I don't find my husband attractive

[mummydown]

I feel terrible enough for saying this out loud so please don't bash me.

I no longer find my husband attractive. I can't exactly remember when this occurred or why (well other than the fact he has put on a considerable amount of weight over the years). The problem is, is that if I loved him I wouldn't mind, but I'm not in love with him anymore. I love him more like a best friend but sex is a important to me and it's getting me down.

I feel myself looking and longing for other men, which is never good. I have told my OH how I feel so many times and he ignores me. I finally managed to get through to him last week and he was/is devastated (as you can imagine). However he has said he will make an effort with how he looks but I am worried that won't be enough. We have been together for a long time, we have a young child and we have recently moved into a new home. So to leave now would be very difficult in all ways.

We are going to see a counsellor soon so perhaps they will be able to help? I just don't know what to do. I can't work out why I feel like this because he's such a lovely man, great dad and husband but it just doesn't seem to be enough. Can you even have it all? Can you have a fabulous husband and father to your child and want to f**k their brains out?

Please tell me I'm not the only one in this situation?

It might be better to attend counselling by yourself, and suggest that your H does likewise.

It would be unfair to give him the impression that if he does X, Y and Z you might find him sexually attractive again, if the attraction has, in fact, gone.

You could sort out housing, co-parenting and finances and seek to be relatively amicable exes.

@Loopytiles I have said to him that I'm not sure if it will work. I have been as honest as I can without being horrible. Finances are a huge worry to me. He was talking about keeping our huge house on. I'm part-time and might not be able to go back to work full-time and if that's the case I'd have no money spare at all once the bills come out. I am worried my daughter won't want to leave the nice house to live with me for half the week. My hubby will have about £1200 a month spare 😬

If hes a lovely kind person, great dad & your best friend then I wouldnt give up so quick. I'd encourage you both to have some free time apart a few days or evenings, let yourself miss him a bit, sometimes we just fall into the friend roll because we spend too much time together doing mum & dad things, try and go on a few dates just the two of you if you can.

Try & imagine if you split up, picture him with another woman, him introducing you to her, him collecting your daughter with his new girlfriend in the car, now if this idea makes you jealous then you may have something to save. If you feel happy for him in this scenario & truly feel no sense of jealousy or loss then it may well be doomed

You would need legal advice about the house and money. Don’t assume that your H’s preferred solution would happen.

@Boots20 That's the problem. We only have 2 days together as a family per week due to having to work very long shifts opposite each other, and we have our child to look after with no family support. It's so hard for us to have a life.

@Loopytiles Yes, if and when we get to that stage

I know this sounds a bit 'out there' but if you are not interested in having a sexual relationship with anyone else either, could you not sort of live together but have largely separate lives? As long as it was handled well it might work. You could even divorce but live under the same roof maybe? You could co-parent and as long as you remain friends it might work possibly or do you feel the need for your own space?

@TenPastFugit I think we may do that for a bit if it doesn't work out with the counselling however I'd want to be sexual with someone else in the near future,

I don't recommend splitting and living together. I had to do this when ex and I split as he had to save up a deposit for rent. It was excruciating tbh. I just felt awkward so kept out of the way a lot. He never went out or did anything so was always here. I wanted tume alone with my DCs but never got it. I felt pushed out really as he wasn't budging for 6 months. I also started seeing someone in that time which made it even more awkward as ex would ask where I was going at first, even though I was not obliged to tell him (and I didnt).

I was so relieved when that was over.

Having read many threads similar to this, I do get the impression that when a woman loses all sexual interest in her partner like this, its gone. Its not coming back, no matter what. Aren't you being unfair suggesting that if he put himself through some heroic effort of self improvement you might want to touch him and have sex with him again, when in all likelihood it won't make any difference?

@NewMe2019 Ah that does sound complicated and hard. I'm glad it worked out for you in the end

@Scott72 I told him to do it for himself as well. Even if it doesn't work out then at least he will be trim and look after himself if you decides to find someone else. Like I try to take pride in my appearance for myself not just him. Who's to say it won't work? I have to try. If it doesn't then it doesn't but it might

It will primarily be him “trying” though. And even if after many months or even years he gets his BMI within the OK range you may well still not find him attractive. Individual counselling for both of you could be good.

From your mindset in your posts I think it's best you separate. This is categorically NOT a criticism. I have been where you are. It's like a switch has been thrown and I agree with Scott72 when it's gone it's gone. I think you can have a 'false dawn' at times and mistake this for the feelings returning but in reality it's so different as to be worthless when considering the longterm as the dynamic has shifted.
He will always feel on the back foot and nagged into change, even if he keeps this feeling buried.
I think you will have to make the moves. He sounds like he is going to do absolutely nothing about any of this as the current situation suits him. You will have to be the driver of everything that happens. He knows you are not happy but won't or can't change. Psychologically I think you feel you can't do it on your own and want his help. He won't help. It's not in his interest. Start the ball rolling. You can go at a slow pace and I suspect that going slow might help both of you in this situation.

I am surprised by most people saying attraction can't come back. I don't have experience of this, but it feels to me like attraction in a long-term relationship is normally made up of three elements:

• a 'newness'/ excitement of falling in love (no this probably won't come back, and that just eases with time for every relationship, though talking about it and trying new things can help)
• the other person's physical attractiveness (this can change if they change themselves)
• whether your emotional needs are being met by this person (while you say he's lovely person it doesn't sound like you are having good couple time and deeply sharing/ nurturing each other on this level).

So, I think counseling could help with these things. But it is definitely not an easy road. Also, Having struggled with my own weight for a long time, it is not easy to lose and change how you conceive of yourself physically. He won't enjoy being overweight - nobody dies. It is NOT just a case of 'he should make the effort'.

I was overweight and seemed to make very little effort in my last marriage for years. My husband had never struggled with his weight so interpreted this as not bothering. He got frustrated and made passive aggressive, derogatory comments every now and again, which cut me deeply. I felt very undesired by him and when I did make an effort or manage to lose a little weight, it seemed to make no difference - and that made me feel far worse and more rejected than if I had never tried. It was emotionally much easier to not try and be rejected than to try and be rejected. I used eating to fill loads of emotional gaps, and it became a sign of his lack of regard for me. Having our child also took a big toll. I was never huge but settled at an unhappy size 16, rather than the healthy size 12 I had been when I met him twenty years before. And while it seemed I made no effort it ate away at me and corroded my happiness every day. I was always trying something or other but became embarrassed to even tell him, because he would roll his eyes - he had heard it all before.

He never talked explicitly, with compassion about how it was affecting him - he just made mean, casual comments then insisted he was joking....and in the end he had an affair and I ended the marriage.

Ironically, since then, And with the help of therapy, I have lost all the weight and started loving my body, taking care of myself, enjoyed buying clothes etc.... honestly, I look pretty good now! I often think it must be very frustrating for my ex, who meanwhile has actually let himself go quite a bit.

I suppose I am saying all this because physical effort and weight are not simple things. They are symptoms of deep psychological stuff in yourself, and also of how your partner feels about you and treats you. There was definitely something in my marriage dynamic that contributed to my giving up on myself physically, which I was unburdened of when he left.... and perhaps the opposite for him. Counseling may be able to unravel this....

Last note (sorry this is so long) I would NOT feel guilty about talking with him explicitly (kindly) and trying to get him to change before leaving..... you owe it to him to give him a chance and worse case scenario, he gets healthier before you leave and he knows you both did your best. Just make sure you are also open to changing - it is you, explicitly, who is not happy in the relationship, but it is highly likely neither of you are and both of you need to change (in fact his weight and lack of effort may be his way of saying he is not happy either!)

Good luck!

I'm aware that you didn't find my previous replies helpful and I have crafted and deleted two further responses because although I feel I have something important to add to this discussion for both you and partner's sake, I think you are just going to take it as an attack on you which won't help.

In the gentlest possible way, maintaining weight loss long term is rare even when the person is self-motivated. Even if it were possible, I think the relationship would be damaged in the attempt.

I think you are trying to avoid the discomfort of valuing your sexual feelings enough to leave an ok partnership. And understandably you don't want to sacrifice that side of yourself either.

So you hope that you can get him to change to change your feelings and not have to make that choice. I don't think it will work and I think it's unfair to you both.

I think you are trying to avoid the discomfort of valuing your sexual feelings enough to leave an ok partnership. And understandably you don't want to sacrifice that side of yourself either

For my circumstances you have hit the nail on the head. It seems a very unfair and immature reason to end a long marriage with 2 DCs. Doesn't feel like a good enough reason. Although there are contributing factors that got me to feeling that way, but right now, that's the nuts and bolts of it and the thing I wrangle with.

BraveGoldie, good points. I'm sure OPs husband has been well aware of his weight gain, and isn't happy about it. I'm sure he hasn't been ignoring the issue, but for whatever reason hasn't been able to do much about it. Now being under additional stress and pressure to lose weight will probably not make it any easier. He sounds stressed and unhappy enough as is.

I really liked your post @BraveGoldie I think you are indeed brave :) but I do disagree with the bit near the end about the worst case scenario being that the relationship ends anyway but he's a bit healthier as if pursuing this project to change him is beneficial.

In the long term, most people who try to lose weight and maintain it are unsuccessful, and more people gain weight on the rebound than lose it and maintain it. That's the bare facts without the emotional complications you alluded to about trying to lose weight to be more attractive to someone else.

The worst case scenario is that this damages his mental health. That either the weightloss attempt is successful and she is still not attracted to him and decides that if he only changes how he dresses, or something else, then she'll love him and on and on becoming more controlling. Or the weightloss attempts are unsuccessful long term and they rumble on unhappily with a new diet to try each year or so with him gaining more weight on the rebounding yo-yo.

@Needssomebottle it is very hard. Women especially are socialised to undervalue our sexual sides and to consider it frivolous to leave an otherwise ok partnership especially when there is children.

Men leave relationships when the attraction has gone a lot more especially after they have found an alternative partner they find more attractive.

Women far more likely to be expected to settle. You need to weigh up what you can live with perhaps with individual counseling if you are stuck.

I don't think staying and resenting the other partner indefinitely is a healthy way forward. Staying is a choice as much as leaving is.

I suppose my perspective (as the heavier person in my relationship) is that if my partner was disgusted by my body, I'd rather be single than undergo a Biggest Loser sort of programme with the reward being getting to stay in the relationship. It would put so much pressure and would probably lead to more disordered comfort eating.

And I'm not someone not trying to do anything about my weight. I'm trying to get fitter and eat more wholesome foods but it is self initiated and a long term thing and I feel my partner is supportive and loves me throughout the hard bits where I stumble.

I really can't see how it would work the way the OP is trying to do it.

@ThirdThoughts I agree. Any superficial pressure to lose weight to 'win' staying in the relationship would fail and create damage. You are right and my statement was wrong - partly written trying to be brief at the end of what was already a too long post!

I suppose what I am trying to say is two things:

1. Losing weight/ treating yourself better physically is a DEEP thing. To do it successfully within a relationship you both have to look deeply at every aspect of the relationship and yourselves. For example, for me, I could not lose the weight permanently until I unearthed and dealt with sexual fear I felt towards my father, who drank too much when I was a child.... that and being lifted out of the dynamic of my marriage, which was corroding my self esteem were the major factors. This is why so many people rebound in weight loss attempts - nothing fundamentally changes, internally or externally - they force themselves by will for a certain amount of time, then it explodes back because the underlying issues are still there. And changing for someone else never works.

1. I don't believe in walking away from a marriage when there are children, without communicating openly and making an attempt at deep change UNLESS a partner is abusive etc. partly, because the other person deserves a chance and you may be losing the chance of a happier relationship with a good man who is the father of your child, but partly because if we avoid confronting the deepest issues driving the results we get, then they will just come up for us again....

Op, if you or he do not have the appetite for such fundamental reflection and change, then ending the marriage may be the best option... then your mission should be to transition with the best possible co-parenting relationship, and perhaps you can both end up happier with new partners in time, and your daughter will benefit from having happier parents.....

@Loopytiles I will be trying too. It's not just a one way street.

I'm in my early 30s and he is in his early 40s

If look are important to you maybe don’t marry someone a decade older than you for a start? 😬 Find a 30 year old.

@TenPastFugit Yes I guess. I am not nagging him though I just want him to try to understand how I feel and to try and make an effort. For himself and our child as well as me. Anyway, what will be will be.

@Hithere12 Lol. It's not that looks are important to me, if you actually took time to read my post, you'd see that it's that I no longer find him attractive. He is only 8 years older than me, which isn't a huge deal. Plus I am not looking for someone else to marry