No longer attracted to my spouse! Help?
Hello. I'm new here and I've been searching for a safe space as an outlet to share my feelings without judgement. Not sure if that will happen but here goes anyway. I met my now wife 10 years ago. The is is going to sound like every cliche I've ever heard but I find it's now my reality...at first everything was great. She was physically my type and also had the personality I'd always wanted in a partner. Our sex life was better than great. That lasted a while too. But over the last few years she has developed habits that she didn't have when we met. She has gained quite a bit of weight (before anyone calls me shallow I was also overweight and have lost over 100 lbs myself and have worked hard and kept it off.) and aside from that has seemed to lose interest in her physical appearance at all. I know we get comfortable with each other but I feel we should still consider our mate and keeping yourself attractive for them. She also has developed other habits like excessively passing gas and burping constantly, picking her teeth at the dinner table and other things that had she been this way I probably would never have wanted to even live with her!I have tried to be supportive, cook healthy meals, work out with her and encourage her but nothing helps. I find myself not wanting to make love anymore. And when I do I have to drink a few glasses of wine to get myself in the mood. All of this makes me feel incredibly bad! I miss feeling sexually attracted to and enjoying making love. On the other hand she has a good heart, has helped me raise my daughter since she was little and is financially stable. I would be a fool to let her go. At the same time, ive been very depress and feel hopeless that I will never experience the romance and satisfaction we had and I’ll have to live without passsion for the rest of my life. I don’t know what to do.
@Kyc1973 .One thing I have discovered over time I'd the amount of live and attraction you feel toward a long term partner is not necessarily consistent. Sometimes you feel strongly and sometimes you don't. And the tedium of everyday life can take a huge toll on a marriage. Bills paid, shopping, cooking, cleaning, chores. You don't have the luxury of just being together unstressed. This is one thing to consider.
Some of this sounds familiar. My spouse complains of my weight gain, bad habits too. My feeling is I want to be loved as I am, which dosent mean I shouldn't try to moderate the habits that are annoying
I wonder if maybe she is experiencing depression. Sometimes loosing interest in ones apparency can indicate that. And sometimes life just gets to you, especially with covid, when our lives are limited.
Have you thought of councelling? Is she willing to discuss this with you? You should accept her as she is but you don't have to like everything about her. I find it hard to do any changing if im not accepted.
It sounds like you two have a lot going for you. But I get there's big issues too. Anyway just a few things to think about.. good luck.
@Riverswancycnus
thank you for responding. I appreciate your point of view. I totally get how the every day routine can take away some of the spark of marrried life. I don't have a problem with that and I get it. I myself have struggled with depression my whole life, while she has not. I think her eating habits are just due to boredom and probably work stress. I get it because iVe always been a stress eater myself. I suppose I am just disappointed that I kept my weight off and she just doesn't seem to care. She no longer wants to dress nicely either. I can't control her though, only myself I've come to realize. I do want to emphasize that i do love her with all my heart. I am just really struggling with my la know attraction. We used to have so much chemistry. It's still there emotionally but I just cannot help that the attraction has left. I wish desperately that this wasn't the case! Quarantine with a 15 teen daughter and not having had any sort of alone time or vacation the two of us in years makes matters worse. I am to the point of thinking I will have to resign myself to no longer experiencing that sort of connection between us anymore. I plan on staying in our marriage, she is my best friend, but I want more than that. Picturing 20 +years with this aspect of our marriage gone makes me extremely sad. She always says we can go to counseling but when time comes there's always an excuse. And I'm scared if I admit this to her she'll want to divorce.
@Kyc1973. Covid takes such a tool and we haven't had a vacation in years either. Know excstely what you mean. Would it help if you did special things for her? I always appreciate a cup of tea for example. Or go for a drive somewhere if you have a car. Stuff to break the routine. I think you're going thru what a lot of couples do after a certain amount of time and covid makes it so much harder.
@Kyc1973 .I read somewhere one of the best things to do is find an interest neither of you know anything about and persur it together. Interesting thought anyway.
