he has said it is because he is not ready for kids yet because he wants to be selfish and enjoy a hassle free life before introducing anyone else into our life. He said he wants me to lose weight so he can enjoy my body before we have children.

I give him sexual pleasure regularly but find I get nothing at all. He said he doesn't feel sexual excited by me any more as i have put on a lot of weight. He sees that i am not losing weight (despite trying to) and this puts him off me. I have tried to have sex with him on several occassions and sometimes it works and he's interested, only if it has been a month+ and he is horny but usually it is not intercourse....

My confidence and self esteem are shattered. I couldn't sleep in the same room as him after him repeatedly telling me about my weight and directly tying this in with my desire to have a child. So we are sleeping in different rooms for now.... I don't know what to do.

*I'm in my early 30s, husband is 5 years younger.
*We've been together 6 years married for 2 yrs
*My weight was 55kg dress size 8 when we met and now 72kg dress size 14
*husband is 5 years younger than myself, very attractive and affectionate

I have had health complications over the last few years and I have always felt that he wasn't fully there to support me (not coming with me to the hospital and just not knowing what to say and being distracted when I talk about my feelings about my operations).
endometriosis and recently had cervical pre-cancerous cells removed

I understand that being 5 years younger means we're never going to agree on a perfect time for life changing events but I really feel ready for children and have felt this way over the last 1.5years. There needs to be a compromise but I always feel like he makes all the decisions (big and small) in our relationship and has the final word on things. I constantly feel hopeless and just waiting around for him to be ready before we can do anything.

My health complications have scared me a lot as I have conditions that will affect me being able to conceive. I don't want to wait and risk losing an opportunity by just chancing it until I am 35 onwards...

Now I am not sure about the future of our relationship as it is not just about children.. he doesn't feel attracted to me and I feel like my self-esteem is hurt. Is our relationship so on the surface? I feel miserable.

Of course physical attraction is a choice on some levels, like women who are 'physically attracted' to bad guys, have therapy and find suddenly they are attracted to entirely different men etc, old friends who 'realise' their attraction to eachother after years, anyone who has ever taken a fancy to someone funny.

In evolutionary terms its only a few generations since marriages were arranged in the main and sexual attraction just wasn't the pervasive cultural myth it is now in the developed world.

Also 'fat' if its a size 14 is highly desirable in many societies which goes to show it's all a sociocultural construct.

There are much nicer men out there crossroads

• so true BTW you really are at a massive life crossroads.

Don't have DC with this person things would only get much worse.

Best wishes for a brave and Happy New Year

So glad you started this thread, and hope you will take the advice offered.

• I know even without reading whole thread there will be a whole string of LTBs. As the ad says "Believe in better" x

In terms of evolution. I read somewhere that men are attracted to women with big childbearing hips for survival of species etc etc.

Stacy, can you, all knowing one explain why the OP's husband is such a prick? If he isn't attracted to her, why does he take blow jobs from her? You seem to ignore, to suit your own "body beautiful' agenda that weight gain, or not, the man is horrible. His lack of general support does not seem indicative of somebody temporarily insensitive.
I do find it suspicious that you have rationalised the abuse that the OP receives is her fault for not being toned and shiny. You also seem to have a very narrow rationale for "physical attractiveness". How can you be so "knowing" and yet can't account for the fact that some men like skinny, some men like big butts, some men like fat women (not plump, but fat) and some cultures care not one jot for the Western ideal of slim hips, big tits and no butt.
You remind me of my woman hating cousin. She would jump through hoops for any rubbish man who started carrying on about "appearances". It didn't stop her controlling children's fathers from tearing out on the side with females OLDER than her and generically much less attractive than her. She as a nearly fifty year old, in order to "justify" her generic attractiveness cannot keep off a dick to see the woods for the trees, each time a "relationship" with "the one" breaks down. I can't take any advice from her, she's too much like you. She doesn't know how to do empathy or objectivity and sees everything through her very narrow prism, even when there is evidence to the contrary.

Also I do think it's really sad if as a society we seem to be getting to a point where an 8 is considered a normal or desirable size for a woman, and 14 considered by some to be plump.
Even when I was 18 and slim I didn't aspire to be an 8, which I recognised as a size for particularly small and slightly built young women (no offense to any 8's out there) - but surely a 12,14,16+ are all perfectly healthy and attractive shapes for a womanly body.

OP i wasnt going to mention this on here but i think i will after all. My dh has never been that interested in sex (i was only 19 when we met and he was 42 so i didnt have a big frame of reference)
He stopped having or wanting sex with me in 1996 5 yrs later i weighed 21 stone.
Now if i had posted on an internet forum then i can imagine there would have been a couple of ppl who would have insisted it was my weight.
Well they would have been wrong. In 2002 i joined Slimming World and lost ten stone. Going from a 28 down to a 12/14.
Still no interest from DH.
I did NOT plan to have an affair but that is what happened. The ex i mentioned upthread is the man i had an affair with for 4 and a half years. After 7 years in a sexless marriage where im sure a lot of ppl would have blamed it on my weight had they known.
The low level mysogyny in situations like this usually leads to the default setting of blaming the woman.

8, which I recognised as a size for particularly small and slightly built young women (no offense to any 8's out there)
None taken, except perhaps the "young" part. Is 42 young?

I'm attracted to muscles and a nice 6 pack. All woman are despite public denials. My genes scream at me to find/mate with a strong/fit guy who can fight off the sabre tooth tiger, protect me and my family, and provide good genes for my offspring. In the same way guys are attracted to fit curvy woman who will provide fit/healthy offspring.

Bless you Stacy but you do realise that Evolutionary Psychology is a debunked pseudo-science that real biologists snigger at? Although they do get quoted a lot in the trashy women's magazines you seem to read.

It's interesting how both sides of the argument don't seem to grasp the various complexities of Evolutionary Psychology.

In choosing male mates women are just as likely to choose strong/fit types as reliable/faithful types, who will actually stick around and support their families, or are intelligent enough to dodge the said tiger or wealthy enough to pay people to fight the tiger for them. There's a whole range of what makes an attractive partner.

In fact, each person tends to choose mates that resemble key figures of the opposite sex in their families in some ways.
So, while most women probably won't be attracted to, say, ginger men, a percentage will preferably be attracted to them.

The same applies for men in relation to women.

In any case Stacy is also wrong in that a size 14 is just about the actual curvy, well nourished woman that would provide healthy offspring. A size 8 in that respect is less appealing (I'm size 8, BTW). See images of attractive women in paintings of a few hundred years ago. Because in times of shortage fatter women will still be able to produce and maintain their offspring.
The hip to waist ratio is more important than simply dress size.

I just knew there'd be some come back from an 8'er out there

Larry, yet again proving his superior intelligence by calling academic feminism a pseudoscience and treating us to some cracking mansplaining. You have to do better than pretending that a serious and actually very complex form of critical theory is on a par with phrenology and shit like that, you pitiful thing. Can I gyrate around you to 'Blurred Lines' whilst you talk guff some more?

If evolutionary psychology was really at play here surely the H would have had nothing to do with the OP from the start as she is older than him by five years.

The EP argument is without credence anyway.

The H is simply too lazy to do the honourable thing, leave, and form a new relationship if this one isn't satisfactory, and with a nasty side to him too. What he is doing is just cruel.

OP: sorry, I haven't read through the whole thread, but honestly, why would you even consider having children with this moron? By the time the kids reach 2 years old, they would be emotionally and intellectually superior to their "father".

Toi make children, you first need to find a man.

Wow. Just read the OP. This man sounds like a nasty piece of work. Why are you with someone so horrible, inconsiderate, sexist?

This is going to sound very dorky, but in Doctor Who, Amy is talking about her husband and she says some people are beautiful in an obvious way, and others get more beautiful as you get to know them...and all of a sudden their face becomes the most beautiful face you've ever seen.

Thats how I felt about my OH and although he was fat, bald and funny looking....to me he was the most beautiful person I had ever seen and I wanted to rip his clothes off every day.

Find someone who feels that way about you. Believe me...I know how hard it is to realise your OH doesnt love you the way they should and how heartbreaking that is...but we all do deserve to be really loved x

Sarajane I think that's true for a lot of people, it certainly is for me. I knew my dh for over a decade before anything happened between us. When I first met him he didn't register with me either way, he wasn't my usual type and I didn't think 'phwoar'. My usual type was always slightly chubbier men and my dh is stick thin!

Years of friendship, a shared sense of humour and outlook on life and it suddenly clicked. Now I would say I have never felt attraction like it before and I dare say I probably won't again. The passion in our relationship is derived from so much more than our physical shapes and is much more intense for it. He is just about my favourite person in the world and I can just 'be' around him in a way I can't with anyone else.

Not that long ago I was with someone who made damn sure I knew I wasn't good enough - if I only did things a certain way, looked a certain way, treated him a certain way then he wouldn't have to shout. If I didn't say no to him in bed he wouldn't be forced to help himself.

This is why I feel so strongly about threads like this. I wasted the best years of my life being abused left, right & centre and I was so scared when I left. I just want people like the op to know that her relationship is not how it should be. She can be happy, content, confident - everyone deserves that surely?

Man's perspective on this one. I love my wife. I fancied her when I met her so much that I found it hard to work during the first months we were seeing each other. As time wore on and the kids arrived she gained some weight and went from a 12 to an 18. I still fancied her like mad, just because she was sexy and she was her. She did lose the weight again and is a 12 now and being honest I prefer it when she is in shape for a of of reasons. For a start I can tell she feels sexier, which turns me on more. Second she wears dirty underwear. Third we fit in the bath together. Fourth she wants sex more. I like seeing her feeling good about herself and confident. All that said, I love this woman and can hand on heart say that while I sometimes look at younger, thinner women and think casually "oh she's attractive", since the day I met my wife 6 years ago I have never once wanted sex with another person and I will always think she is the sexiest woman in the world because it comes from within and the way she walks, moves, kisses and touches me will always trump what some skinny little cow in the pub could offer me. Sometimes she's just cooking and I find myself getting aroused. She just does it for me, however she looks and I think any guy who judges his woman based on a few extra pounds is a shallow idiot.

That is "A man's perspective on this" MrMistakes

While it sounds like you and your wife have a good relationship ATM be careful that you are not being a shallow idiot yourself!

(Phrases like "his woman" do not endear me to the post. And a touch of mansplaining there too ?)

She wears dirty underwear, and you like it? Odd.

I mentioned this thread to my DP as it had been playing on my mind... in his words your husband is a twat.
He isn't concerned about your weight or simply letting you know that he isn't attracted to you as you've put on weight - he's been horrible to you. In your own words he hasn't supported you in ill health and has treated you appallingly.

I think you should take VicarInaTutus advice. I too have a DP who has loved me at a range of weights/sizes as I do him and we have supported each other through a number of different health issues.

Oh and by the way - at a size 14 I am sure you are still attractive to many people.

There's nothing shallow about finding it sexier when the one you love is feeling confident within themselves.

My dh would prob be similar. Been together 15 years and through all sizes but I know (though he would never say it) he probably prefers when I am less than a size 16 because I am very much more sexually confident and energetic and no, this has nothing to do with how he treats me.. its all in my own head. I'd love to feel the same about clothes and being naked at a size 16 and theoretically, academically I do... but it just doesn't pan out that way on a day to day basis though I have learned to be less self-loathing about size as I have matured.

Sorry this was re male poster above not op's arse of a man!!!

If you are reviewing your relationship it is really tough. when in a similar situation I remember having 2 opposing opinion s about my ex. sometimes he felt like my soul mate who was just a bit immature then I would feel like he was a real using bastard who had never loved me. it was horrible ,I felt like 2 different people. even for the first few months after we split I felt like this.it was very confusing and I felt like I couldn't trust myself. do you have a close friend you can speak to? my friends really got me through it. it was a 5 year relationship that I ended and amazingly I met my dh just 3 months later. 7 years on I am happy and am so glad I made it out of that relationship. if you know what you want I do believe you can find the right partner for you. there are lovely kind men who want children out there. dont feel like you have wasted time if you do decide to leave ,it all just helps you learn what you do want and value it when you get it. good luck.

Nothing makes you feel un-sexy like a husband who is critical. It can do a number on your self esteem and really destroy whatever confidence you have, the confidence that makes you exude that 'I am sexy/feel like a million dollars' vibe. The other side of that is MrMistakes and his obvious love and support for his wife -- when a woman feels appreciated, cherished and loved she will show it.

I'm really hoping that MrMistakes means his wife wears erotic lingerie, and not that he gets off on sniffing her worn-for-3-days fudgy grundies...

Maybe phrased that wrong...I meant clean underwear of the sexy variety. What I meant to say is that I think my wife is the most beautiful woman in the world. Always!