My obese husband wants a divorce b/c I don't "love" his body.
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This is a complex matter. No one-the husband or wife is totally right. I have a big guy boyfriend-he is very tall but has a huge gut. This is mainly due to a stroke he had before we met. His mobility/balance issues from the stroke, impact how much he can exercise. I love and adore him and his body as is. I did mention a few times about knocking the weight off his stomach with diet etc.-but only after he said he wanted to do it,and his doctor was nagging him about it. I reassured him that I did not care how it looked (his tummy),true,but I was concerned for his health,also true.
Well I mentioned the tum/losing it one day and he said ” I really don’t like it when you say that”. I stopped mentioning it. however,I am watching my own weight,eating more healthily etc. and he is talking about losing the weight again. Actions are better than words sometimes.
I still think that you don’t marry someone that you don’t want to have sex with.JD, you are ridiculous. LW is entitled because she helped take care of his mother without complaint? Held her tongue about his weight so he is not insulted ?
+1 Oracle. She had it right. LW, you put a lot into this marriage. It is unfortunate he is not making any effort to lose weight and improve your sex life. He cannot help his attraction for slim women ? Then You cannot help being not attracted to a fat guy either.
LW,
Since in the past you *have* been attracted to your husband at similar weight (with more muscle) I think it’s worth considering whether there could be anything else (age, stress, birth control) affecting your sex drive other than just his fluctuating weight. It seems easy to scapegoat ‘attraction’, but there are often other elements at play; libido is complex. Are you attracted to/wanting sex with other people, just not your husband? Have you two gotten entrenched in an overly familiar, day-to-day routine without time for dates and romance?
Obviously, it’s his decision if he wants a divorce, and I agree he likely didn’t come to those feelings lightly. You can’t force him to change his mind. However, if you think there is any possibility that you could love his body, as is, or feel sexually attracted to him again, it’s worth it to troubleshoot—but only if there is still some attraction there for you. If there truly, truly isn’t, if you think it really is just his body right now and nothing else that is keeping you from wanting to sleep with him, then you need to let him go.
But if you think maybe some more romance time, a weekend trip, etc, might reawaken your attraction to him as a heavy guy, I would start with apologizing for what you said to him, that if he lost weight you would want to have sex. I would reiterate what you love about him, what you DO find attractive and sexy, and ask him if he is willing to try to reclaim that with you. He might say no, as is his right. But you clearly believe in working to keep your marriage. It may be true that he could stand to do some work of his own, but since he wants to end it and you don’t, the work right now (fair or not) falls on you to examine and test your own feelings, and to see if you can grow. You can’t do all the possible positions? Ok. Most people can’t do ALL positions. I’d venture many adults with other responsibilities besides sex often end up having less adventurous, less novel sex than they used to. That’s not meant to sound snarky. And it’s also natural, especially if you both work tough jobs and have children, for sex drive and sex life to sometimes naturally wane, and for wild chemistry to settle into something a little more intimate if a little less thrilling. I’m not saying sex doesn’t matter, I’m saying, like I said above, sex drive is complex. Make sure you’re not pinning the effects of workaday stress or fluctuations in your own hormones on your husband’s weight.Its interesting the differences in advice between this post and the one where the girl’s bf dumped her because she put on weight.
Over there, folks are telling her to love herself, that people gain weight over time, that attraction is about more than appearance.
Over here, far too many people saying that the husband doesn’t take care of himself and if he doesn’t lose weight for her then he’s not taking care of himself. What’s up with that?OP you can’t make yourself be attracted to your husband but I want to echo what I said on the other thread– people get less attractive as they age. Its harder to keep weight off. If you are in it for the long haul you need to look beyond that. If you can’t, then set him free to find someone who will love who he is not what they wish he was.
Also, as a final PSA… we cannot judge the health of someone by knowing their weight. Plenty of skinny people have unhealthy habits; and plenty of fat people are active and healthy.
Considering that I’ve been with my fiancé for seven years now, I don’t really give a fuck about my ex. He married the first woman he dated after me and I’m getting married next June to an incredible, loving person. I do not need your sympathy. We’ve all moved on. You should do the same.
You aren’t shallow because of your husband’s struggle with weight loss. You are shallow because of everything else you said here.
Since you completely changed your story once you realized your original post made you sound terrible to most of us, I have no idea what advice would be appropriate.
I’m sure whatever critical thing anyone could say would be negated by your next “update.”
Whatever.
I mean, we go from “He was so funny, smart, kind, and had such a unique view of the world…” and the only problem you mentioned specifically was his weight and you thinking he’s sexually boring in your initial post.
Now, in the follow-up, he’s a jerk who stifled your career, has a “hypocritical and unfair double standard” of only dating thin women, and also his mom had cancer (so?). Oh yeah, and also you worry about his health (because someone brought it up, and you realized that sounded way more sympathetic).
Pick a story.
Oracle:
“Get rid of him.” What sort of childish game is that? “No, you can’t dump me, because I’m dumping you — right now!” He’s already asked for a divorce. He wants to leave. He’s dumped her.She rejected him at a time he was at the lowest weight since the time they started dating. She still would never initiate sex, because she found him unattractive. And she wouldn’t discuss the problem with him. Nor did she do anything to help him with weight loss. Nor has she ever done anything “I found this interesting sex toy” perhaps to make what she regards as a boring sex life more interesting. She hasn’t done anything to improve the marriage. She just wants to stay married and thinks granting him the occasional pity fuck when he still bothers to initiate is enough for him to want to stay married.
there seem from the follow-up letter to be other problems in this marriage and divorce seems the obvious approach.
SpaceySteph, the difference is one has put on maybe 40 or on the outside 50 pounds. Might be even less. She had not been sleeping, and was sick. This might even be where she really should weigh. The other is morbidly obese and will not do anything about it. His doctor told him at age 26 that there was already problems because of his out of control weight.
The BMI is just a guide. You have to look at the total person. You might have someone with 2 percent body fat that will show up as overweight or even obese on the chart because muscle tissue weighs more than adipose (fat) tissue.
She stopped initiating sex because she wasn’t into it BEFORE they got married without ever telling him what the issue was until it was dragged out of her in therapy years later. Health was never her concern and it’s completely disingenuous to pretend it is now that she’s been called out.
People keep trying to defend the OP by asking something that’s not at issue. No one is saying that she has to be attracted to fat people. No one is saying that the posters here have to approve of obese people. The question is whether he has to accept a marriage with someone who has no attraction to him, has never been attracted to him, and is full of contempt for him.
And the response from many people is basically, yes, he has brought this upon himself and the best that he can expect is a sexless marriage to someone who looks down on him. That’s why these people keep coming back to how gross his weight is and how no one will date him when he’s single.
My daughter asks me sometimes why I don’t eat desserts and I give her a bunch of pablum about being healthier and having to be careful about what you eat when you’re older. But it’s bullshit. The reason I stay thin is that a pretty large segment of our society is contemptuous of fat people, considering them to be out of control, weak, and undeserving of the basic forms of happiness to which thinner people are entitled.
