My Husband Has Gained Weight and I’m Not Attracted to Him (What I Didn’t Expect)

He pulled his shirt over his head last night and I looked away. I was standing near the closet folding laundry. He was changing after work. His stomach folded over his waistband and I caught myself staring at the floor instead. Not because I was busy. Not because the laundry needed attention. I looked away because the sight made my chest tighten in a way I hate. Then I felt sick. Then I felt worse.

My husband has gained weight and I'm not attracted to him. I typed that and deleted it three times before I let it stay. I keep telling myself this is a phase. This is stress. This is what happens after eight years of marriage. But I look at him across the dinner table and I feel nothing below the neck. I still laugh at his jokes. I still care if he has a bad day. I still love him. I know I do. But I don't want him to touch me. I don't want to touch him. And I don't know when that started.

This didn't happen all at once. I keep circling back to this part. Two years ago he was heavier than when we met, sure, but I didn't notice in a bad way. He carried it differently. Now his clothes fit wrong. He buys larger sizes and pretends they were always his size. He breathes harder going up stairs. I notice everything. I notice every single thing. And I hate myself for noticing.

We walked through the grocery store last weekend. He was in front of me pushing the cart. I watched a woman glance at him, then glance at me, and I knew what she was measuring. I dropped back a few steps so we wouldn't look like a couple. He turned around and smiled and asked if I wanted the good tortillas. I said yes. I didn't take his hand. I used to take his hand without thinking. Now I carry my phone in my right hand so I have an excuse.

The couch is the worst. He sits down and his thigh spreads against mine. I shift. I pull a blanket over my lap. I get up to get water I don't need. He doesn't notice. He thinks we're watching the show. He laughs at something on screen and reaches over to squeeze my knee and I have to force myself not to flinch. I don't flinch. I smile. But my whole body goes stiff until he moves his hand. He thinks everything is fine. That makes it far worse.

I started avoiding the couch. I sit in the armchair now. I say the light is better for reading. He believes me. We used to sit pressed together under one blanket and I would fall asleep on his shoulder. Now I choose the chair and he stays on the couch and the gap between us feels like something I dug myself.

We had sex two weeks ago. I turned my face into the pillow. I closed my eyes. I went through the motions and waited for it to end. He finished and rolled over breathing hard and said he loved me. I said it back. I meant it. But my body felt like it belonged to someone else. I wondered what kind of wife does this. What kind of woman lies there and feels repulsed by her own husband. I cried in the bathroom after. He was asleep.

Before this it had been a month. Before this, six weeks. I stopped initiating. He stopped asking as much. Now he reaches for me on Saturdays and I say I have a headache or I am tired or I got my period early. He accepts it. He kisses my cheek and rolls over. I lie there awake feeling guilty and relieved at the same time.

His mother said something at Easter. She didn't mean to. We were sitting outside and she patted his stomach and said "someone's eating well." She laughed. He laughed. I felt my face get hot. I wanted to disappear. I sat there smiling with a potato salad I couldn't taste. Everyone moved on. I stayed stuck on it. Other people see it too. This isn't only in my head. I should feel less crazy. I feel more ashamed.

I haven't said any of this out loud. Not to my sister. Not to my best friend. What would I even say? "I love you but your body makes me want to leave the room?" I can't. I won't. So I say nothing. I make his coffee in the morning. I ask about his meetings. I kiss him goodbye on the cheek. I perform a wife who is still attracted to her husband. I perform it well enough I almost convince myself.

But I don't convince myself. Not when I catch my reflection next to his in the bathroom mirror. Not when I see photos from our vacation last summer and realize I was standing apart from him in every single one. My arms crossed. My body angled away. I looked like someone standing next to a friend, not a husband. I deleted the photos from my phone. Not because he looked bad. Because I looked like a liar.

I keep asking myself if this is me. Maybe I am broken. Maybe I am shallow. I keep circling back to the same thought. My husband has gained weight and I'm not attracted to him. I say it in my head and wait for it to feel less true. It doesn't. I tell myself attraction isn't everything. I tell myself marriage is deeper than bodies. I believe those things. I do. But belief doesn't make me want him. Belief doesn't make my skin respond when he touches my back in the kitchen. Belief doesn't stop me from pulling away.

And here is the part I don't type easily. I am tired too. I am gaining weight. I eat at night after he falls asleep. I sit on the same couch and feel my own body getting softer and I do nothing. I order food I don't need. I skip walks. I feel heavy in a way that has nothing to do with pounds. I feel stuck. I feel like we are two people pressing into the same couch cushions and calling it a life. I don't have energy for anything. Not for him. Not for myself. Not for fixing whatever this is. I don't even know if I want to fix it. I don't know what fixing would look like.

I read something late one night describing how these changes happen quietly. Not with fights. Not with announcements. Just with small withdrawals. Looking away. Pulling back. Choosing the far side of the bed. The article sat open on my phone for an hour while I stared at the ceiling.

This felt uncomfortably close to what I was experiencing. A woman wrote about gaining weight and watching her partner drift. She described the way normal conversations start feeling like performances. The way you can love someone and still feel them becoming a stranger in your own home. I read it twice. I wanted to send it to him. I didn't.

This was the first time I felt like someone explained what was happening without sugarcoating it. Not a therapist. Not a friend trying to be nice. Just someone saying the quiet part out loud. Attraction isn't a choice. Bodies change and so do responses. You can love someone and still feel your stomach drop when they reach for you. I sat in the dark and felt seen. I wanted to throw up.

He came into the bedroom while I was typing this. He kissed my forehead and asked why I was still awake. I said I couldn't sleep. He said he loved me. He said it the way he always says it. Like he means it. Like he has no idea anything is wrong. I watched him climb into bed and pull the covers up and I felt the old love rise up in my chest. The real one. The one I married him for. The love is still there. The love never left. But now it sits next to this other thing. This cold, honest thing refusing to let me pretend.

I didn't pull away when he kissed me. I let his lips stay on my forehead for a second longer than usual. I don't know what that means. I don't know if it means anything. I am still here. I am still his wife. I still don't know what to do with the truth I am typing.