No personal insults outside the Pit. Don’t do this again.
Thanks,
twickster, MPSIMS moderator
There isn’t much you can do about the weight. 150 lbs. is a lot- I’m a skinny girl and putting 150 lbs on me would put me well into “jiggling, waddling, obese.” On someone who is already big adding 150 lbs…It’s just a lot. Of course it’s likely you will stop being sexually attracted- large women may be great at sex, but if you aren’t in to them, then you just aren’t in to them.
That said, your job was to discuss this openly (as hard as that surely would have been) and decided if there was or was not a way to save the marriage that you both could agree on. This should have happened long ago. You made a huge mistake in cheating, one that very likely could cost your marriage and cause your kid some serious harm.
I agree you sound like good candidates for couple’s therapy. Clearly communication broke down long ago. She shouldn’t have had to “sense” that you were no longer attracted- in a functioning marriage this stuff should be discussed. You guys have a lot to work out, and a kid who needs to be taken care of.
As a fat person, I have to be 100% honest and say the ‘health’ argument doesn’t work for me. I know extra fat puts me at health risk in the same way that I know extra fat makes me less attractive to other people. Knowledge of those things doesn’t help me lose weight.
I would suggest making it about the lifestyle you enjoy together. What things did you used to do that you don’t do anymore, apart from sex? What do you miss about the wife you had, apart from the sexual attraction? A lot of what attracts us is the person inside, and maybe you’re not getting the chance to see that person these days because your wife doesn’t feel like the same person she was.
Maybe if you starting doing some of those things that you used to do, your wife will be able to enjoy some incidental exercise (i.e. exercise you get when you’re not specifically trying to exercise, you’re just living your life). And maybe you’ll start to see the person you fell in love with again.
I wish you both luck.
This. You both have changed since you married; the counselor can give you a better idea of whether you can love each other through those changes or not.
I’m just going to throw this out there since it seems to be overlooked an awful lot.
If you want to do what’s best for your daughter, you have to be brutally honest about the state of your relationship with your wife, and realize that your spousal relationship is the only romantic relationship your daughter will get to see from the inside before she goes off and starts having her own. If you are modeling a dysfunctional relationship to your daughter, you damage her ability to form healthy romantic relationships of her own. How much so, there’s no real way to know in advance. You have to weigh this against the difficulty of divorce. She may, in fact, be better off if you do split.
I’d also recommend counseling. To be honest, I think your marriage was likely over even before you cheated, but the cheating was the last nail in the coffin. The counselor may be able to help you find a way to salvage things, I don’t know. But at the very least, a counselor will be able to help you split with the least amount of turbulence possible.
Get a used pickup truck with a camper shell on the back, park it at a friend’s house unknown to your wife. Start saving as much money as you can but don’t keep it in the bank.
Because it is my opinion that you are on the verge of losing your house and a large chunk of your future income. At any moment.
You might still be OK if she never talks to any other women. She does? She has friends she confides in?
You are totally screwed. Get that camper so you won’t have to live under a bridge. Some day in 10 or so years you will be able to afford a girlfriend again.
By the way, this is all your fault no matter how it turns out. Say it, feel it, believe it. You do not cheat on your wife and then try to justify your decision as being her fault, due to what she lacks.
It’s you.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. When I say make it about her health and not her appearance, I follow that up with recommending that she see a doctor to determine if there actually is a health-related cause to such a substantial weight gain in such a short amount of time, as well as consulting a nutritionist to devise a healthier meal plan for the whole family.
I believe that if he is treating this as a family problem (which it is!) and not a her problem, by working with her, then she will feel less violated and angry about his demand that she lose weight or he won’t have sex with her.
Aah right, gotcha. Yes, it would definitely be good to rule out any medical issues that might have caused the weight gain.
They call it the “seven year itch” for a reason. Chances are good that if it wouldn’t have been her weight it would have been something else.
I don’t know why so many marriages go through this restless period but apparently the majority of them do. You could call it a character problem, you could call it distraction, or boredom, whatever. At any rate, you are not alone.
The old cliche, “It takes two” holds. (Sometimes a spouse develops a habit of overeating if they are feeling disatisfied.) If you truly want a long and successful marriage you and she will set boundaries, develop an ability to forgive and learn acceptance for what can’t be changed.
Nobody said it was easy and it all depends on trust, persistence and working out a definition of marriage which you both can agree upon.
No help at all, is that? There are people and places to help you get on the right track. If you can’t find them find a resource person.
I’m not sure that I buy the whole “I’m no longer attracted to her because her appearance changed.” It’s inevitable that that will happen. People get older with wrinkles. People get more comfortable and gain a little weight. People just stop dressing up so fancily. It’s just inevitable that your wife will not look as physically attractive as when you first married her. But, normally, a process happens where you continue to find her attractive despite this. And usually, there is something else that attracted you to her in the first place.
Heck, I’d find not being able to get it up because of your wife is fat to be your problem. I’ve never heard of a guy who couldn’t get it up given the proper stimulation, unless they had another problem, whether emotionally or physically. There is something keeping you from connecting with your wife enough to have sex with her.
I mean, how many older men do you think would go find some younger girl to have sex with if it was all about how attractive you are physically?
Because that doesn’t happen.
Why did she gain that much weight? It’s not something you can lose and keep off by going on the artichoke diet for one week: there are underlying medical or psychological issues, which should have been adressed before. The weight can’t go off and stay off unless those underlying issues are solved - where were you while your wife was fighting them and losing that fight? You failed her years before you went off chasing other skirts.
Whether you want to fight for the marriage or not is your decision, but you should have adressed the problem with her years ago. And if you decide to stay, you need to back her up: that means things like not putting down her work on the weight and the underlying issues, helping her avoid food triggers… If she can’t eat donuts, that means no donuts in the house for anybody.
150 lbs is not “a little weight.” My boyfriend and I have both gained a couple kilos since we’ve started dating. That’s a little weight.
I have nothing to add - I have no experience with married life, etc. But I don’t think 150 lbs is an insignificant weight gain.
Yikes. Cheating wasn’t a good choice at all; however, 150 lbs isn’t a ‘little weight’ - it’s an entire person.
Honestly, if my husband basically doubled in size from when we got married, I have to admit I don’t think he would turn my crank much anymore. With that in mind, you still f-ed up when you went to another woman.
I gotta echo everyone else that says if this marriage has any hope of working out you both need to go to counseling. Her to find out what happened where 150 pounds extra showed up oner her frame and you to find out why you thought straying was going to help your wife, your marriage or your child. Neither of these things ‘just happened’ - some choices were made for both to occur and you’ll need to figure out why if your marriage has any hope.
I’ve been married fifteen years to a guy I’d known for a long time before we got married. We are in our mid 40s. We both have grey in our hair, we have some wrinkles. My ass is no longer sitting where it was, nor are my breasts. Nor is his ass where it was. We’ve grown older together, and we’ve taken care of ourselves together - hopeful we’ll be able to grow older still together. Neither of us has gained a lot of weight - although both of us could stand to loose ten pounds right now (and both of us are running again to lose it). We both try and be physically attractive to the other person.
Seven years and 150 lbs is not the same as 30 years and growing old together. Frankly, it shows both a lack of respect for yourself and a lack of respect for your partner. Even if there is a medical reason behind the weight gain, you owe it to yourself, your partner and your child to take care of it.
Not that your partner then has an excuse for cheating.
Yeah, what Dangerosa said. 150 lbs. is not a little weight, especially in seven years.
I probably weigh what the OPs wife weighs, and I am totally hip to the idea of not being attracted to people my size. But I am not hip to cheating, and don’t think that “because my wife got fat” is a valid reason to cheat. To me, there’s never a valid reason to cheat.
“Because my wife got fat” is a valid reason for divorce, tho. Something the OP should have considered before cheating.
Here is someone with the same height and weight as me. Here is someone else with a bit less than 150 lbs added. I’d be a bit grumpy if I married one and in less than a decade ended up with the other.
You should have left your wife before you stuck your dick in another woman. That has nothing to do with her weight, that has to do with your integrity. You’re trying to mix the two. They are distinct mutually exclusive issues.
Seriously, 150 pounds is almost a shocking amount of weight to gain in 7 years - I could stand to lose maybe 15 pounds and I weigh 150. I had a mid-20’s metabolism shift and have gained maybe 45 pounds in five years, which is a lot. If I gained what your wife gained I would double in size. There’s more wrong here than just a craving for ice cream.
The OP did not slip out for a quickie the moment the scale hit 300. This seems to have been going on for years, has affected the marriage, and has not gotten resolved. It is a bad thing, but it might have a silver lining as a shock which will make things better, one way or another.
I agree about seeing a doctor, and possibly a therapist, and working on this together. What I haven’t seen in this thread is where the wife is. What weight does she want to be? On one hand she might hate the way she looks, and be crying out for help in getting back to a weight she wants. On the other it could be a way of withdrawing from the marriage. If the former, a joint diet and joint exercise could be just the thing. If the latter, it won’t do any good without some therapy.
It can be done. We have friends who were both terribly obese, to the point they drove around and around a parking lot to minimize walking. They didn’t do anything about it until one of them had a health emergency, then they both lost a lot of poundage. But they did it as a team.