Overweight husband

[Brickys]

I have been with my husband for 10 years, married for 6 and we have a 2 year old.

Over the years, he has let himself go. As mean as it sounds saying this, he’s got a huge belly and is now very flabby. I’m just simply not attracted to him anymore.

I want to be, but when I see him naked I just think what on earth has happened. We have sex once a week but I don’t enjoy it and I now fake my orgasms because he does nothing for me anymore and I just want sex to be over and done with.

I have said a few times that we should get back into shape and eat better and exercise more (admittedly, I still have some baby weight I never lost. I was a size 10 and am now a size 12) which has been my way of saying please lose weight, but it lasts 2 days and he’s back to normal. I don’t know what else I can do. I want to be attracted to him and at this point in our marriage in our 30s, I really shouldn’t be having these feelings. I don’t want to be unattracted and turned off by my husband.

Any advice?

Maybe I've missed it in all the, er, excitement on this thread, but @Brickys - have you had a discussion with your partner about how he feels about himself?

Same dp lost 4 stone . He's now bony and muscly but not cudly anymore. He is only 5,7 which never bothered me before but now he looks so small.

Honest and open conversation. DP and I have had some difficult conversations in the past and it's not fun, but it does yield results.

I’m so so sorry that happened to you @FreshLime

That sounds very painful and as you say, unforgivable. And that’s my fear - I don’t want to hurt my husband. I love him, so much. I don’t want to break his heart like your husband broke yours.

I think the difference is you had the load of having babies and looking after them so finding time for yourself is hard. My husband doesn’t have that. I’m the one who was pregnant and I’m the one who did the vast majority of the childcare when on mat leave and still do most of the difficult side of it (such as the many night wakings). So I’ve also got the exhaustion and sleep deprivation, and I’m the one who carries most of the mental load. So maybe that plays into it - his weight gain has been associated with laziness and it adds to finding him unattractive.

For example, he now snores very loudly since gaining all this weight, and when I’ve got the night rage, coming back to bed after getting up for the umpteenth time whilst he’s snoring so loud the neighbours would hear him, having barely flinched any time DC cried or I got up just makes me angry. The rage is gone by the morning so I’ve always blamed it on night rage, but perhaps it adds to the bigger issue.

Other times, I will put DC to bed and I come back to the living room and he’s passed out snoring on the sofa.

I guess the weight gain has been associated with lazy behaviour and that directly impacts me.

(Before anyone asks, I have addressed this with him many times, and he gets better for a couple of weeks before slowly going back to the lazy ways).

I want to fancy my husband. I want to be turned on by him. And physical attraction is a big part of that.

Not really. He does say from time to time that he’s let himself go and he needs to lose weight, and wants to start running and cycling again, and he gets depressed when we’re going somewhere and he can’t fit into any of his shirts. And I’ve indirectly mentioned it by saying we need to lose weight. But we’ve not had a direct conversation about it.

It sounds like his behaviour is also the problem though, if he's asleep on the sofa while you're still running around with the kids.

I think you need to put your foot down about his snoring and lack of energy. He needs to go to his GP for a health check and start doing his fair share.

"I resent doing your share of domestic and childcare chores so much it's making me not want to sleep with you" might be a wake up call for him.

I'm with you op, a lot of fat is a turn off. And unhealthy. You need to say how you feel. And surely he must realise it?
I'm very overweight and my lovely husband has told me how he feels. He's scared of me having a heart attack or a stroke. He wants a nice active retirement together and he's scared we're not going to get that.
I wasn't hurt as I knew it was the truth

Skip breakfast

What horrible advice;skipping meals can actually be detrimental to weight loss and cause issues with metabolism.

Could you suggest he joins a gym as a way to de stress after work and get some "me time" for himself?

Could you approach it as in you're worried he's given himself entirely over to parenthood and does he miss his hobbies and that you'd be happy to facilitate him going for a run/cycle x times a week? You could then focus the conversation on his health and not his weight.

I imagine he doesn't like himself either (I'm the one in my relationship who yo-his with weight - I hate myself when bigger but get into a really self-destructive mindset)

I’m not going to suggest it to my DH but that’s not necessarily true if you read the science behind intermittent fasting.

There is definitely a lot of food for thought here, and I really appreciate that most of you don’t think I’m a monster. Thank you everyone.

Not for me, I started IF and only eat between 7pm - 11am so no breakfast and it's been the best way for me to lose weight (although I also calorie count for the 8 hours when I do eat)

@Brickys I disagree that @FreshLime story is different from your DH meaning he has no excuses whereas Fresh as one.

You haven’t had a conversation about how he feels in himself about the weight. You dint know why he is eating ‘more junk’ than he was before, how he feels about being a father and the impact having two young children has had on him. I mean, unless he is never at home, never does anything at all with the dcs and has carried in living like he was before children, including spending the same amount of time with you on a 1-1 basis, it WILL have had an impact.

He might have gone through a phase of wanting to exercise but feeling guilty if doing it. He might not feel self concious compare to how he was before. He might e thinking about what he did 5 years ago and feel bad about not being able to do the same so he is avoiding it.

If you want to help him and support him, it will work better by assuming he has his reasons. Consider them good enough because they are HIS rather than assume he is just greedy and lazy and can’t be bothered to look after himself.
Peopoe always do better when they are truly supported rather than judged - and believe me he WILL feel the judgement, probably already has, if this is how you see him.

OP, does your DH have any friends who may be better placed to have the conversation? Any old training friends from his past marathons? I think sometimes something so personal coming from a spouse can feel very hurtful, but coming from a friend can be slightly better recieved, if there are potential health concerns about his weight gain.

My DH found My Fitness Pal a game changer for weight loss, his friend recommended it after having great success himself.

Ignore the trolls, you are being totally reasonable.

Also if he is snoring that badly he probably suffers from sleep apnea which will make someone exhausted (not just tired).

This will explain why he falls asleep in the sofa, why he can’t face doing any exercise and why he is eating more (he will be looking for that tiny bit if energy rush coming from the sugar).

Basically he is ill.

Wow the fat phobia on this thread is real. If my body changed, for whatever reason, I would want someone who would love me anyway. If somebody stopped wanting me because my body had changed, I would realise that they only valued me on superficial grounds and probably were not very good for me in the first place. If this is such a problem for you OP I'd suggest you split up with your husband rather than trying to change him. If you don't love him how he is, you don't love him. You'll both be better off apart.

It’s really difficult isn’t it?! I can’t exactly use the health excuse to tell him to stop cycling! He just looks so small and thin now - but he used to be so cuddly, which felt more manly to me.

So you expect someone to find you physically attractive no matter how much weight you put on? Well, not many people will, sorry. You can still love that person, still adore them, but sexual attraction is shallow by it’s very nature.

People shouldn’t be shamed just for being human and finding some things attractive and others not - women especially are told this all this time, like we should just be grateful to any man who shows us attention and not pay any notice to our own sexuality because that would be shallow.

I found this EXACT same thing with my DP when he took up running and lost 3 stone!
However I've now got used to it, but it did take a few months!
Our sex life has always been amazing so thank God I managed to get over it
X

It's not helpful to try to shut down every conversation about weight with accusations of fat shaming or fat phobia. The plain fact is that being fat is deeply unhealthy. Fat people on average have worse health outcomes (and individual anecdotes don't disprove this, any more than a 95 year old, 20 a day smoker disproves that cigarettes cause cancer).

If we treated weight only as a serious medical issue rather than an attractiveness/worthiness issue people would still throw "fat shaming" accusations about, to the detriment of their own health.

Not for me, I started IF and only eat between 7pm - 11am so no breakfast and it's been the best way for me to lose weight (although I also calorie count for the 8 hours when I do eat)

I think the calorie counting in the eight hours is the key. There is no magic in only eating between 7 and 11. My husband normally only ate between 7 and 11 for years and still managed to put on loads of weight doing it.

I hope I can get used to it, but at the moment he just doesn’t feel the same when I cuddle him.

I keep loading him up with high calorie food but his metabolism is too fast now, he just burns it right off!

He also has one of those stupid leotard type cycling suits that makes me feel particularly less attracted to him!

(admittedly, I still have some baby weight I never lost. I was a size 10 and am now a size 12) ........ are you sure he really is fat? The fact that you find being a size 12 a cause for concern in yourself makes me wonder.

You cannot help finding his extra weight unattractive - I always had skinny partners so understand where you are coming from. Just tell him it makes sex uncomfortable and talk about what's to be done.

Oh no no I honestly don’t think I’m fat. I’ve gained weight but my BMI is still healthy and I believe I still look good. I mentioned that because I know MN users would have turned this around on to me to ask if I’m still the same as when we met, and I am still mostly the same, with some extra weight but nothing drastic.