Husband doesn't want to have sex due to my weight gain :(

[Edwarrior]

My husband and I have been together for 5 years. For most of that time I have had an eating disorder. In the last 5 months I have been in recovery and have gained a lot of weight as a result. Nearly 30kgs, and I think I'm still gaining. This is very hard for me, but it's a process that I need to go through to regain my health obviously. (Often what happens is that the body stores a lot of extra fat at the beginning of recovery until the body learns to trust that food is readily available again. So although I have gained a lot, it is likely that my weight will slowly taper back down to my natural set point within 2 or 3 years. I'm not sure what my natural set point is but I think about a size UK 10-12)

My problem is, that although my husband is very loving and supportive of my recovery, he has become unattracted to me physically and doesn't want to have sex with me anymore (for the past 6ish weeks he has felt this way. Before that we were still having sex). He will still kiss and cuddle me and is otherwise affectionate. I was a size 8 most of our time together and am now a size 14. I don't quite know what to make of this. It makes me feel very self conscious too. I swing from thinking he's a shallow bastard to thinking 'well he can't help what he's physically attracted to'. He says he loves me and is 100% committed to me, and is happy to stay married forever - without having sex. This doesn't seem right to me and is not what I want. I'm only 29 and him 28! We can't call it quits on sex at such a young age!

He understands the recovery process and says that he will want to have sex again when my weight tapers back down eventually. But this makes me feel like his love for me is conditional on my weight. Is it unfair of him to not have sex and be unattracted to me? What if my weight never tapers back down? Should I just wait this process out and see what happens? I do love him very much, but this makes me question his commitment to me. Don't actions speak louder than words sometimes?

Please, no suggestions to 'stop gaining weight' or 'just go on a diet'.

Thank you.

Edwarrior - don't listen to those who are being extremely critical of your dh. They do not know either of you, nor do they have more than the tiniest bit of information about your lives. Have the counselling, keep talking to each other, keep cuddling and kissing and being kind to each other. A couple's sex life can easily be thrown off balance, by stress, generalised anxiety, performance anxiety, medication, rapid changes in physical appearance or behaviour, increases in responsibility or workload, changes in sleep patterns, etc. Your rapid increase in weight is only one part of the picture, not the cause of all your sexual problems, it's just the latest contribution to the causes. It's not as if you gain or lose huge amounts of weight in a vacuum, is it? So of course it isn't the sole reason. You will overcome this if you love each other, listen to each other, are supportive of each other and manage to find an equilibrium. Certainly at the moment you haven't given each other long enough to know whether or not you can overcome it - it's less than a year since he got a life changing diagnosis, you admitted to and started dealing with a serious eating disorder, and only a year since you had a baby together. That's enough stress and change to put most people off sex for a while!

That Marilyn Monroe thing is absolute bollocks so will people stop being so misleading. Marilyn Monroe's measurements were 37-23-36 so absolutely nowhere near a today's size 12. Just stop it, it's not at all helpful.

OP is recovering from an illness that's caused her to gain weight and just as she's receiving acknowledgement of how difficult this must be, so should her husband be deserving of at least a nod that he suffers from bi-polar but it's almost as if that's being brushed aside as something that he must 'get over'. That's not on.

OP, is there somebody that you could talk to about this as a couple? You already know the 'worst' of it, ie. that your husband isn't attracted sexually because your weight. That being the case, maybe a couples discussion would be beneficial to you both?

You have my sympathy though, it must be a very difficult thing to hear and realise the ramifications of.

Ferret. When he originally told me I posed a hypothetical like this to him. He said he would have sex with me if the alternative was us breaking up. So, i guess that mean he loves me. But, I don't want to have sex with someone who doesn't really want to. I would never force it.

Most people are missing the point.
Its not about sex.
The OP has an ED and is recovering and as a result has put on a substantial amount of weight. DH has admitted he finds that unattractive
So he is attracted to the OP when she is unwell and has been the entire relationship
The issues here IMO run deeper than weight and the OPS physical appearance and I too wonder whether there's been a subconscious choice of partner because the DH has not noticed the ED.
No he can't help the way he feels but it undermines the OPS recovery and will continue to do so always.
That is the issue.

He sounds like a fucking twat and you'd be better off with someone who loves you and is attracted to you now you've gone through this journey. Maybe he is put off by the change in you (confidence, self esteem?) rather than the change to your body. He may not be able to admit this to himself.

Lying witch, yes we have a couples counsellor that we see once a month (we've only had 2 sessions so far) so we will discuss this issue at our next appointment

Yes, it is a very difficult situation. Thank you for taking in the big picture in your assessment of the problem. He is going through a difficult time too, so it's only fair to take this into consideration.

No he can't help the way he feels but it undermines the OPS recovery and will continue to do so always.

Exactly

First off, well done for having started on the road to recovery! I'm in a very similar situation myself, I was recovering from anorexia and at a healthy weight when we met, then eventually I started binge eating instead and became obese. I then lost weight a healthy way, before becoming depressed and binge eating again, and now I'm bigger than ever. We've not had sex since July, and it's pretty obvious to me why (I'm too scared to ask). However I do need to lose weight to be healthy, so it's somewhat a different scenario, as I am still struggling with ED just the other way around.

I don't think LTB is the way to go, I think you both have big adjustments to get used to, and especially with him on new medications, they might reduce his sex drive as well. I think - and hope - it's just a minor blip in the road, and as you say, your weight will probably taper down and stabilise at a healthy point. Give it time, he might just need to get used to his "new" wife, if you see what I mean. Glad to hear you will discuss this in couples counselling, it could help shed some light on the situation for both of you.

Nothing will undermine my recovery. I know it may soung like I'm delusional saying something like that but I honestly believe that NOTHING will affect me in this. My head is finally in the right place where I am never going back to that illness as it has run its course and serve me no purpose any longer. I never want to experience the misery of restriction again. My husbands sexual preferences wont affect my recovery. But it may affect my marriage if its something that cant be reaolved over time.

OP, I really hope you have cherry picked the advice and thoughts on this thread that make most sense to you. I have found some of the posts quite baffling.

One last offering from me: have a read of the helpful patient information sheet that comes with your DH's new medication. I would take a guess that a decrease in libido might be listed as a possible side effect. As I said up thread, so many changes in a short while whilst the only tangible one is your change in shape, therefore the easiest one to pin the blame on.

Best wishes to you both and please ignore some of the cruel posts you have received. Nobody else has walked in your shoes or those of your dh.

Edwarrior, if it were me in this situation, I would look at doing some kind of relationship 're-set', ie. this is me right now, (for both of you) and we love each other so we're doing to take the focus off sex at the moment.

It's really obvious that your husband does love you and he must be saddened that his version of what is true has hit you so hard. Nobody wants that for somebody they love.

What makes you laugh? What makes him laugh? I would look at finding and doing more of those things. I find that laughing about stuff, whatever it is, transcends whatever underlying or pressing problems are there, just for a while. In that while, your husband may face the shocking realisation that your weight just doesn't matter, you are the woman that he loves - and that actually, you are pretty fanciable as you are. But even if this isn't the achieved aim, it's closeness that is brought about by mutual release of humour and rediscovering things that you'd both perhaps forgotten. I truly don't think it would do your husband any harm to have this more prevalent in his life. You sound very lovely btw. :)

My reference for this is looking at comedians and their overt attractiveness. Lee Evans is most ferrety looking but he's so funny that his features become attractive when you look at him as a 'whole'. Peter Kay the same - and his weight is the last thing that you think of. Both funny men and very attractive (because of that).

We don't laugh enough. I'm going to take my own advice actually and find stuff that makes us laugh just for the feel-good hell of it!

OP. Tell him to have sex or you will leave him. If he doesn't it's obviously because he doesn't love you. Afterall, you have an entitlement to have sex with him.

What The Fuck...

Louisville I am fairly sure that was a sarcastic post, pointing out what others have that it is fine for a woman to not want sex (its her body after all) but not for the man (omg how abusive, he isn't in it for the long term, leave him) which we have seen all through this thread

Roundaboutthetown, what a great post !

Purplebluebird, no you don't need to lose weight to be healty. It's a very common misconception that fat is unhealthy, and that's definitely not the case. Binge eating disorder is not possible for someone who is on the restrictive eating disorder spectrum like you. You are binging because your body is in a calorie dedicit and needs that food. The more you resist and try to not binge, the stronger the urge to binge will become. Please visit www.youreatopia.com for more information on this. You can do it! X

My weight has varied by around four and a half stone in the first year of being with my partner.

I also have overcome an eating disorder. I was at my thinnest and sickest when I met DP. Like you, I gained quite s lot of weight during recovery - this is NORMAL and it's because our metabolisms are so fucked up, and to begin with your body holds on to every pound it can after so many years of starvation.

My weight has settled now, I'm around a ten, sometimes twelve. I always worry that DP won't find me attractive, I was a six when we met.

You know what, maybe he doesn't find you as attractive at a larger size. Maybe my DP didn't either, when I was a 14. But if he had voiced that I don't think i could have stayed with him.

I don't think anyone should have sex if they don't want to, so that include your husband. But if my husband didn't want to have sex with me as a result of weight gain recovering from an illness that could have killed me - I would not want to be with him. I want a partner who loves me for me, on the inside.

My partner has suffered alopecia before from stress. Would I say that men with bald patches are 'my type' exactly? No. But I love my DP for who he is, I would never care about external appearance being affected by mental illness. If you really love someone you don't care about that IMO.

Lying witch, thank you, that's great advice. We are making an effort to have a date night at least once a fortnight, but I'll try to figure out ways for us to laugh more often as well

Matilda, most certainly I am cherry picking. Some of the comments have been horrendous!

Op you are inspiring.

"When someone tells you who they are, listen to them" is normally good advice. But the OP's DH's thoughts and behaviour are made up of three things: "who he really is"; the symptoms of his illness, which may vary wildly and which he hasn't fully come to terms with; and the side effects of his medication, which are also very new and notorious for their effect on the libido. He almost certainly can't disentangle them himself (people with bipolar can be terrible at this) and the OP certainly can't.

Congratulations on your recovery OP and keep on with the counselling.

You could get slim again and then he refuses to have sex when you get a bit old and wrinkly. I think its a damn shame if his attraction to you is based on some fantasy woman rather than because he loves you. Looks always fade. I would take this seriously

Thank you Hallo, this is very true of him.

Chewing, thank you, there is a lot of truth in what you say. He hadn't decided it's a sexless marriage, I probably wasn't clear enough. He is open to the fact that things will probably change in time, and wants to work on himself and try to learn to love my new bloated and swollen body (I say this because an ED recovery body is not an attractive one. It's not a standard size 14. It's weight that's piled around the tummy to conserve internal organs, its edema and it's not pretty). He hopes things will change but wants to put sex off the cards for now to reduce the pressure I guess. He doesn't want to put a timeline on it, nor do I.

TeacherBob I saw, I have a habit of reading 1-2 responses and then flipping and if I'm still interested as threads often change topic I read the thread. I did this commented and then read the rest! Unbelievable some of the responses here