My life is a mess.

[mylifeisamessymess]

Been married for 8 years, together for 12.
I'm not happy. We haven't had sex for 18 months. He won't talk about it. He pretends everything's fine. But it's not.
He loves our kids so so much and would never not want to live with them, hence the reason I believe he pretends everything is ok.
The real issue I believe is that due to medication I've put on 6 stone in 2 years. I feel disgusting, I look disgusting, I ache all over. I've got no motivation to want to sleep with him most of the time because of how I feel about myself. He looks physically repulsed by me.
I just want to be fat and ugly on my own.
Or someone to accept me the way that I am.
I know it's not fair to expect him to still fancy me now I'm a size 18 instead of a size 12.
But I just don't think we should stay together.

I just want to be fat and ugly on my own
Or someone to accept me the way that I am

You see yourself as fat and ugly, but you want someone else to see you differently? It's not going to work. If a slender, toned person saw themselves as fat and ugly, they wouldn't have a successful relationship. If a genius thought they were stupid and uninteresting, they wouldn't have a successful relationship.

This isn't about your relationship; that's a symptom, not the problem. What can you do to start feeling better about yourself? Leave the relationship/take some time out? Get advice/support from a professional? Change medication?

It's not unfair to expect him to still fancy you - you'd hope that your partner found more attractive about you than your body. The fact that he won't talk about it suggests he's not interested in emotional intimacy either, and you don't mention how you feel about each other apart from sexually. What's the relationship like? Does he respect you? Listen to you? Care about you?

Also, what has your doctor said about your weight gain? Is the medication meant to put dangerous amounts of weight onto people?

I got a gastric sleeve in Turkey this summer for less than £3000 which is pretty much what I spend on food for myself in a year anyway.

Is weight loss surgery an option? It really boosts your confidence.

Maybe your size has. I thing to do with this….maybe your self confidence does.

Sounds like you may need a car conversation - I.e. a chat when your driving in a car, neither of you can escape it, and you don’t need to look at each other so it’s easier to open up.

*size has nothing

grr typos! Wish there was an edit button!

Of you're correct that he is repulsed by you and your new weight is here to stay, then the relationship needs to end.
Obviously you have an issue with your self esteem, but I think its wrong to put your relationship issues down to that and imply you're projecting.
Some people are repulsed by larger bodies. You live with man, you know how he looks at you. It would be patronising to try persuade you it might be all in your head, when it's probably not.
I think you should separate. I think you need to learn to accept yourself as someone with value and beauty regardless of your weight, and you can't do that when someone is making you feel otherwise. There are plenty of men out there who don't look at heavier women with revulsion. When you're ready you can be free to find one.

Your weight gain is due to medication, surely your husband has some empathy?

He's not a bad person. As a friend he's fine. He does his fair share of everything with the kids/housework.
I just find it hard to talk to him as he says everything's fine. But it's not fine is it. Not having sex for 18 months is absolutely not fine.
On a day to day basis we get on fine. We don't argue. It's like the elephant in the room.

He's always had a low sex drive, ie putting a condom on would mean he lost the urge, or hearing a noise outside, or the cat walking in the room, or having more than 2 alcoholic drinks etc.
So it never took a lot to put him off having sex. So a huge weight gain certainly isn't helping.
He's not said it direct. But as soon as the weight started piling on he stopped any affection.

OP - do you mind sharing what type of medication you are on that has caused you to gain a large amount of weight?

What meds are you on? I’m guessing antipsychotics?

Could be a few meds that indirectly cause it, either by slowing you down or stimulating your appetite, or most likely both. Let's face it 6st in 2 years is a lot by anyone's standards, and also not good for your health.
You seem to accept it as a fait au complet, which it doesn't necessarily have to be - depending on the reason.
2 issues here, 1 you might be able to work on, his general low libido only he can address if he wants to at all. It sounds like at the moment you aren't keen for sex because of how you feel about yourself, so it's not all down to him. You can change that for yourself potentially, though it's quite possible that if you lost the weight you'd still feel put off by him, but it would help your confidence levels, and maybe there could be someone more suited down the line.

Given all this I wouldn’t be so quick to assume this is down to your weight. He may have just completely gone off sex. It happens especially as it sounds like he never had a good sex drive to begin with. The issue is whether you can live like this, he seems to think you can, he seems happy to continue the way you are. It’s whether that’s enough for you. It may be that you feel down about your weight so are assuming that’s the reason but he may not even care about it.

Let’s be honest here the extra weight is likely to be a factor. Not sure what to suggest though. Losing weight is so very difficult.

Who initiated sex before and what was your intimacy frequency before your weight gain? If his sex drive was always historically low and he had past performance issues, that coupled with you not feeling attractive, could easily lead to a situation where nobody initiates sex.

There are definitely issues in your marriage and with your self esteem, maybe a professional counselling could help with both.

So it had slowly dwindled anyway to once a month. I guess I probably initiated it more than him. He did occasionally.
The medication is anti depressants. Plus I'm on the pill injection, which I'm not getting renewed next month, because I have no reason to.