My wife and I met about 11 years ago and started a relationship. We have been married since 2017. Not sure if relevant but my wife and I both life in NZ. I am from the UK and she Taiwan. We met in NZ after we both moved here, so we are far away from our families and original homes.
There are a few issues I am struggling with so I’ll detail them one by one:
**Bored of married life**
Firstly, I feel my married life is incredibly boring. My wife has no interests other than wanting to eat at restaurants, walk round the mall or sit in front of the TV and watch YouTube. I was incredibly adventurous before I met my wife. I did a lot of travelling, was always going out with friends, trying new hobbies and generally filling my life with interesting things. After I met my wife I did less of that, but because I was enamored with the new relationship I didn’t mind all that much. However, as time as went on I started hankering after those things I used to do. That has now resulted in a situation where doing the things I enjoy means i have to do them without my wife. For example, on one occasion my friends, their partners, and my wife and I rented an apartment near the ski fields. My wife said she was going to come and try to learn how to ski with us, but of course, when the time came she refused and just stayed in the apartment watching TV. I just remember feeling jealous of seeing my friends teaching their partners how to ski and having fun, and I was just cruising the slopes on my own. On another occasion, our friend group planned a hiking trip, and my wife made it all of 300 metres up the trail before giving up, walking back to the car and driving home to watch yet more TV. I continued up the trail to meet our friends (I had let them go ahead so I could walk at my wife’s pace) and had to explain she had given up and gone home. We finished the hike without her.
**Bored of sex life/Not attracted to her anymore**
During the course of the relationship my wife and I both gained significant weight; me around 40kg, and her 30kg. As we both gained weight I lost interest in sex, because I found myself highly unattractive, and her also. Sex was and is just terrible. I have a very high sex drive and this situation is very frustrating to me. I long for the days when we first met and I was physically attracted to her.
In the last two years I have lost 37kg, almost all the weight I put on, but my wife has continued gaining weight. Our lives had got to a point where I just had to tell myself “enough is enough”. I signed up to an ironman and completed it, and I lost all that weight gain through a radical change in diet and exercise. Even though I no longer feel physically unattractive myself, I cant say the same about my wife. Since we gained weight I lost interest in her physically, and this interest in sex hasn’t come back, even after I lost weight.
I have tried to encourage her to lose weight for health reasons (I don’t want to tell her I think she is unattractive. It would ruin her self esteem, and I know from experience that if you’re fat you know it anyway. You don’t need someone to tell you). She went to the gym for a while, but she said she felt self conscious there so she quit.
Because she liked cycling at the gym I picked her up a second hand road bike and an indoor trainer, so she could train in the house while watching TV. I spent longer servicing and repairing that bike to get it ready for her than she has spent riding it in two years. Before we did the hike I mentioned previously, she refused to walk more than 20 minutes per day on a flat field for training. Probably a big part of why she gave up after 300 metres. She started walking again recently after I bought her a fitness watch to track her activity. I was spending every evening going walking with her, and I even got her to ride her bike again when I rode next to her on my indoor trainer. It seemed my support was enough to get her doing more activity, but it was only enough to motivate her for a few sessions , and now she refuses to go out again. Almost every evening I’ll ask her to go walking together, or ride the bikes; Its always a no.
One of the saddest things is I know she is not happy with her weight, but won’t do anything to change it. She sometimes talks about giving the trail walking another go, and says she would like to go again with our friends, but she knows she isn’t fit enough. She still wont do any training or exercise in preparation though, so what’s the point? We also recently tried to improve our sex life by trying some new things but it was quite difficult because of her size. I remember her looking dejected and saying “sorry… im too fat”. Its sad to see her so unhappy yet unwilling to make any changes.
**Trying (and failing) to have a baby**
One thing we do have in common is that we both want children. We have been sort of trying for 2 years now. Because of the lack of attraction I sometimes struggle to have sex with her, which is obviously a problem when trying to conceive. In the months we do try I just view it as a chore, something to get it over and done with, the hope of having a child on my mind.
We went to see the doctor about not being able to conceive. The first thing he said is that my wife needs to lose weight, because that is not helping. She is still making no effort to do so. We are also lucky that in NZ the government would fund us for IVF, but only if my wife could get her BMI within a normal range. Once again though, its not enough motivation for her. We are not rich and couldn’t afford IVF privately, so her losing weight would be our only chance to get access to that treatment.
All in all I feel like living with my wife is like living with a very close friend. I love her, but we have drifted so far apart I no longer see her as a romantic partner. I don’t really look forward to coming home anymore, and recently I often work late, or train late, to avoid spending too much time at home.
As I finish writing this post the thought has occurred to me that maybe I should show it to my wife. It articulates a lot of my frustrations that I dare not voice with her for fear of hurting her feelings, but maybe its better if she knows how I really feel?
If anyone else is in a similar situation or could offer advice I would be very glad to hear it.
Thanks, and sorry this post was so long.
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TLDR: My wife is not a bad person, and she does really love me, but I feel we have drifted so far apart on a range of things that the marriage is dull and boring now, and I cant see a future together.
9 comments
Do not bring a baby into this relationship. That’s how you guarantee even more misery than you’re already in. A baby ties you to her forever. Now you can get divorced and be free to live your life on your own terms and maybe find a more compatible partner.
My sister could be your wife in this situation. She and her husband worked so hard to get pregnant despite the various incompatibilities you named, and when they found out there was no heartbeat at week 8 and the doctor sent her home with the abortion pill my soon to be ex brother in law freaked out and left her to have a miscarriage alone. Don’t let it go there. Tell your wife everything. Don’t get her pregnant by accident and then find yourself terrified because you locked yourself to someone you don’t want to be married to anymore.
Has your wife been evaluated for depression? It’s the obvious possibility that might be treatable.
>As I finish writing this post the thought has occurred to me that maybe I should show it to my wife. It articulates a lot of my frustrations that I dare not voice with her for fear of hurting her feelings, but maybe it’s better if she knows how I really feel?
I think you’re right. Honesty is really important. You can consider her feelings but she’d probably prefer to hear this than have you stew in it. Plus, what you’re really saying is that you want your lives to be better together. This isn’t about you being angry at her, it’s about your hope for the future of the relationship. And if you get stuck, couples therapy can always be helpful.
Hope things get better for you
You can’t have this thing – her weight – be this big a deal to you and not say anything. I’m sure it leaks out in many ways, it is the theme of your post. You have to tell her it’s a dealbreaker and let her decide if she wants to lose the weight or end the relationship. All your thinking about it secretly and trying to manipulate the outcome is toxic for you both.
You say she does really love you but that’s not translating into taking action to either improve her health or reignite the excitement of your marriage is it?
You basically think she is fat and boring and this is putting your marriage at risk. Does she actually realise how serious this is? Because at the moment, you are putting up with it and drifting further and further apart. You’ll simply keep losing respect for her and the choices she’s making. Because she is choosing to do this day in day out. She’s choosing to sit around. She is choosing to eat rubbish.
I run half marathons. I eat an optimal diet. My ex husband does not. Enough said. Our approaches to life and what we thought was important just moved further and further apart.
You cannot make someone change if they don’t want to. But there has to be some honesty here. Yes hearing it might be painful but what’s the alternative?
If weight gain and sedentary lifestyle are your biggest issues…. what do you think will happen when she goes trough pregnancy & you have a baby? Yeah, don’t do that. It will ruin 3 lives.
Do not show her this post (it’s a bit overkill and too harsh, she’ll get needlessly bogged down with gory details).
Jot down some of your points (if you can’t remember them) and then sit her down for a talk, where you explain how you feel. Don’t pull any punches, give her solutions you will help with, but be clear you’re serious.
Maybe do it on a Saturday, so she can think for a day, then Monday, get to work on changing your lives.
I’ll give an honest advice… very kindly give her an ultimatum about her weight… harsh truth is once she loses weight gets attractive things will bloom by chemistry…