A
male
age
41-50,
*ilamber
writes:There are several threads on this site that are similar to what I am about to present, but none go into the open, honest detail that my wife and I have with each other, and so I would like to present this here, and which I would like the community's honest opinion on. If there are any practising clinical pyschologists I would particularly value your opinion about my chances of 'changing'.My wife and I have been together for about two years. In that time she has gained a certain amount of weight, and I am having problems finding her attractive with this. We have talked about it and she has understandably reacted in a very hurt fashion, but has spent 6 months trying to loose it, without success. It has become a completely overblown issue between us with very high anxiety and anger levels on both side. Up to this point I know this sounds fairly standard stuff, but I want to open it up much more for everyone. (This isnt easy - get to the end before you flame me please!).Basically my wife is a very beautiful woman. She is only really at most (see below) half a stone overweight, which must seem like 'nothing', especially to any American reader. But, I will skirt around the question of is obesity a norm etc, as my wife id nowhere near obese, just a little less slim than 18 months ago, when she was 'smoking', to my recollection! Whereas some ladies are 'big', carry their weight well and look comfortable with it, my wife looks like a stunning woman who has grown a belly and bum. Now before getting cross at me and saying 'thats nothing' or 'you should still find her attactive' (I do!), bare in mind how any of us feel when we look at something beautiful that has somehow been 'spoilt', with think 'that is a shame'. And no this isnt just for inanimate objects, look at how Brittany Spears, a beautiful woman by anyones standards was recently riduculed for appearing in her 'come-back' with a belly and having put on some weight. Exactly!So it was this feeling that initially what lead me to say something. I deeply love her in all other regards, and find the rest of her very very attractive! Now I probably need to try and explain more of myself as I guess most readers will have already formed an impression that Im the problem. This is ALL stuff my wife and I have talked about, and we both realise its important to understanding our problem, so you the reader should too!I grew up in a very asthetic household (parents both PhDs in history of art) and I have been educated to analyse beauty, to be able to deconstruct it, and so on. Next, like I think a significant proportion of the male population, my formative frame reference for an idealised physical form for a woman came from porn. You cannot get away from the fact that if you have this is your life for YEARS before an actual real life woman comes along, then this is going to determine what you 'look for'. This becomes a fundamentally hard-wired thing, and in the abstract I have nothing wrong with it and do not want to change it. In fact I am very comfortable with having pretty high standards, and 'knowing what I like'. Certainly I have mates that seem to be able to 'get it on' with anyone and then just disgard them, and its really nasty of them! - find someone who you fancy so much it terrifys you and then get the courage to win them, that was what I hoped for myself, and which lead me my wife in the end. Anyway, combine this 'porn-star' ideal (which is only toned and well presented after all) with my aesthetic education, and I have an very sensitive eye. This is what lead to me opening my stupid mouth and saying anything in the first place about my wife's figure. I should say this eye thing works both ways - as I met and proposed to her, my wife suited my tastes enormously! Equally, my wife finds exactly the same sort of toned and slim woman very attractive too, so its not as if we have even have different tastes in that department! I find it very difficult not to apply those same criteria to her, and a conflicted that they do not quite apply to her any more. I should also explain that to an extent we are struggling under false pretenses. When we met My wife had been ill for some time and has lost quite a bit of weight. It then remained off while she went travelling, and thats when we got engaged. To an extent therefore she has simply come back up to more like her 'normal' weight of the last 5 or so years, whereas I had thought 'I was getting' the girl I met etc, at least for a few years yet!!! I have to admit to being an idealist, and something of a dreamer. I do have an image of 'perfection' for 'Us' (our relationship etc) and this motivates me to aim to improve, tweak, adjust and develop. I think one has to have these 'models' for what you want and where you want to be, whereas my wife ways they just create unrealisting expectations. You might say she is right, but I believe the truth is somewhere in the middle, and in virtually every other aspect of our relationship and lives both together and apart we are very high achievers, and we DO meet those expectations, get a buzz out fo doing so, and really do live our lives in that fashion. She does subscribe to the same aiming at ideals for the most part too. So again, its kind of incongrous that compared to everything else on this topic alone 'well you should be just happy with whatever you've got'. There is also some history to this in that with regards to women, my idealism has meant that whereas long ago my first girlfriends were essentially friends who decided we should go out, and could be a bit heavy, not too pretty etc etc, and as Ive gone along I have quite systematically been able to work out what I would want as my 'ultimate girl', and fortunately to be able to find her. So when I met my wife I felt very much that finally here was someone about whom I have no reservations in any department(6 billion people on the planet, so there really should be at least one!) - very bright, great sense of humour, fancies the pants off of me, very good company, wants the same things from life, into sports and the arts, angellic face, and a willowy, slim figure but with curves. So of course, we married! There maybe a lot of this which is therefore to do with the 'perfection bubble' having been burst, and of course that is not easy for either of us to swallow. Again you might say 'but that is just reality', but then there are people who say to both of us that somehow we are lucky and dont live in the real world becuase we are so successful. We always reply 'but actually that IS our real world, and its not luck, its calculated effort, hard work and boxing clever'. We made it as we wanted it! So again then, I struggle to see this specific issue around weight any differently, its something to be 'sorted', but I am guilty as hell that I may have put my wife of a pedestle, and then kind of pushed her off it, to both of ours misery. Equally though, I dont want any other idealised woman, I want my wife as I met her 2years ago! A this point I should mention that my wife disputes that she was ever much lighter when we very first met, and again, that I have an idealised image in mine that she can never reach. It may be the case that in the first flush of romance I didnt sit back and consider her shape, (or perhaps hadnt had the time for familiarity to breed contempt?). But, I know that she WAS when we were doing all the thinking and talking about the rest of our lives together! I am not even sure this 'magic' half a stone is even correct any more, i think it originally came from my wife thinking back to what she weighted when she was 16 and modeling and assumed thats where she had to get to? But even small changes make a huge difference if you are slim, as youve got less to work with. Try my analogy - you kind of have to think of what volume a particular amount of wieght looks like, so: If you look at a 500gram (just over a pound) tub of butter/marg/oil (ie whatever fatty thing you want to think of as equivilent to fatty tissue in the human body) its still quite a sizeable lump! Now imagine say four of those, still only 2kg, and that is a LOT of volume. Anyone who takes the fat off on uncooked meat or has done surgery knows that the fat on bodies is quite loosely packed too, so if anything this analogy probably underestimates the volume for a particular weight involved. Now, for sure if you tried to spread that much over the bum, tummy, thighs or wherever of a 20 stone woman, it would just disappear, as there is already so much around. But we are not talking about someone whos obese! - If its essentially the first significant excess fatty stuff to be spread on an otherwise slim, beautiful frame, actually its a hell of a lot of volume to try and distribute, and makes a noticable difference! This is what we have been dealing with, visually. The difference between none (or very little) and say 4-5lb more, is pretty big in visual terms, actually, while not being a lot weight-wise. I know I have on may occasions told my wife when she has been successfully loosing weight that say, I really think she has got half way back to what I can still find myself fantasizing about in my mind (Hey, thats a GOOD thing), and she says 'but ive only lost a couple of pounds'. I think we are both right, possibly. Again, she thinks I have an unobtainable ideal in mind, whereas I say I just would like a bit more of the gal I met back aways. We cant just kind of ignore the whole this becuase we are both very sexual and visual people and buy into the idea of our steamy monogamy, being a 'hot couple'. Equally, as a doctor I am painfully aware that having children and getting old will of course ravage my wife and I bodies as the years go by. (probably the unpleasentness of dealing with obese, unattractive bodies all day also contibutes to my horror of that sort of thing). However if we are ever to enjoy the full potential of ourselves it should be therefore be now.Over the months of her trying to loose this weight it and then putting it back on, of course we have both become frustrated and upset by the lack of success. I loose weight easily, or perhaps more to the point dont put it on in the first place, while she 'yo-yos'. We are certainly the product of very different family backgrounds, with her family having a 'loosen the belt to eat a little more' mentality (which I find completely alien) while things my parents have said (that I dont even notice) make my wife laugh as they illustrate how indoctrinated i have been on my side - an example: 'always better to be a little bit under than a little bit over' - my Dad!!!Now I feel like a totally demanding, unreasonable husband, who has stigmatised his wife. But that is the whole point - its nothing to do with 'reasoning'. Its about the basic, fundamental way in which my sexuality, or at least tastes are wired up. While my wife shouldnt be made to feel guilty about her weight, I shouldnt be made to feel guilty about something as fundamental as my tastes and sexuality. It seems an artifical set of circumstances came together to make her slimmer than usual through most of our courtship, and now neither of us are happy for things being back to their actual status quo. There is a last thing I need to describe to fully understand our mind-sets. My wife has had quite a bit of therapy in her life to help her with a particular problem (that has nothing to do with 'us', or this current circumstance, or has any particular impact on it. It is independent). The therapy has and does clearly help her a great deal, and so her perspectives on the current issue are: Yes, ideally she would like to be half a stone lighter, and can see where im coming from as compared to the sort of figure we both most admire on other women; It has been very difficult for her to get anywhere with weight loss though and she is now upset and axious about her body image, and angry at me; the problem could be seen as being entirely of my making and there exists only in my head, and so I should 'just go and get your head sorted out'. Anyway, she's spent 6 months sporadically trying to diet and exercise with at least moderate, but unsustained success (I think she thinks she really has go nowhere), so I think its up to me to change. Im sure most readers of this will have come to that conclusion anyway! For me I am certainly dissollusioned with supporting weight-loss efforts without obvious reward, and it IS a horrible thing to try and tread a 'I dont fancy you as much as I did, but I still do a lot!' when paying compliments becuase anything just straightfowardly complementary falls on deaf ears. So I now mned to do something to change. But, there are rather a lot of unresolved questions in my mind:1)It is possible through CBT or something more 'deep' eg psychoanalysis to change something as fundamentally hard-wired as my preference for a figure sexually? 2) Isnt that like trying to do therapy to make someone whos gay, stright? Stigmatising them for just what they happen to like?3) Is there some lesser 'tweak' that would still help me psychologically?4) Why precisely shouldnt it be my wife going and having the CBT or hypnosis or whatever to help her with weight loss? Why does it have to be me? Am I being 'punished', again becuase of my taste?5) Is her 'get help', baring in mind she is so comfortable with the idea that 'therapy helps ' (her), unfair as she isnt weighing up the committment and likelihood og benefit objectively? Whereas as I can maintain my weight I am being equally unfair saying 'honey youve got half way there on a number of occasions, just keep going and then maintain it'!6)Given all the background Ive given, am I being completely unreasonable (remembering 'reason' doesnt really come into it - you can understand how and why something is perfectly without that being able to change it), and is my wife completely 'innocent' of any responsibility? 7)Is it irrelevent that her tastes in women are for exactly the same sort of (perhaps unrealistically) great figure as my tastes run to? And if her figure is no longer quite like that, is it not understandable that I am going to struggle to reconcile that? 8) Are there any startling insights or 'stepping back from it' perspectives that might leap out at you, to which I havent alluded at all?9) Are there any good websites that are NOT trying to sell someones book, that deal with transferance and men who are paranoid about their partners figure and very pushy about it being perfect? I am begining to feel like I am one you see, and I just wonder if its 'recognised?'. Actually, I do think my wife's figure is perfect, except for this little bit of extra stuff, its not an overwhleming 'everything much change' weirdness, just one small thing thats become overblown between us... 10) A similar question to the last is that if anyone does recognise some fundamental psychological complex which is well understood operating here, what can I/we do about it?11) A general 'so what do you think we should do about it?'. Our common sense answer would of couse be to meet half way. Very difficult though when you feel so entrenched!There is of course also some feedback it will NOT be helpful to have:Anything which is bascially 'you are an arsehole'.Anything which says 'you married too quick', or 'are unsuited', or 'should get divorced'. We arent going to, and I could write at as greater length on every aspect of the many things that are great about us and our relationship - we wouldnt abandon it over this! Its just the one thing that needs sorting out. Its taken a couple fo hours to write this up. I would be grateful if people could take the time to digest it before replying. Your answers may help us work things out!Many thanks.
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, pinkpoodle  +, writes (11 August 2008):
I was married to a man just like you. I feel that he was overly critical. I am now an emotional mess. I am anorexic. I am 5'5" and I weigh 95 pounds. I am going to get an unnecessary face lift. I am still in a lot of emotional pain and he has been gone for 2 years. You need to get a divorce and let her find someone who will love her unconditionally.
A
female
reader, SnowyWater +, writes (26 May 2008):
Hello
Firstly I would like to say thank you for sharing this issue here and being honest about it. As the original post was send a while ago I hope you have made the right decision and have sought therapy. Your confession was one of the most painful things I have read in a while and I really, really hope things have moved on since then. In a way it is normal to want your partner to be the same person that you have fallen in love with, but you seem to have taken it to the extreme...in fact it looks like you were not interested in her at all but only excited by the fact that she matched the ideal you had in your head. Unfortunately this ideal exists only in your head and until humans possess the power to bring their ideal models into life you are doomed to love people as they come.
I think the weight issue is not the problem though. The problem is that you feel entitled to the fact that another human being will match the ideal you have in your head, and when she doesn't want to "make herself" into what you want, you become extremely frustrated. You call it "hardwired"... but I don't think that is the right concept to describe it. People have many wished about how they partner should look like, be like, what they should wear etc... but then in the end it doesn't matter, because you meet someone who is blond instead of brunette , but they make you feel "home".
If she doesn't make you feel this way then I doubt you make her feel this way either. You are making yourself a very bad favor, by trying to live your ideal relation ship. You must be very tired, and have materialized all the problems in her being overweight.
Your post is one of the most emotionally charged and sad things I have read...it is bursting with emotion and frustration...I think she and her weight is the least of your problems: it looks like you had to conform to a lot of "high standard"pressure from outside and inside, which has become materialized in your obsession with your partners weight. You have to have somebody to help otherwise you are heading for a serious breakdown if not now, maybe when you have children, or make a mistake at work or do anything else that is human.
Good Luck
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A
female
reader, nutella +, writes (27 October 2007):
Cognitive therapy for you sounds like an excellent idea.
Be a friend to your wife. Take this opportunity to grow and deepen your values beyond the 'aesthetic'. Imagine what you are putting her through. You sound so lucky, your glass sounds 99 per cent full, and if you look at the plight of billions of people on this planet, the monumental amount of energy and time you seem to have diverted to this issue is grotesque. Fight the way you are creating suffering for yourself and her. Challenge your thinking and get some cognitive therapy.
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A
male
reader, Richard_EMids +, writes (27 October 2007):
 UK US Translation: One stone = 14 pounds. Bum = Butt
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (27 October 2007): Brittany Spears was not fat. She had 2 kids and her body changed, her hips got wider. She didn't have time to tone up to the way she looked before she was pregnant. If your wife looks like how she looked, then you are insanely critical & will never be hapy with anyone.
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A
male
reader, Richard_EMids +, writes (27 October 2007):
Ok Milamber here goes:
No - I am not a clinical psychologist - did an A level in it. Doesn't help my answer for you though.
I am older than you, 20years probably, and have always had an interest in what makes sexual taste - that does help my answer.
I agree with you totally - sexual preferences are hard wired deep in the unconscious somewhere. So Yes - therapy is waste of time for homosexuals and, I guess paedophiles as well!! Answers:
Q1 No,
Q2 Yes,
Q3 No I don't think so but see answer to Q11
Q4 After due consideration I think you have the responsibility because you have the primary issue although the solution may ultimately come from your wife. Further, as you have said that essentially she is not overweight this is a psychological need of yours & not a physiological need of hers.
Q5, Q6 & Q7 Unnecessary questions. Extreme deviation.
Q8 Maybe - see Q11 answer below.
Q9 Maybe - see Q11 answer below
Q10 No - other than I agree it is hard wired
Q11 Various notes and observations:
As I got older my preference changed. I prefer a little more plumpness now - I didn't when I was 30. Has your taste in food ever changed over the years - or wine - or art - or architecture??? There's food for thought - not for wife!
This next point has a connection to your Q9 - what would it do to your deepest thoughts if you were to see the comments/opinions of other men on your wife's naked/semi naked body?? There are websites where you can post photos and invite comments. The feedback may alter your outlook about your wife's figure.
What if you were to "role play" with her - and you played the part of someone who had a preference for plump women. Again, might just create the small shift needed at the bottom of your psyche.
Finally, might there be a deep psychological (or not so deep) reason she did not lose weight after dieting for six months. You haven't mentioned sex drives - for example, does she prefer sex less often? Could be other motives too!Do her clothes fit better?
Hope this helps.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (26 October 2007): that is one interesting read, i dont think ive ever heard anyone so scared of how his wife looks! As a doctor yourself im extremely confused as to why you would be this concerned though :s surely being a nice healthy size is better than your body needing more nutrtion? I too am a slim size and do panic about the odd few pounds that have crept on, but for somebody else to worry about it for me is in itself just that, worrying! I actually don't think this has got anything to do with weight though for some reason, but more your desire for all things perfect, the weight being the latest thing. In reality who ever finds perfection??? if the desirable weight was acheived what would be next on the list, its really the best time to come to terms with the underlying problem now.
Not being fully equalfied in psychology i can't really sugest exactly why its come to this but i do know what it could do to you. Its like a form of OCD and possibly your fear of your wife becoming ill like the cases you have seen, if she's slim then she's healthy kind of thing. What i do wonder about is what children would bring to this, as you said her body will change and i wonder how you would react then when she has brought you something so wonderful into the world would you then feel resentful you have lost her figure even more?
I know you have said that her past has nothing to do with this but can you imagine if she has had such a hard time already, how the pressure of looks would make you feel, im sure she's tired of having to talk through her problems and would much rather be a wife and possibly in time a mother.
What I think I would most like to say is, that i think this problem does lie with you like you said, its an insercurity thing that you havent acheived all you had wanted, if you wife doesnt stay the same way for you to prove to yourself everyday. Let her blossom into a woman and love every bit of her as it is, because id hate her to eventually lose the weight and you to still not be happy. So please seek help for this, go and talk to someone on your own first so you dont feel the need to reassure her every few minutes that you really do love her.
I hope you can learn that acheivement in life that you can look back on, is something so much more satisfying than eternal beauty but the love of a companion through life and the joy of what you have brought into the world, i wish you the best of luck.
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A
female
reader, eyeswideopen +, writes (26 October 2007):
 Okay after reading your novel, I can suggest with all certainty that you need some therapy. Your obsession over your wife's imperfect weight is not healthy. And brother you are obsessed. Living up to your perfect standards must be very tiresome for your wife, I hope her self-esteem can be bolstered somehow. Perhaps you can do it for her after you get help.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (26 October 2007): You should seek counseling. You have a problem it is becoming your wife's problem and it will destroy her. No one can live under constant critisism and rejection. We all need love and acceptance. You talk about your wife's preference in other women...is she bi-sexual? In order for you to understand what it is like to live with you, the shoe would have to be on the other foot...what are your wife's expectations from you? If you couldn't provide the money she has become accustomed to would she react by rejecting you? Men are not judged by they pysical attractiveness, they are judged by what they can provide. Men look for models, women for providers. Does your wife love you unconditionally? Does that make you feel good? Perhaps you don't love yourself unconditionally and put others under the same scrutiny as yourself. Love is the ultimate experience in life, not money, not sex, not material things. What is your wife to you? Do you want to make her happy or miserable? If you continue to critisize her you may find that you are the one being rejected when someone comes along and loves her just the way she is.
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A
male
reader, Richard_EMids +, writes (26 October 2007):
Hi - just to let you know I've read it. I understand many of the psychological points you are making. I need a couple of days to think about it. Interesting.
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