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.

Thing (muscles etc) but it's true that you can't help what you find attractive, and looks/weight do play their part. His attitude and approach is disgusting BUT I do think it's important to vocalise if there is a physical (or behavioural) reason why you are losing attraction to your partner, otherwise it will just fester, but it needs to be done tactfully. It gives them the opportunity to change (or run for the hills).

stacey - i think you have a bit of a shallow understanding of love and what it means.

my dh and i have been together for 23 years. literally - through thick and thin. i met him at 15, i was a size 8. now im a size 14. he has also put on about 3 stone in that time.

it matters not one jot.

because
its him i love. not his packaging. i love him. his humour. his wit. his intelligence. his kindness. his willingness to please me and knowing he loves me enough to put up with my madness sometimes.

i would love him no matter whether he was 10 stone or 20 stone. (he is a tall man, over 6ft 5 - not conventionally beautiful - but i love him completely and unconditionally.

loving someone when they are thin and not when they are bigger isnt love. telling someone they are fat and you wont have children until they fulfill your own ideals is not love. being a selfish lover and only pleasing yourself is not love.

if you love someone then you love the person they are - not what they look like. it might help sometimes - but lord almighty - ive had body issues - my dh has made me feel as loved and desirable as a size 14 than as a size 8. he gives me body confidence. he doesnt rob me of it.

OP please go to counselling without your partner and really work out what you want. You could do better i am sure. No one deserves to be made to feel bad because of their looks or weight - especially by someone who is supposed to love YOU.

VicarinaTutu

There's a difference between loving someone and being in love with someone. The latter is to do with physical attraction.

Physical Attraction is not a choice!

I can point you to another marriage forum full of poor husbands who got cheated on because their spouses didn't find them physically attractive. First time they found out was when they either got the 'I love you but I'm not in love you speech', or they found the spouse was cheating on you.

It happens all the time. Like it or not physical looks are important to both sexes, despite what society has tried to drill into us.

If your husband ballooned to 300lbs+ I seriously doubt you would have any physical attraction to him and would have a real hard time having sex with him.

'Love is unconditional' is Hallmark card BS. If your partner cheats or abuses you that love is not unconditional.

darkesteyes

So you're telling you would still be physically attracted to Sainsbury's guy if he was 300lbs+? You'd want to have sex with that 300lb guy?

Oh come on Stacy You wernt talking about that far an extreme in yr earlier post
The ex i mentioned was a more muscly but bigger guy, I left him because he was financially abusive Nothing to do with his looks.

And the fact that you say a size 14 woman has to be 6 ft to not be fat says a lot about your perception of things.

As above. I weight the same as the OP and am 5'6. I am about 2-3lbs overweight if we go by BMI.

BMI of 30+ = obese.

I know it's not particularly relevant but it was irritating me to have it left there

*weigh, obviously

Stacy society has tried to drill into us the exact opposite......that looks are all important above all else. You only have to look at the covers of Heat/Closer/Grazia to see that.
And i cant help noticing that you have used the extreme of 300lbs to describe an overweight male but you use size 14 as a benchmark to describe an overweight female. Very telling.

Stacy I'm not sure evolution would require us to seek a mate capable of protecting us from a sabre tooth tiger these days. I suppose it would be one theory to suggest that a woman attracted to men with money would be more evolved though than a woman still so absorbed by increasingly redundant physical attributes .

This thread really isn't about size - or at least it shouldn't be. The op's dh is sending up red flags all over the place and yes, I can tell that from 2 posts - actually I could tell it from the 1st. I find it worrying that you can't

Darkesteyes you didn't answer my question. If Sainsburys guy had been 300lbs I doubt you would have given him the time of day. Just demonstrating that looks do matter., despite constant posts on my Facebook feed telling me beauty should not be skin deep. Sheesh I linked to a new post on here of a wife who cheated on her husband because he put on weight and she lost attraction.

Happens all the time, marriages fail because people 'fall out of love'...but in reality that probably means one or both partners has lost the physical attraction of the other partner, they just don't realize it.

To dismiss looks as unimportant and just default to 'well my husband/wife should just accept who I've become' denies the basic reality of physical attraction.

Hoppingmad. Well all I see is one brief side of a story with the pitchforks and torches out for a husband who isn't here to give his side of the story or defend himself.

No, Stacy, marriages fail because some people are shallow and lack any sense of commitment, or integrity. And immaturity claims its fair share of victims too.

They also fail because some people obviously don't believe they themselves will end up bald with all their important bits pointing south permanently or requiring pharmaceutical or mechanical assistance to get them pointing where they want them pointing.

Stacys1968 has a point. Some people can't see further than appearance and struggle to find their partner sexually attractive if they change significantly. It's pretty shallow and we don't like to think it happens but that's life. A man who says 'I want to enjoy your body' (implication 'before kids destroy it') is so shallow it's a wonder he hasn't evaporated already

So the OP describes something very corrosive i.e. her appearance being used as the stick to beat her with. She's wretched, miserable, lost confidence and her self-esteem is on the floor. She's not only trying to lose weight but buying books on how to be a more pleasing wife. In her OP she mentions 'five years younger' twice .... suggesting she never felt good enough for him, was lucky to be chosen by this man in the first place and is prepared to put up with any kind of shit just to keep a ring on her finger.

OP don't stay with a man who makes you feel less attractive. You're not lucky to have him.

Sorry.... it was another poster buying books. My mistake. I stand by the rest.

Stacy - are you American? (All your use of lbs is making me wonder). A UK size 14 is a US size 10 & not regarded as obese. A US 14 is a UK 18. At UK14/US10 the OP is not obese.

She is however married to a shallow fool. I'm sorry OP if he can't cope with you as a 14, god knows how he'd deal with you pregnant. He sounds thoroughly unpleasant & I don't see how your relationship can survive long term without destroying you unless he changes massively.

But it's not just the weight, is it? When she ran into health problems he wasn't there. There's a reason marriage vows specifically mention "in sickness and in health".

The reason people are so worried about his reaction to her moderate weight gain is the OP is seemingly stretching every sinew to keep her man happy, and getting little or nothing back. This is not sustainable during pregnancy and early babyhood (or if you have a baby like insomniac DD2 for the first whole bloody year).

If he can't put her first - ever - he's going to make an awful father and life partner. Leaving is much harder after you have children together. She's still in her early 30s.

OP - I know your biological clock is going off like a klaxon but the second line on the stick isn't the end. It's the very, very beginning. And children leave for uni eventually. Are you sure you want to be treated like this for the rest of your life? Don't you deserve to be happy?

Physical attraction is much more of a choice than media would have you believe. Mind is biggest sexual organ. How brainwashed some people are about women's bodies to think this is even vaguely acceptable. We all lose our looks in the end.

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.

Attraction and love are a lot more complex than that. There's nothing complex about the OP's situation. She's with an abusive controlling bully.

i cant help noticing that you have used the extreme of 300lbs to describe an overweight male but you use size 14 as a benchmark to describe an overweight female.

Quite.

No. Finding someone attractive despite their physical appearance is a choice. Physical attraction isn't a choice. You can't make yourself find someone physically gorgeous to look at just because they're nice/clever/funny.

Oh dear, I have to say I agree with the above messages. However if you are besotted about him and won't leave, another thought. Having been size 12 a lot in the past and know the great feeling within myself when I have lost weight, I would do that for me (not him). I don't use diets as just feel hungry. Eat loads of raw veg and fruit to stay full, drink lots of water, avoid obvious high calorie stuff and join a gym. When feeling better within, when he starts wanting sex, I would avoid it, tell him how he made you feel. Have some power and confidence over him. Is he just immature? May be worth going to relate, just for him to be told how unreasonable and nasty he is being from a third party?

Slightly off topic but mentioned above. It suits many to say evolutionary psychology is a 'debunked pseudo science', but is it? I appreciate things are more complex in the realm of human beings but it still seems to me that evolution is a key driver in many areas of human behaviour. I would like to see evidence outside of 'academic' feminism (which really is a pseudo science) for its debunking.

When feeling better within, when he starts wanting sex, I would avoid it, tell him how he made you feel. Have some power and confidence over him.

Don't do this. Using sex as a weapon would make you not much better than him.

Stacy you are wrong. You're making a generalization about people that doesn't hold true for the majority of people on this thread. You may feel like that, and so might some others, but that isn't 'how people think'. I feel sorry for you, them, and anybody with a more sophisticated sense of attraction who wastes their time with any one of you.

Maybe you should start a group and wear a wrist band or something to spare the rest of us.

Just wondering what you'd do when you turned 25 and everything started going downhill. That would leave you all single and celibate wouldn't it? Or is weight the only factor that matters?

What tondelay said ^^

Quite

Stacy1968 - what bollocks you speak. Do not think you speak for me when you say "all women" like six packs and muscles. It is very sad that you think being in love means physical attraction. I love my husband. I am in love with him. I love him and are in love with him because he is kind, loyal, supportive, respectful, always there for me, is always on my team and is the nicest person I have known for the whole of my life. How he looks is irrelevant.

The OP is married to someone who has decided he wants to bully her and he has chosen the fact he thinks she needs to lose weight as a reason to bully her. Even if she was 9 stone he would find something to abuse her about because that is what he wants to do. He sees himself as better than her and she needs to see this is not true and she would be better off without him.