I know this is a common story, but I wanted to post anyway, because I need a bunch of group hugs.
I have gotten into fight with my husband over some insignificant thing, and it went straight toward the issue about my weight. Doesn't it always? ( Well, more like I pick the fights while he just lets it all roll off of his back and avoids confrontation, which infuriates me. ) I guess I cornered him into admitting to me in words what he has been saying with actions for years >>> that he isn't as attracted to me as he once was. He tries to comfort me by saying the weight is only a small part, but that he just feels older (he's 51). He works long days in construction, and has for over 30 years. (by the way, we built a house together, ourselves, took 6 years, and that hampered the romance greatly, and it seems that it hasn't really returned much). We have been together for 14 years, (he has grown children, I don't have any) I perceive him to be very apathetic in general, and more interested in sports and action movies than anything else, poor guy who works so hard doesnt have any energy left but to watch tv. The sports and action films I couldn't be less interested in. However, when we met I was a really fit bicycle crazed person, and we use to ride mtn bikes and kayak, and backpack, and go on fun adventures together, but I now that I'm so heavy, our adventures are few, and I know it's a huge disappointment to him. I just don't care to be the shining physically obsessed trail queen of my 30's forever, I want to find other interests, more mentally involved interests. He seems so preoccupied with all the fitness interests, and I am more with quilting, spinning/knitting, and gardening.... and cooking. I have even gotten back into performing music, which was my life before I met him.
Okay, so we have different interests, that's okay, even healthy, but I feel suddenly divided and out of control and that the fat is destroying my marriage and all aspects of my life. I am thoroughly injuring myself with this weight > physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I just can't see living the rest of my life this way. I would love to drop 45 pounds just to please him, and myself, but he has so little ability to notice or communicate praise (his biggest shortcoming) , and I am afraid that in the end I will thus be vulnerable to other men who notice me. I adore him, I do not want to leave him, I just want to find the sweetspot in our lives that seems to be missing because of the weight. I can't seem to find incentive to lose this weight even to make myself happy at least. I don't find much friendship these days in his general disinterest about me, and so I go to the food, and cooking, and a couple of internet penpals, the isolation and loneliness grows and the disinterest grows. It has got to turn around. I keep waiting for the shift inside of me to happen, to become determined, so the weight loss can happen, but I guess I'm just depressed and feel like a nobody because of my husband's lack of spirit toward me, and surely need somebody to believe in me.
I am going to twist his words around in my head , I know it, hearing that he is 'repulsed' by me, although I know that I am probably projecting on to him the fact that I am repulsed by myself. This is sheer craziness.