Husband admitted he is no longer attracted to me.

36 comments

1. I can’t imagine how hard it is for you. I don’t think your husband has meant to hurt you. Quite the opposite. And it’s not necessarily because you are more round than before. Sometimes the passion just disappears. Or maybe it’s just a phase. You two should sit and talk what you both want, how you both feel. Decide the future.
   And love, please take care of yourself, live a healthy lifestyle. Sports do wonders not only physically, but also mentally.

2. You can imagine how he would be hesitant to bring it up in a direct way given the typical reaction to these kinds of things (I.e. this post)- I know as a guy if you mention anything about girls weight you typically get eviscerated and blamed for it in some kind of way. The truth is that being overweight affects sexual attraction for most guys in a very primal way- it’s objectively a physical indicator of poor health or poor habits. It’s not a choice between doing nothing and having a eating disorder, and for him I guarantee it’s not his choice to have physical attraction affected by his spouses weight gain- that is not abnormal especially if it’s by a huge margin like above 30 pounds change (not having a kid) that usually means there is some kind of personal problem involved which involves taking personal responsibility. I imagine he also probably feels a bit of betrayal if it seems like you are not making the effort to take care of yourself, as that is something that will naturally diminish attraction on its own. If you want to move forward you have to take some kind of accountability and be open and honest with both of y’all’s expectations. Do you want to do anything to change the situation? Does he still want to stay married? Do you still want to stay married? Willing to work with lifestyle changes or go without intimacy? Difficult questions but gotta be honest with yourself and him

3. OP, if you don’t have a therapist, I’d suggest getting one. And if you do have one – then this needs to be something you tell them about. Because something like this could very well hurt your recovery and you don’t want that. You need someone who can help you get some distance from this and figure out what the best path is for *you*.

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5. I’m really sorry you’re going through this. Genuinely.

   I’m a little confused on whether you’re upset that he told you or upset that he didn’t tell you for a long time. Your husband was clearly in an absolute no-win situation, and was trying to be kind by affirming you all these years. I can’t imagine seeing that as a leave-able offense. He either crushed you or lied. He didn’t ask to be put in that position.

   All I’d say is that sexual attraction isn’t fully linear. He’s been distant for a month physically, but you guys were sexual before that. Hard to fake that stuff, yenno? So he’s struggling right now. It’s also fall, much darker out, and depending on where you live his testosterone might be a lot lower than it was a few months ago. Maybe he thinks that’s what’s going on when in reality his libido is just lower.

   My wife’s body has dramatically changed in 11 years and after 3 kids. But we’ve stayed connected sexually, and my brain always has a fresh memory of amazing sex with her current body in the recent past. But I don’t know what the limits would be, what would have to happen to her for this to happen to me.

   I think there’s a lot of room for grace for your husband. He’s in a tough situation.

6. I’m not saying your husband should have lied but society constantly tells men you’re a bad guy if you tell your spouse that you’re losing attraction to them due to their weight. It sounds like for a long time he was doing what he thought he should be doing until he couldn’t take it anymore. I’m not saying that excuses it, but it’s a reason.

7. Is he in shape? Can you workout together?

8. Work on yourself and get healthier. Appreciate his honesty. People stop dating and lose themselves when they get married thinking they’re locked in.

9. We understand that you are going through this minor hump. There’s no doubt there is still love there BUT what are YOU going to do about it.

   Effort, motivation, and determination are the sexiest thing to me when my wife is committed to working out. I let her know it Everytime.

   You have to do your part to keep the love/attraction/intimacy going.

   I believe in you! Good luck !

10. It’s so weird to me that weight can change how you see or feel about your partner. How my husbands treats me is what makes me attracted to him or not. He’s gained like 80-90 lbs and it’s never affected how see him romantically/sexually. And I’m in good shape.

11. There’s something majorly suspicious about this…
    I’m going to be that weirdo that says affair/crush/weird porn?

    That or he needs to see a doctor because that change is far too abrupt, imo.

12. Thos is an opportunity for you guys to agree on a new way to communicate. Most people lie to avoid hurting someone they care about. Especially when it comes to subject matters that might be sensitive. I wouldn’t crucify him for it. I would have a conversation about being honest about these things. Especially if it’s something you can change to help improve that department in the marriage. We can’t fix something or try if we don’t know there is an issue, even if it is something of a sensitive nature. I would approach it from that position when speaking with him. It has worked wonders for me. Together you guys could use it as a way to bond closer. Maybe start working out together or go for walks and let health be the focus. It builds and you both are taking responsibility collectively for the wellbeing of each others health and the health of the marriage. Look at it as an opportunity to become closer. Yes, it hurts when we are lied to… Majority of the time the person who lied is scared of the reaction from giving the truth… nothing more, nothing less. Wish you both luck and hope this becomes one of those moments you guys look back on 50 years from now and laugh about how you guys overcame small communication issues and learned how to work together to stay together.

13. As you get older your looks will change so high probability he may say the same thing later in life. People change and maybe he thinks he can attract someone else ?

14. i feel like not enough comments are focusing on the ed part, and too many are focusing on “i gained some weight” part… please be safe. yes it’s important to be healthy, but struggling with an eating disorder adds complexity to the situation. first and foremost, making sure you’re doing what you need to do to take care of yourself and get the support that you need, especially if you’re not getting it from your husband right now. please be kind to yourself

    as others have suggested, there are other factors that could be coming into play with your husband not feeling attraction anymore. if you guys have had a pretty active sex life, it would be odd for him to all of a sudden not be attracted to you anymore. i think, given the circumstances, the best thing to do would be individual therapy for both of you, as well as couples therapy. i think there are some questions that need to be asked for clarification in order to figure out for sure what’s really going on

15. You guys are both put in kind of an impossible position.

    Your position is that you gained some weight and you’d like to be loved for who you are and attractive to your husband despite your weight gain. My guess is that part of what you want to be as a wife is someone who’s attractive to your husband. And that’s totally normal there’s a lot of satisfaction in being desired and the results of that.

    His position is that he seems to be no longer attracted to you because of your weight gain. It’s not something that he has control over and people would crucify him if he said that that’s what was going on. And so he’s put in a position where he can either lie or tell the truth and he gets punished either way. He probably wants to be a good husband and be supportive of you but he’s also got to be honest about what he’s feeling.

    I can’t say exactly why he chose to not tell you that he’s not attracted to you anymore until a month of avoiding it. I think you want to be really careful that you don’t attribute malice or deception to him because I think he’s doing his best to be supportive of you but also he sacrificing his own wants and needs for you.

    You got your own wants and needs too.

    But I can tell you that being on the receiving end of being stuck between two impossible goals: being expected to hold your tongue when something is not going as you want it to, and being punished if you do say something, It can breed a lot of hopelessness. It can feel like you’re doing everything you can to be a good person, but you’re just going to get looked at like you’re an asshole If you tell the truth.

    You might be thinking: “but he’s been lying about being attracted to me this whole time!” Well we don’t know that for sure. Maybe he was lying but it also might just be that it was incremental and at some point everybody breaks. Part of being a partner to another person is that you have to be somewhat flexible to irregularities and the inconsistencies that come with being with a person who’s a living breathing person. And that goes both ways obviously.

    I know you’re feeling hurt right now but I would say just give it some time, and try to remind yourself that this is something that almost everyone deals with this. I think you’re in a unique position that you had a eating disorder that could be at play here. I wasn’t there and I don’t know all the details, And you might not know either, but I would just say that before you start going down the path of certainty that your husband did something awful to you and that none of this is about you, Make sure that none of this is about you. Make sure that this isn’t insecurity on your part, and make sure that what he said, a reasonable person would believe should result in how you’re feeling.

    Emotions are funny things. They’re all valid. I believe you are when you feeling hurt, betrayed, unlovable, and ugly. And I’m not trying to say that those are not justified because I don’t know. I’m just saying that make sure that the things that he said, It is justifiable that you believed that you were unlovable, betrayed, told you were ugly, etc. before you start responding to him as if he said those things and tried to make you feel that way. Did he actually betray you? If you did then that’s justifiable to feel that way. But did he betray you?

    I don’t think he really did. I think you asked him a question. A question that you may not have been emotionally prepared to hear the truth about. But I don’t think he betrayed you by telling you the truth. Did he betray you by not telling you this outright earlier? I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I haven’t been there for the 4 years of your marriage. Only you can know that. But I would just say be careful because you can’t take back words that you might use to hurt him, And if those words originated from your insecurities and problems that were not his fault, He’s going to feel very betrayed by you that you let yourself hurt him instead of take responsibility for your own insecurities.

    Again this is not to say that I know one way or the other. Because I can’t. I’m just giving you some guidance to help you understand that you want to make sure that this isn’t caused by what’s going on in your own heart and mind, instead of the easy answer that “he” is causing these feelings of insecurity.

16. I’m so sorry you’re in this situation. I think you two were both in a lose-lose situation, but I would have asked, too, had I been you. I have to agree with others who think there may be other factors influencing your husband’s Level of attraction towards you. I’m a woman, so idk if I can totally relate to your husband, BUT, I do have times when I’m very attracted to my husband and other times when suddenly I notice (not for the first time) how much weight he’s gained in the last few years, and it just hits differently. Suddenly it’s like I’m seeing him through someone else’s eyes and am completely unattracted. For me, it tends to depend mostly on the time of the month. It doesn’t mean I don’t love him, and before I know it, I’m feeling attracted all over again. All I’m trying to say is, he really may not have been faking it before, and he may have only recently lost his feeling of attraction towards you, not right when you gained the weight back.

    I hope you can talk with your husband about every feeling you’ve mentioned here. If not, maybe some couples counseling would help you talk together about everything. Best of luck with everything.

17. Well there is not easy fix here. You can not force someone to find you attractive if he doesn’t.

    He didn’t do this the right way, but sadly there was no right way to handle it.

    Either he is a dick for dropping it on you now after he held it bottled in until he couldn’t take it any longer.

    Or

    He is a dick for sabotaging your recovery by telling you that you had to stop gaining weight or he wouldn’t find you attractive.

    It sound like he tried his best to make it work and after a year of you being this weight and him not being attracted to you he just snapped and let you know in one night how he has been feeling for the past year.

18. Probably going to get downvoted for this, but… Judging by your reaction and this post, it doesn’t sound like you were prepared to hear the truth about how he was feeling. You clearly have an unhealthy relationship with food/your body, and your reaction makes it seem like maybe you felt recovered (past tense) and not like you needed to put continued effort into ongoing recovery from an eating disorder. It sounds like your husband was just trying to preserve your feelings, presumably because he loves you and wants things to work with you/wants to feel attracted to you again. Leaving him seems like an easy out to regain a feeling of control, when what it sounds like you could really benefit from us some therapy to really work on your eating disorder and mental health. 75 pounds is a lot to lose, and it’s also a lot to gain. Both of those are indications of disordered eating behaviors. Physical attraction isn’t guaranteed forever when two people choose each other as partners. For some people it’s not even important, but for a lot of us it is. You can stop being sexually attracted to someone and not love them any less. As far as I can tell from your post, your husband loves you and wants you to feel good about yourself. Take this as a sign to work on your mental health and let the rest follow.

19. He was in a lose-lose situation. If he lied to you to make you feel better, he’s a asshole. If he told you the truth and told you your weight gain bothered him. Quess what… he’s an asshole. Either way, he loses and looks like the bad guy.

20. OP If I were you,
    Id simply ✨leave✨
    You’re gonna get old and wrinkly one day, your tits are gonna sag, your vagina is gonna droop.
    Leave while you can and find someone who actually appreciates you and your body especially since I read you had an eating disorder and he still decided to go about it in such a disrespectful and gross way might I add.
    Find your soulmate cause it’s DEFINITELY not this one

21. My eating disorder lasted me over 40 years and it was every day every minute every second of every day. If you were in true recovery, you would be at the weight you want to be not the weight that you are honey I’m being honest with you to check with the therapist, I’ve been through it all when it comes to eating disorders it’s like an alcoholic you are never cured you learned to maintain. If you’re cured from your eating disorder your body image would be at the perfect weight you need to work on yourself and not worry so much about him.

22. I have had the last three years of my marriage, dealing with another woman and my husband’s life. I can talk about that all day long. You know when you know trust yourself. Trust your instincts you’re an intelligent, beautiful woman.

23. The lie is your eating disorder, and you, until you let that monster out and get rid of them. No relationship will work none.

24. Don’t forget love and attraction are really different things! He might not be attracted to you right now, but he may be again one day, and he probably never stopped loving you and everything about you, even if he’s not attracted to some of it.

25. I hope this is not the case for you. I was in a six year relationship and my ex boyfriend constantly gave me compliments and then that slowly changed to criticism because he was comparing me to the girl he was cheating on me with

26. I’m quite surprised by all the comments because my initially reaction is that your weight gain is a cop out. There’s been no sudden change right? Idk seems like there’s another reason. Is he depressed? Difficult times at work? The sudden shift points to me that saying weight gain is a surface level reason but there’s something deeper. I’m also really sorry you have to go through this. It’s not fair how much pressure we have to be thin but don’t get an eating disorder but stay hot?? Sometimes it’s just really hard…

27. I guess i went through the same thing after having a baby. What others dont understand is women do get judged by men a lot for gaining weight and getting old. Men can have beer bellies, can go bald and you very rarely hear women come here and say they dont find their husband attractive anymore because he suddenly developed a beer belly or something. So yeah, I can see how this hurt her feelings. Its more like qhen we marry someone, we also hope they would love us through all the changes we go through so it can be disappointing when it happens.

    This is not to say it should never happen but we cant take away the fact that it hurts when it does. In my situation, my hisband didnt necessarily say hes no longer attracted to me but the relationship did feel different after having a baby. I already lost weight, im walking a lot and doing pilates weekly. I bought myself new clothes. If my hisband isnt noticing me turning into a hot mum, im sure someone out there will. Lol

28. I struggle with posts like this and the comments. Comments saying about weight and how important attraction is…blah blah blah.

    Do you know what, I love my husband unconditionally and he loves me the same. He loved me when I was 23 and very sporty. He loved me through having twins and weight gain, he loves me with short hair, long hair, he loves me now at 43 having peri menopausal daily sweats and that I’ll never be the size I was at 23.

    I loved him when he had a six pack, I loved him when he started to thicken out at he got older. I loved him through his chemotherapy and losing all his hair and being extreme bloated. I still love him now with his slight man boobs and thinning hair!

    Even through all the above my attraction for him never changed. He still grabs me from behind and kisses my neck and grabs a boob!!

    There are so many things that happen in life that can change your appearance.

29. Either cheating or mid life crisis of wanting a young chick

30. When we got married I was a size 6 (2 US) at my worst after weight gain I was a 16 (12 US) & I stayed this big for years, literally 16 years. I’ve now lost 10kg, dropped 3 dress sizes because I hated the way I was. Not once did my husband tell me he was not attracted to me but the signs were there & it gutted me, still does when I think about it. However he also never told me he was attracted to me, just the usual “I love you” comments.

    Did I doubt his love for me? Absolutely. I always felt (& still do feel) like he has cheated on me because he was so unattracted to me physically.

    I would feel the same way as you are & doubt everything. Can you come back from this, yes But tell him you are hurting because he lied to you. Make him see how saying he was attracted to you when he really wasn’t has hurt you. If he is genuinely in love with you he will crumble knowing he hurt you so bad, if he doesn’t then you have decisions to make.

    if you do anything in regards to weight loss, do it for you not him. Start looking in the mirror & like what you see. I’m not there yet as I can’t see my weight loss but be stronger than me.

31. Just remember this isn’t about you but about him. Keeping up the lie is one thing, but was it just recently that he stopped having sex with you? There could be other underlying issues if that’s the case. Sometimes people need to give themselves excuses to cheat, maybe this is a newer narrative that he has set for himself. If he was attracted and told you he loves you the way you are and all of a sudden that changed, I would definitely take a deeper dive into this.

32. You are perfect as you are, you may not be perfect for him and that’s also ok. Can you live with someone who’s not attracted to you? If you lost the weight and he was re-attracted could you ever live with that?

33. It’s not your husband’s fault. You would have been even more upset if he had told you the truth when you were asking for reassurance.

    Obesity isn’t attractive. Full stop.

34. I have been through the same thing with my boyfriend of 6 years (not husband). I gained a lot of weight and he was no longer attracted to me and said some hurtful things like how my weight ruined his day and mood.

    In your case, your husband doesn’t seem like a bad person, he was only expressing his honest feelings about the question you asked him. He probably still loves you because you mentioned how he always reassured you, but if your appearance changed completely from when you first met him I don’t think anyone can blame or change how your boyfriends feels about your weightgain. But please remember it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. I am sure he loves you a lot. Love and physical appearance are two different things.

    I think you should really think about what you want from this situation and what is realistic. You want to be desirable for your husband but he already was honest about your weightgain and you nor him can force him to change his feelings.

    So you may have to go on like this without making a change or be the one who makes a change. I don’t think anyone should lose weight for someone else, but only for yourself and I also think people should focus on being healhy first and weightloss may occur later. But weightloss is not the only option. Another option is learning to love yourself the way you are, accept the fact that your husband isn’t attracted to you, etcetera. I am not mentioning breaking up, because I don’t think this is worth breaking up for, unless you end up feeling miserable every day from now on.

    I was in the same situation and my boyfriend ended up breaking up with me. A year later, I lost a lot of weight but I did it for me and not to be desirable to a man. I also didn’t lose weight out of self hate but out of self love, because I liked me the way I was but I didn’t like my life style.

    I am not sure where I am going with this, but I think you could perhaps talk to your husband about your hurt feelings about this matter and how you two could work together to overcome this issue in your marriage. Be prepared that he may mention things like working out (together), eating healthier. Perhaps, maybe weight isn’t even the issue but more the life style that comes with it? It’s good to have an open conversation about it.

    Also please do try not to spiral down into self-hate and really horrible thoughts about your body. I can understand how you feel because I have been there but nobody is worth beating yourself up for. Please don’t forget your husband still loves you, and your weight gain doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world, doesn’t mean there is no way back, etcetera.

35. So you were once 75lbs heavier, lost the weight in an unhealthy way…and have since put it back on. So you’re at the same weight you were to begin with? And now your husband has an issue with it? If I’m reading that correctly it sounds like he found you more attractive with that 75lbs off. You were at a size/weight he preferred, and then you “took that away from him” by gaining it back.

    The two of you can work towards making changes to get healthier and lose some of that 75. In agreement that HE must be open and honest with his feelings and willing to have the hard conversations.

36. From what you’ve written, it’s safe to assume he loves you… and seeing you gain this weight over time, I can see how it’s jarring this just became an issue… but you’ve gotta look at this as an opportunity to make a shift towards a more physically active lifestyle… but above all a healthy diet… and remember transforming your body takes years… start slow… walks every day for a few weeks… home cooked meals… you don’t have to jump right into a 3/4 day split in the gym… walk into the gym and walk right out if you have to… it’s a journey of many miles, but you can only go one step at a time