Could someone give me some advice please?

[ohfourfoxache]

DH and I have been together for 23 years

2 Dc + antidepressants have put me from a size 10/12 (late teens) to a size 20 (40’s)

We’ve had sex 5 times in 6 years (since birth of DC2)

I’ve always, always felt unattractive

Told me yesterday that nothing happens because “you used to be tiny”

Am I completely out of order here? I don’t necessarily want sex (probably because of the depression) but I miss intimacy

Atm even if I could shift my lard I’m not sure I’d ever want to be intimate again

Need your thoughts please

What would he say if you told him you weren't going to cut his hair anymore?

Quite telling that you won’t reveal his waist size.

No need, the pictures painted are quite illuminating enough.

I’m very sorry, but please don’t allow you being down on yourself to tolerate not only emotionally abusive behaviour, but a grossly hypocritical abuse at that! It would be laughable if it wasn’t causing you so much hurt and grief.

He’s not massive - 36? 38? inch waist

Apparently he’s the heaviest he’s ever been, and is in the obese range

(I just said “welcome to the club!”)

What are his most admirable traits? Apart from you thinking he was the only one who looked twice at you?

He’s great with the kids

He’s got “get up and go” when I struggle to even put the washing on

He puts up with me

I’m under no illusions

I’m not a great catch

He puts up with you? It sounds like he bullies you.

Why are you on anti depressants? Because of him?

I'd just start taking tiny steps towards loving myself. Don't announce anything. Walking more. Weights. Reading. Keeping a journal. Little things that you never know, just might start making you feel better in yourself.

He really doesn’t, I’m about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. I don’t do much around the house at all. I’m a fat, lazy, good for nothing leech

But I do love him, I love my DC and I love my work

Who told you those awful things about yourself?

I hate to hear you describe yourself like that. What kind of relationship did/do you have with your parents?

Anti depressants kill libido.

BUT so does 10 drinks a night and they're a depressant.

You're both in a pickle health-wise. But you want to do something about it, so join slimming world. You'll be in such good company and receive so much support.

Oh please don’t worry, I completely understand my role in all this! If nothing else I’m objective

Parents - well I don’t know what to say really. Nothing was ever other people’s fault (E.g. an elderly uncle couldn’t POSSIBLY have smacked my arse and OF COURSE I was unreasonable in not wanting to see him)

My Dad couldn’t POSSIBLY have smacked me because he’s kindness personified. And my mum didn’t witness it.

it’s only really in the last few years I’ve been able to have an opinion about anything

pl don’t think I’m painting myself as a victim, I know I’ve got a pretty big part to play

@ohfourfoxache I mean this in the nicest possible way. I think maybe a trip to the doctors and changing the antidepressants might help?

I don't think it's a good idea to stop them, but maybe the ones you're on at the moment aren't quite right for you

This is bad advice (I have worked in a weight management team). Trying to lose weight to look good and then make important life decisions is all backwards. Research shows dieting doesn’t work. You gain more weight in the long run.

First figure out what’s important to you regardless of him or anyone else. What matters most to you? What values do you want to live by? Ask yourself what you’d want people to say about you at your funeral (when we ask ourselves this it taps into what really matters and ‘she was thin’ is a very unlikely answer).

Then work out how to live by these values. So if being a good mum is important to you - how do you do that? What do you need to build on. Let go of? What would it look like if someone was observing you day to day and seeing you live by those values? I’d really recommend talking to a counsellor to figure all this out but writing things down might be enough.

Then go live your life. Do what matters most to you.

Look after your body so it can carry you around for as long as possible with as much vitality as possible so you can keep doing the things that matter most.

Don’t try and change less healthy patterns wholesale. It’s too hard to keep up. Try small steps - eg. to replace ultra processed foods with a whole food alternative once a day (e.g. Greg’s sausage roll to a wholemeal tuna sandwich). Increase nutrition- add in an apple with your breakfast. The more nutrition you get then the less junk food you’ll crave. Move your body very day - do something you enjoy or just factor it into the daily routine (eg hoover quickly enough to raise your heart rate).

But do all of this to look after your health, not to fit some kind of external view of beauty - a healthy mind and body can be in many shapes and sizes and how big you are really doesn’t say anything about who you are or how sexy and attractive you are.

You can be super thin but incredibly unhealthy, unhappy and unattractive.

Find yourself. Who you are. What matters to you. Go for it. He might stick along for the ride, he might not. You might want him to, you might not.

But he’s a dick for saying what he did and it would be a deal breaker for me.

This exactly OP!

I’ve been through this, I lost weight and his attitude didn’t change a bit.

Lose weight for you but leave his arrogant arse.

This is going to sound ridiculous if your brain doesn't work in the same contrary way as mine OP but I would brood on his words for a while until I was absolutely furious and then I would use that fury as motivation to completely throw myself into my fitness so I lost weight out of sheer fucking spite 😊 I would hope that, as a happy byproduct, the exercise would improve my MH and looking and feeling better would give my self esteem a boost so that just at the point where I'm looking 'tiny' again I felt strong and brave enough to leave him with his gob hanging open and wondering who was gonna do his buzz cuts and put up with his unrealistic, shallow expectations now Sorry if that sounds trite OP, I really don't mean it that way, I just find that sometimes anger and spite can drive you to make changes when nothing else can.

@ohfourfoxache
HE has put on weight but reminds YOU that you used to be tiny??? Pot calling kettle much 🤔

Obviously will be much more complex than only this but I can’t help wondering how much better you’d eventually feel if you ditched the awful bloke. Your self esteem and self worth are 6 feet under!

I’m not saying what he said is right by any means but you summed it up.

I’ve always, always felt unattractive

Being bigger in and of itself doesn’t make you unattractive. It’s lack of confidence that does. I’m yet to meet a man who doesn’t find confidence sexy.

Your self confidence is something only YOU can work on and it shouldn’t be tied to what he thinks.

Work on this for yourself and when you’re in a better place you’ll be able to see the wood for the trees in terms of your relationship with your husband.

"You used to be tiny" is a you statement, not an I statement, putting the blame on you. It seems you have grown up with constant invalidation f your feelings and opinions, so you are accepting it from him too.

I think going from a 10 to a 20 is significant enough to impact how your partner might view you

This is the perfect time to visit the Drs and get advice on changing your lifestyle. This in turn will help with your low self esteem. Being a size 20 is not healthy and I mean this in the kindest way he got with you when you were slim and was attracted to that body type.

It sounds like an excuse to me. He’s blaming you for his own shortcomings. Also, it’s a really mean thing to say.

If it were me, I don’t think I’d accept it as the reason for the lack of intimacy, and I’d ask him to see his GP about his low libido.

This could have been me posting 40+ years ago. I now realise I married my first husband to get away from my (mentally/emotionally) abusive mother. We met when I was 16, married at 18 and had my daughter at 20. He followed on with the abuse - "you're stuck with me - who else would want you', again mental but not physical. One day I went out for a drink with a friend (husband didn't like it much) and got hit on in the pub, by a gorgeous guy. Wow! Nothing else happened. But a couple of days later the guy who hit on me stopped his car beside me when I was going shopping with my toddler in the pram. We chatted for a while, and then he went on his way. And this made me think - my husband was wrong. Other people would find me desirable. Long story short - I kicked H out, and 20 years later, after another long term relationship, I met my now DH.

And before anyone says anything - in my 20's I was a size 20+ I am currently a size 20+. And I am no looker (think Jo Brand).

Point is - tell him to FO. You are worth so much more than this. He is abusive. Get out now, for your own sake. It may be tough for a while, but you will get through it.

Sorry for the long post.

And OP - if you want to DM me (can we do that?) I am here for you.