Men what stops the sexual attraction you had for your oh

[sunbirds]

My oh loves me and I am still very physically attracted to him but he never initiates physical activity anymore. Used to but I feel he does not desire me now.

For The men out there what can I do or is that side gone. I know he watches porn. I am overweight now.
Will losing weight help?

First of all I’d suggest to him that you WANT him to take initiative and initiate intimacy. There are countless threads on MN ( not so much this board ) that accuse partners of being sex pests and that’s all they are interested in and whilst that may be the case with some men, it certainly is the minority and not the majority in a loving caring relationship IMO. If you’ve previously turned down some of his advances in the past he might be worried about being rejected so lets you take control.

Secondly, if a man really loves his partner, body image is far less important than body confidence. For me personally, there’s nothing more sexy than a women being confident within her skin no matter her weight, where as a women who hates her body, moans about being overweight ( and does nothing about it ) and always wants intimacy to happen with the lights out is really unattractive.

Porn is a grey area IMO, personally watching porn has NEVER affected my desire to have intimacy with a partner , and I would ALWAYS choose real life sex to porn, although that’s not to say I don’t watch it. You will get mixed reactions to porn on MN but I can only speak from my personal experience.

however, if his porn is replacing real life sex with you then that’s an issue.

He might be a little bored of the same routine so is less inclined to initiate ( I’m not implying he is but it might be a reason ) so if you feel your sex life is quite vanilla maybe try spicing things up a little bit?

if he is overweight or has health issues, he might have a lower libido or even signs of ED so may be hesitant to initiate for fear of not performing.

There are so many reasons but you will only know if you have an open and honest conversation with him.

What happens if you initiate with him?

if I mention about it he says yeah we will have to do it but it never happens.
i think if I initiated dressed up kinky as he is submissive he would respond but in the past he would ask me why don’t you get dressed up even though he is submissive I would still be pleased as he desired sexual contact. But now he never suggests so I feel embarrassed to ask anymore incase he is not attracted to me that way anymore. I don’t want to beg for sexual contact.

Hi op it’s a bit rubbish you feel the way you do. There are a multitude of reasons why your DH has gone off sex or initiating intimacy.

I would say that most good men in a long term relationship are fully aware there partner’s body will change but I imagine that has a range of change.

For me it would be how much that change is affecting you. If your less body confident, maybe wanting sex and in the dark or certain positions off the menu then that would kill me libido more than weight gain.

if loosing weight will give you more confidence especially if it includes exercise and some weights then this will also boost your health and mood and dare I say confidence and appearance. Coupled with say a fresh hair cut and new clothes.

My wife had a word with me a few years ago. Personal hygiene was on point but I’d become a bit “comfortable” followed the above advice and everything improved. I’d initiated “The talk” and got that feedback after feeling a bit like you
which stung a bit but I did ask.

It’s maybe worth “The talk” if you haven’t already and ask him. He could be stressed or has health worries. I am not a anti ethical porn but if his use is causing issues he needs to address that. There is the concern that the sex is over (see sexless marriage thread) and if that’s the case then there are still options.

I class our issues as a midlife bump. The work we both did was worth it for where we are now so it’s possible to bring it back but takes two to care and not just you x

Ah ok that’s tricky. The trouble is with weight (and actually a lot of attraction issues) being honest could cause so much upset he may not be…

how would you feel about losing weight for yourself? Then you’d know either way at least. Maybe just talk to him about considering it and gauge his reaction? Does he need to lose a bit too? You could agree to support each other

Sorry op after your update I would be looking at the submission kink and needing you to dress up whilst watching porn that maybe of similar content and that your appearance has nothing to do with it

He could have quite likely done fallen down a salacious rabbit hole. Which is fine but you need to ask where you fit into this. You can then decide if you want to or what is currently on offer is the new norm for your relationship.

Man here. Haven’t had sex with my wife for several years. Luckily she has a very low libido so rarely initiates it, but when she does I find it really awkward and try to get out of it. It’s sad when I think about it, but I don’t often, and I love the other aspects of our marriage.

Her body has changed. She has put on a lot of weight in the last ten years. She also takes less care with hair, clothes, general ‘maintenance’. As a result I fancy her less. But that’s my problem not hers, and if she wants to be like that then it’s objectively no better or worse than it was before - just different. I just fancy things that are different to how she now is.

Part of it is also due to the passage of time, I think.

Out of interest would you tell her if she specifically asked?

I doubt it. There’s no way of saying those things without making her feel bad. And I wouldn’t want to do that because it’s her body, her choice, and my preferences.

TBH, this freaks the hell out of me. My body has changed (I’ve had babies), and I’ve gone from an 8/10 to 10/12. And I’m ageing normally—the alternative option to ageing is dying young! If I a woman asks her DH if that puts him off and he doesn’t give an honest answer, what can she do???

I guess it depends how it was asked. If she asked ‘Is it that I’m fat now and don’t shave my legs?’ that’s easier than an open question.

My wife’s changes are more dramatic than yours appear to be.

Yeah that’s what I assumed. And also even if you did admit your feelings I think as a man or woman, knowing your partner finds your body sexually unattractive, there’s possibly no coming back from that even if you did lose weight (or whatever).

definitely not an easy situation

@Gymbunny2025

I came back from it granted it wasnt full Ick set in, and I did ask the question. I do think its differnt for men than women. I think men can take it on board better. I do think the other way around is trickier without destroying a womens confidence although surley if you've lived together for 20 yrs then honesty should be the best policy?

There is also an aceptable range of change for people. There is a thread curently runnin on MN about how grim and dim 50+ men are so it appears there are a lot more men need telling or who aren’t unlike me listening.

To the men out there has your partner losing weight made you fancy her again or is the attraction just not there anymore?

He will respond well if I’m dressed up and dominate but haven’t done it for ages as I want him to say hey babe why don’t you slip on some of that sexy underwear and we can mess about?

I don’t want always to be the initiator as this makes me feel like he doesn’t desire me and is just going through the motions .

I had an ex who put on about four stone in a couple of years, that in itself wasn’t an issue but she didn’t take care of herself, moaned she was fat and had awful hygiene.

I’m currently seeing a lovely woman, who is admittedly bigger than I would ordinarily choose but she is the most amazing person and owns her body and is hugely body confident and therefore I find her incredibly sexually attractive. If she asked me if I wanted her to lose weight I wouldn’t honestly say I wouldn’t care either way as long as she was happy.

That is so good to hear.
My oh in loo again now which I think is where he looks at porn not all the time but I suspect alot. I’m sitting in bar waiting. Sometimes he is ages. Just returned very red in the face…..
I can’t accuse him but it makes me feel shit. Thing is I’m really attracted to him and just want to fuck his brains out but not if he is repulsed by me.

I’ll have to be honest here and say for me it didn’t matter. The attraction was gone by them and the connection too.

I’m sure it helped her on the dating scene after we split and I hope it did, but for me, once it was gone it was gone.

These are the things that led to the disconnection for me.

1. Not listening to me
2. Continuing to speak in a babyish way even when 50. I had mentioned this more than 20 times in the years before but she still didn’t stop
3. Taking me for granted.

@sunbirds if he really is going into the toilet in a public bar to have a wank over porn then he has a problem and I would strongly suggest you seriously consider if you can honestly see a future with him.

watching porn is one thing, watching porn whilst out in a bar is a serious problem and will ultimately ruin your relationship.

cam I ask what happened when you got home ( if you are home ) and whether he wanted sex?

Biggest turn off for me is not when the body changes that’s going to happen in us all
but when her nature and personality goes down hill.

Losing weight will probably help as a start

If you’ve let yourself go you will need to fix that as he won’t be looking at you the same as when you first got together. Surely the same would go for him as well. My ex put on loads of weight fairly soon after we got together and I just didn’t fancy the person she had become, the way I see it it’s no different from never having a shower or getting covered in tattoos.

You can’t help who you are attracted to and it’s impossible to force it - I tried for years. No one is expected to stay the same forever but people tend to fancy other people in their same league so if either of you have gone up or down the divisions that’s going to affect things.

There is so much more to attraction than just weight, there is attitude, confidence , romance, love, care and so on

there could be a million reasons why he doesn’t initiate, his own mental health, physical health, body image, previous rejection, medical issues, current medication etc

As has already been said, it’s not really about weight.

I had a girlfriend for nine years who would fluctuate between an 8 and 14 and was constantly in a cycle of gaining and losing weight and struggling to keep it constant. Her weight didn’t matter to me. I was literally climbing the walls with lust, no matter which part of the weight loss/gain cycle she was in, because she was so damned sexy. She always wore nice clothes, always did her nails and makeup and had a substantial wardrobe of sexy lingerie, skimpy nighties and naughty dressing up costumes… and the confidence and sexy mindset to pull it off. She dressed and acted in a way that made it obvious that advances on my part would be welcome and did her fair share of initiating too. Her mindset, playfulness and confidence supercharged my desire for her no matter what her weight was at any given moment. I still lusted after her as much in the final months of our relationship as I did in the first months.

On the other hand, I had a long term relationship with someone who constantly maintained a size 6/8 physique and looks like a Victoria’s Secret model. Things couldn’t be more different though. Initially it was like my other relationship… the lingerie, tiny nighties and dressing up, but then it all stopped. It was literally like a switch turned in her brain and “the sexy” was gone. Big, baggy knickers and pyjamas that looked like something you’d wear camping up Mt Everest. And it’s all well and good saying a woman should be enough without sexy attire, but bear in mind that visual stimulation is to men what romance is to women. Saying she should be enough without having to dress up is like saying I should be enough without having to be romantic and thoughtful.

I could have sex if I initiated it but she never bothered and I didn’t because it’s a complete turn off sensing a complete absence of desire from the woman’s side. I’d rather just do without… and did, for years. The sex, when it did happen, would be zero effort on her part - she literally just wanted something hard inside her that she could grip onto while using her vibrator to get herself over the line. No build-up, no kissing, no cuddling, no foreplay, wouldn’t let me stimulate her with my fingers or tongue… just a cold, efficient box ticking exercise and a complete turn off for me. Ironically, men are blamed for using extreme porn and then losing interest in “vanilla” sex with their partner but I was the opposite… I turned to porn to seek out videos of the soft-focus, romantic, sensual, tender lovemaking experience that I was craving for myself and that I was led to believe was what women wanted.

So, from a man’s perspective or, at least, mine, why does a man lose interest? For me it’s when she loses the “sexy” mindset. I get that you mostly want comfortable underwear and nightwear but if you never wear anything sexy at all or maintain “the sexy”, at least some of the time, it sends a message about where your head’s at and knowing your head’s in that place is incompatible with me wanting to make advances on someone. Weight would only be an issue of you were really overweight and it was due to lack of exercise and eating crap, which would be a mindset thing again. It’s all about where your mind’s at.