Sad about no longer being attracted to DW

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel you. I don't understand why people pretend attraction is controllable. You can control your behavior but you cannot control your basic physical responses.

I am 50 with three young kids. I weigh about 30 pounds over my wedding weight. I don't deny that I am fat and less attractive. If my DH is less attracted to me because of this, it is his own deal. I do not control his sexuality. I freely admit I gained weight because of various life stresses, less time to work out and eating as if I'm still thirty and a gym rat.

It is what it is. Your feelings are your own as long as you do your duty.

Yes people can control who they are attracted to. It’s highly socialized. Some societies are more attracted to fat people. Its all in your head.

Absolutely not. I don't find fat people attractive at all - wife here.

That’s because you were socialized to think that. You’ve been programmed to think that you can be deprogrammed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love my wife and I love our family. We have 2 beautiful children, common values, and compatible parenting styles. DW is smart and has a successful career. I respect her and I am grateful to her for giving us our children.

That being said, she let herself go after the kids were born. She is an attractive woman, but she put on quite a bit of weight (the youngest is 8 by now), and she frequently looks frumpy. Of course I would never dare to say anything and would never cheat, but I am just sad and an anonymous forum is the only place I can admit it.

Flame away.

Why even bother posting if you still love her and you don't plan on cheating??

He wants to be comforted by the ladies of DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel you. I don't understand why people pretend attraction is controllable. You can control your behavior but you cannot control your basic physical responses.

I am 50 with three young kids. I weigh about 30 pounds over my wedding weight. I don't deny that I am fat and less attractive. If my DH is less attracted to me because of this, it is his own deal. I do not control his sexuality. I freely admit I gained weight because of various life stresses, less time to work out and eating as if I'm still thirty and a gym rat.

It is what it is. Your feelings are your own as long as you do your duty.

Yes people can control who they are attracted to. It’s highly socialized. Some societies are more attracted to fat people. Its all in your head.

Absolutely not. I don't find fat people attractive at all - wife here.

NP
They are right. You might have a different attitude being born in another place/time but our culture has a few different popular body types thanks to media and conditioning. The window of what you'd instinctually be attracted to is broader than what you end up finding attractive thanks to culture. Looking at old, even ancient, art tells us that.

[Anonymous]

Hairy men make me ill but if Burt Reynolds and George Clooney were the archetype for most leading men across genres and that was who modeled clothing and what I saw in ads since I was a kid, I might not have any problem with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some women's bodies don't bounce back from childbearing as some other women's bodies do.

Most regular working women don't have the multiple hours per day to put into fitness routines and cooking super clean healthy meals, even if her children and husband would eat that food if she did.

How much of the housekeeping and life management are you doing, OP? How much of the childcare and shuttling to activities are you doing? How much shopping and cooking? How much time are you giving her to sleep, to engage in fitness, etc?

There are seasons to life, OP. Sounds like you have most of what makes a very good marriage and your wife's body paid the price to give you two beautiful children.

So yeah, you can be sad that youth has passed you by and you and your wife aren't hotties anymore, but please don't expect an outpouring of sympathy.

I know you're trying to be empathetic, but I honestly think some people just don't want to be healthy. It takes 2 minutes to open a can of tuna and dump it on a bed of kale.

NP. I find this so triggering. I’m dealing with multiple allergies and a pediatric feeding disorder. I’m already cooking multiple meals. So I throw tuna on kale. Not a single person in my family besides myself will eat tuna. Kids won’t eat kale. So now I’m cooking the meals. Pediatrics feeding disorder means I can’t just do classic cook one meal and everyone eats it or goes hungry. My kid had a BMI of 13.9.

Moral of the story: Anytime you’re tempted to say, “You can just X”, someone else literally cannot just do X. My kid would have died before eating tuna on kale. Nor can we afford to have the entire family eat the one dc’s expensive allergy diet. We have bills to pay, college to save for. For some families, food is exhausting in a way it never was for our parents. I imagine other special needs situations have similar demands in different spheres.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My guess is Op has hit that certain age when his sex drive is (naturally) down. This is not a medical problem. This problem is: he's not in his 20's, not a teenager anymore. He's not turned on, not nearly as easily. His -only- thought is --- it's his wife. It's her fault. It's how she looks.

Op, you don't understand enough about the male hormones, and aging, and your sex drive. This is on you.

This kind of thing is why I don’t take perspectives on DCUM seriously. If a woman complains about her husband, people pile on about how it’s the guy’s fault. If a man complains about his wife, people pile on about how it’s the guy’s fault. It’s like they can’t see two sides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hairy men make me ill but if Burt Reynolds and George Clooney were the archetype for most leading men across genres and that was who modeled clothing and what I saw in ads since I was a kid, I might not have any problem with it.

This made me laugh! I did grow up with it and think men shaving their bodies is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My guess is Op has hit that certain age when his sex drive is (naturally) down. This is not a medical problem. This problem is: he's not in his 20's, not a teenager anymore. He's not turned on, not nearly as easily. His -only- thought is --- it's his wife. It's her fault. It's how she looks.

Op, you don't understand enough about the male hormones, and aging, and your sex drive. This is on you.

This kind of thing is why I don’t take perspectives on DCUM seriously. If a woman complains about her husband, people pile on about how it’s the guy’s fault. If a man complains about his wife, people pile on about how it’s the guy’s fault. It’s like they can’t see two sides.

Did you not read all the posts? There are definitely people taking Op’s side.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel you. I don't understand why people pretend attraction is controllable. You can control your behavior but you cannot control your basic physical responses.

I am 50 with three young kids. I weigh about 30 pounds over my wedding weight. I don't deny that I am fat and less attractive. If my DH is less attracted to me because of this, it is his own deal. I do not control his sexuality. I freely admit I gained weight because of various life stresses, less time to work out and eating as if I'm still thirty and a gym rat.

It is what it is. Your feelings are your own as long as you do your duty.

Yes people can control who they are attracted to. It’s highly socialized. Some societies are more attracted to fat people. Its all in your head.

Absolutely not. I don't find fat people attractive at all - wife here.

NP
They are right. You might have a different attitude being born in another place/time but our culture has a few different popular body types thanks to media and conditioning. The window of what you'd instinctually be attracted to is broader than what you end up finding attractive thanks to culture. Looking at old, even ancient, art tells us that.

The body type that has historically been seen as attractive, throughout the times, is what today we'd call height/weight proportionate. The difference between Botticelli's Venus, ancient Greek statues and today's beautiful women is maybe one size. The times in history when fat women were seen as attractive are outliers.

[Anonymous]

You've got to learn to live with what you can't rise above.

Bruce Springsteen

[Anonymous]

Yes, SAHM, we got it on your last post.

That was my first post here and I didn't read anything other than the first OP before replying.
-Working mom

OP is not a SAHM

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some women's bodies don't bounce back from childbearing as some other women's bodies do.

Most regular working women don't have the multiple hours per day to put into fitness routines and cooking super clean healthy meals, even if her children and husband would eat that food if she did.

How much of the housekeeping and life management are you doing, OP? How much of the childcare and shuttling to activities are you doing? How much shopping and cooking? How much time are you giving her to sleep, to engage in fitness, etc?

There are seasons to life, OP. Sounds like you have most of what makes a very good marriage and your wife's body paid the price to give you two beautiful children.

So yeah, you can be sad that youth has passed you by and you and your wife aren't hotties anymore, but please don't expect an outpouring of sympathy.

I know you're trying to be empathetic, but I honestly think some people just don't want to be healthy. It takes 2 minutes to open a can of tuna and dump it on a bed of kale.

NP. I find this so triggering. I’m dealing with multiple allergies and a pediatric feeding disorder. I’m already cooking multiple meals. So I throw tuna on kale. Not a single person in my family besides myself will eat tuna. Kids won’t eat kale. So now I’m cooking the meals. Pediatrics feeding disorder means I can’t just do classic cook one meal and everyone eats it or goes hungry. My kid had a BMI of 13.9.

Moral of the story: Anytime you’re tempted to say, “You can just X”, someone else literally cannot just do X. My kid would have died before eating tuna on kale. Nor can we afford to have the entire family eat the one dc’s expensive allergy diet. We have bills to pay, college to save for. For some families, food is exhausting in a way it never was for our parents. I imagine other special needs situations have similar demands in different spheres.

I posted previously that I have friends who eat well. MANY of them eat just salad for many meals. You don’t have to eat the food you cook your family.

In that friend group, I eat the worst. When we go out to dinner, they all order salad or something healthy like a grilled seafood. They don’t eat anything fried or obviously unhealthy like cake.

I won’t eat kale with tuna but I know people who would and do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, SAHM, we got it on your last post.

That was my first post here and I didn't read anything other than the first OP before replying.
-Working mom

OP is not a SAHM

I can understand not loving my spouse and being unattracted to him but I can't understand loving my spouse and being unattracted to him. I would hope that if there is love you can see past the weight issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel you. I don't understand why people pretend attraction is controllable. You can control your behavior but you cannot control your basic physical responses.

I am 50 with three young kids. I weigh about 30 pounds over my wedding weight. I don't deny that I am fat and less attractive. If my DH is less attracted to me because of this, it is his own deal. I do not control his sexuality. I freely admit I gained weight because of various life stresses, less time to work out and eating as if I'm still thirty and a gym rat.

It is what it is. Your feelings are your own as long as you do your duty.

Yes people can control who they are attracted to. It’s highly socialized. Some societies are more attracted to fat people. Its all in your head.

Absolutely not. I don't find fat people attractive at all - wife here.

NP
They are right. You might have a different attitude being born in another place/time but our culture has a few different popular body types thanks to media and conditioning. The window of what you'd instinctually be attracted to is broader than what you end up finding attractive thanks to culture. Looking at old, even ancient, art tells us that.

The body type that has historically been seen as attractive, throughout the times, is what today we'd call height/weight proportionate. The difference between Botticelli's Venus, ancient Greek statues and today's beautiful women is maybe one size. The times in history when fat women were seen as attractive are outliers.

Have you considered something other than European standards of beauty?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, SAHM, we got it on your last post.

That was my first post here and I didn't read anything other than the first OP before replying.
-Working mom

OP is not a SAHM

I can understand not loving my spouse and being unattracted to him but I can't understand loving my spouse and being unattracted to him. I would hope that if there is love you can see past the weight issue.

My husband is attractive. He is not fat and has aged well. I love him but i’m not sexually attracted to him anymore.

To be fair, I used to get sick of guys in my youth. I would date a guy for a week or a month or a year or two and then move on. DH lasted the longest.