Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m around the same age as OP and his wife. I’m 5 pounds heavier than my pre pregnancy weight of 125 so I have gained 5 pounds in 15 years and having 3 children.

Pretty sure Dh feels similarly to me. He is softer but he will probably feel he is not that attracted to me anymore.

Congrats? Trying being pregnant 10 times in a decade. Hint, I have far fewer than 10 children. I've been pregnant or on fertility med for the last 3 years straight.

I don’t even understand what the PP you are responding to is saying. They gained 5 pounds and are “softer” so he is not that attracted to her anymore? Uh, ok. I would have said - congratulations for marrying someone so superficial. Don’t think most guys are complaining about 5 pounds and natural aging.

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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.

You're no art historian! Those are examples that are merely on the lower end of proving my point. Botticelli's Venus was still several sizes up from today's thin ideal. This is what many pps would call fat. Just because you and I can see she is beautiful does not mean the average white man/woman, obsessed with their programmed ideal of beauty, sees her the same way.

DP. You are no art historian either, clearly. There's hardly anyone who would call Botticelli's Venus fat, so don't exaggerate.

Anonymous wrote:Its a perfectly reasonable expectation for your partner to keep in shape.

Women in general dont want to put in effort once they have someone though.

Probably one of the major reasons why lesbians have the higheat divorce rate out of any type of couple

I don't think that's true about lesbians. Where did you get that stat?

Its a perfectly reasonable expectation for your partner to keep in shape.

Women in general dont want to put in effort once they have someone though.

Probably one of the major reasons why lesbians have the higheat divorce rate out of any type of couple

Anonymous wrote:I’m around the same age as OP and his wife. I’m 5 pounds heavier than my pre pregnancy weight of 125 so I have gained 5 pounds in 15 years and having 3 children.

Pretty sure Dh feels similarly to me. He is softer but he will probably feel he is not that attracted to me anymore.

Congrats? Trying being pregnant 10 times in a decade. Hint, I have far fewer than 10 children. I've been pregnant or on fertility med for the last 3 years straight.

Anonymous wrote:NP
I wasn’t born in the U.S. so I don’t understand the obsession with staying faithful
Is it the fear of being taken to the cleaners in divorce?
Why don’t you cheat smartly?

Where are you from that the entire country of husbands in particular, are totally cool w/ other men sticking their ***** in their wives? Because even in France, they're not OK w/ that.

Op why don’t you sit with your wife and talk about your health goals and see what hers are without actively suggesting anything. If she does not want to lose weight and is obese then it’s totally fair how you feel; bc not only are you being asked to be attracted to someone very different in appearance from who you married, but you’re also being asked to tolerate someone risking their health and your family’s wellbeing overall. If she does want to lose weight then you can together set fitness goals and make exercising together part of the marriage, or help each other to carve out the time.
If dh became obese I would not hesitate to sit down with him and discuss it - but prob before it got so bad that I lost all attraction

I’m around the same age as OP and his wife. I’m 5 pounds heavier than my pre pregnancy weight of 125 so I have gained 5 pounds in 15 years and having 3 children.

Pretty sure Dh feels similarly to me. He is softer but he will probably feel he is not that attracted to me anymore.

I won’t “flame away” OP because you are just being honest.

None of us can ever help what we feel.
It is unfair to expect you to.

My best advice is to volunteer to help w/the grocery shopping/food prep/cooking.
Try out new, nutritious dishes for you + your family to try.
Keep a bowl of fruit on the kitchen counter & do not buy potato chips or cookies.
Try to limit your children as well.

And initiate more physical activities that you can all enjoy as a family.
An after dinner family bike 🚴 ride or a Saturday afternoon hike are some ideas.

But ultimately understand that the decision to actively drop lbs. is your wife’s and your wife’s alone and while you can lead a horse to water (no! Am not saying your wife is a horse!!) anything after that is completely out of your hands.

Try to focus on all the good about your wife.
However if you still feel zero attraction you may benefit from individual talk therapy w/a therapist to see if they have any solutions to your issue.

Good luck!

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.

You have my sympathy.
In same boat

Why don't you tell her? You should be able to be honest with your spouse; even if it hurts their feelings. My husband would never hesitate to tell me.

Anonymous wrote:NP
I wasn’t born in the U.S. so I don’t understand the obsession with staying faithful
Is it the fear of being taken to the cleaners in divorce?
Why don’t you cheat smartly?

No. It’s more of a moral thing than a financial one.

Anonymous wrote:NP
I wasn’t born in the U.S. so I don’t understand the obsession with staying faithful
Is it the fear of being taken to the cleaners in divorce?
Why don’t you cheat smartly?

Where are you from?

NP
I wasn’t born in the U.S. so I don’t understand the obsession with staying faithful
Is it the fear of being taken to the cleaners in divorce?
Why don’t you cheat smartly?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my, admittedly limited, experience, the high drive men are MUCH better at sex than the average drive ones. I also don’t think it’s easy for us (women) to truly understand what it’s like to be a high drive man. I honestly don’t think they go around trying to hurt anyone, and while I didn’t marry one, I do think society unfairly judges them in a way that is analogous to the unfair judgement of women who are highly sexual.

Sorry if this is getting too far off topic, it is in response to the PPs om the last fee pages.

I strongly disagree with this. In our culture masculinity is rewarded, and part of being stereotypically masculine is having a high sex drive. Men brag about it all the time. It's only in certain circles that high-drive men are judged for it.

Of course they aren't going around trying to hurt people. But people don't get bonus points for not trying to hurt people. That's the bare minimum.

Pp here. Fair enough. I do live in a bubble.

I have seen more than one male friend agonize over his sex drive and attempting to reconcile it with his values and morals.

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Anonymous wrote:Men - the vast majority - are shallow ignorant sex obsessed a-holes.

My theory is that many wives just do not care anymore after years of realizing what a nasty selfish jerk they’re shackled to. They don’t really want to have sex with those jerks and likely let the weight pile on to keep him at bay.

A nice dish of creamy sauced pasta is 100x better than sex with a selfish jerk man child husband anyway.

A lot of men are really bad at sex. That is what is not getting discussed.

Truth.

+100000

Yes, many women stop trying. No incentive to keep trying. It’s not like society really rewards you after a certain age. You’re just old. You can be fit and old or fat and old.

I disagree with this. I notice when old people are fit. I am amazed at some of the people I see at the gym - it's inspiring. One of my mom's friends is fit and playing tennis in her 70s. Far more attractive than a woman that can't even sit on the floor and get up or whose arms flop around with fat when she moves. This is really about a person's ability to lead a healthy, active life. I assume OP's wife is in her early 40s. If it's all downhill from here, she could get a lot worse. Then, not only is he not attracted to her; she also will probably have diabetes, NASH, or some other health problem. A lot of people don't realize how bad being fat is on your liver. It's as bad as alcohol.

Being fat is not as bad on your liver as alcohol. Who told you that?

And OP said that his wife has a regular exercise routine. It’s very possible to be fit, active, and healthy and be overweight. It’s also very possible to be thin and inactive. I, personally, can only lose weight if I don’t engage in strenuous exercise.

From the following website: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/nonalcoholic-fatty-liver-disease#:~:text=If%20you%20just%20have%20fat,%25%20to%205%25%20have%20NASH.

Health care providers don’t know the exact cause of fatty liver disease. But they think that obesity is the most common cause. Obesity in the U.S. has doubled in the last decade, and health care providers are seeing a steady rise in fatty liver disease. Although children and young adults can get fatty liver disease, it is most common in middle age.

Risk factors include:

Being overweight

Having high blood fat levels, either triglycerides or LDL (“bad”) cholesterol

Having diabetes or prediabetes

Having high blood pressure

That doesn’t say that it’s as bad as alcohol. It actually says that it often doesn’t cause any problems.

I mean, there is absolutely no way. People with alcohol use disorders are a much smaller percentage of the general population and a much larger percentage of people looking for a liver transplant.
Alcoholism is a disease that reliably causes end organ damage if it remains untreated. Obesity is not.

That’s why you can hardly get life insurance if you have a history of alcoholism, but obesity doesn’t even make your rates go up.