My wife and I have been married for over 10 years and are in our early 30's. We have one brilliant healthy and very active 3-year old son who we both love very much. I've posted before about how my wife nearly doubled in size during our 10-year marriage from 130 to 230lbs. She cannot / will not lose more than a few pounds before putting right back on, and following our last tearfull discussion on the subject, this is precisely what happened. This is a serious problem for me, judge me to be shallow if you wish, but it is a serious problem that spills over into nearly every aspect of our marriage from my perspective. She doesn't even physically fit in my car properly. I don't find her attractive, and we are both generally in a perpetual state of sexual frustration. I have never cheated on her, not even close, but I have begun to fantisize about it. Usually when she can't handle something (like opening a jar of pickles, for instance), I just do it for her, but this is something I apparently can't do for her, though I've tried to figure out a way to. I have offered to go on a diet with her, and offer to eat no more than she eats, but she absolutely refuses to take me up on this offer, presumably, because she knows I can and will starve myself to the point of malnutrition in order to slim her up given the opportunity.
What is a respectable man to do when every time I see or think about my wife, all I can focus on is her faults? As much as I craved her company when we were dating and early in our marriage, I now crave being away from her. Don't get me wrong, she is not a bad woman. She loves and cares well for our child, does 70+% of the housework, and is really a supportive good sport when I want to take on some crazy challenge (I build and race cars as a hobby, among other expensive and irrational things to do for fun). But I just can't seem to get my head back into that space where she was young and hot and could do no wrong. Now all I can see is an overweight woman with no self control, no grace, no real talent at much of anything to speak of. Rereading what I've typed, it sounds so terrible, but this is really how my conscious feels. I just can't seem to like her anymore. The problem really is more with me than her. I mean, she really is mostly same woman I married, she's just not sexually attractive to me anymore, and as such all I can seem to focus on is the negative. I am not an alcoholic, but I have noticed that I seem to like her more when I drink, and as such I drink more than I should.
I have a child I love very much. I have a beautiful house I would hate to lose. Practically all our close friends are mutual. I feel like divorcing her essentially because she is too fat is morally reprehesible. I feel like inventing other reasons when they aren't the root cause is even worse. What is a respectable man to do?
Frustrated.
What is a respectable man to do when every time I see or think about my wife, all I can focus on is her faults? As much as I craved her company when we were dating and early in our marriage, I now crave being away from her. Don't get me wrong, she is not a bad woman. She loves and cares well for our child, does 70+% of the housework, and is really a supportive good sport when I want to take on some crazy challenge (I build and race cars as a hobby, among other expensive and irrational things to do for fun). But I just can't seem to get my head back into that space where she was young and hot and could do no wrong. Now all I can see is an overweight woman with no self control, no grace, no real talent at much of anything to speak of. Rereading what I've typed, it sounds so terrible, but this is really how my conscious feels. I just can't seem to like her anymore. The problem really is more with me than her. I mean, she really is mostly same woman I married, she's just not sexually attractive to me anymore, and as such all I can seem to focus on is the negative. I am not an alcoholic, but I have noticed that I seem to like her more when I drink, and as such I drink more than I should.
I have a child I love very much. I have a beautiful house I would hate to lose. Practically all our close friends are mutual. I feel like divorcing her essentially because she is too fat is morally reprehesible. I feel like inventing other reasons when they aren't the root cause is even worse. What is a respectable man to do?
Frustrated.