He's Just Not Up for It Anymore (20 page)

This 46-year-old man speculates that his wife gained weight to guarantee rejection—a self-fulfilling prophecy: My gut feel is that she’s living out a pattern in which she gets people to reject her. The weight gain seems to be a way for her to “create” the reality that I no longer find her attractive. Very destructive. That, and comments like “If I don’t have sex for the rest of my life it will be too soon” followed by (almost in the next breath) “I really DO miss sex. Not sex with YOU, just sex.”

Very confusing.

The woman described in the preceding paragraph is revealing ambivalence about herself, her sexuality, and her weight. Her consistency is contradiction, and she uses cruel words to refuse her husband before he rejects her, which she is certain he will. Her husband is probably correct in stating her weight gain is for concealed and destructive reasons. In reality, they are both “living out a pattern,” in that he doesn’t seem to be suggesting she get help with her issues, preferring instead to live with the situation and feel oppressed.

Maybe It’s the Food

Weight gain is simply the result of consuming too many calories and not exercising enough for too many years. Life is stressful, delicious food is comforting, and eating out, especially in fast-food restaurants, can easily push daily caloric intake over the top. It’s amazing how easy it is to gain weight. There are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat.

So, if you believe your weight to be perfect, but without realizing it eat just 20 calories a day more than you need (about the amount of no sex please, we’re eating

167

calories in a teaspoon of sugar), you will have consumed an extra 7,280 calories in a year—a weight gain of two pounds. In five years, you will be ten pounds heavier. Of course, this is theoretical. No one, not the most avid calorie counter, can possibly take in the same amount of calories, plus 20, on a daily basis. But you can see how you can eat well, be really careful, and still gain a
little
weight, which is not particularly significant to anyone but yourself, and only then if you are consumed by fantastical images of beauty even as you have birthdays and babies. However, if you gain
ten
pounds in one year, and don’t change negative eating/exercise habits, in a decade you might be morbidly obese and wonder why.

Maybe It’s to Numb the Pain

I buried my sexual feelings with drinking and eating. The only sexual thoughts I had were in my dreams. (Female, 60s) In the mid-1980s, marital therapist and former psychological director of Weight Watchers International Richard B. Stuart and his wife, Barbara Jacobson, conducted a national survey on women, weight, sex, and marriage. They had nine thousand responses. Women self-identifying as fairly to very happily married had an average weight gain of 18.4 pounds in the first thirteen years of marriage; those who claimed to be fairly to extremely unhappy gained an average of 42.6

pounds. (The unhappy women were, on average, five pounds heavier on their wedding day, which was believed to be statistically insignificant.) They did not offer a control study of weight gained by single people over the same time period. However, marriage may be hazardous to your waist, perhaps due to security and contentment, a perception that once married one can let go a bit because the game has been won, or because staying home and caring for young children can be tedious—with the one available and constant perk, a close proximity 168

HE’S JUST NOT UP FOR IT ANYMORE

to the refrigerator. But why, Stuart and Jacobson asked, do unhappily married women gain more than two and a half times as much?

They theorized that the main reasons are one or more of the following:

To avoid sex with their partner.

To prevent flirtations that might lead to infidelity.

To justify the abuse in a physically or psychologically abusive relationship.

To not give in to a husband’s controlling demands.

The following woman, who is 54 years old and eighty pounds overweight, says that her husband stopped being sexual right before their fifteenth wedding anniversary. They had started a new business, and he was working long hours and rarely home.

At first I thought he was just tired, but I had begun to gain weight at that point, too. I wasn’t fat then, just a little overweight. I tried to seduce him, which he didn’t react to, so I became angrier and angrier and that was when I started to eat and drink more and more.

Clearly, there may be underlying psychogenic factors surround-ing obesity. As sex therapists Gerald Weeks and Nancy Gambescia state when writing about the phenomena of perceived body image and inhibited sexual desire: “The emphasis on appearance [can be]

a red herring or a simple explanation for a deeper, unrecognized problem.” June Reinisch says: “If a person gains that kind of weight, it can be a problem for some men. The question is: what’s happening in her life and in their lives that it can occur? It really doesn’t happen overnight, we can all agree. A woman doesn’t gain ninety pounds in a year.” When asked if she believed it to be a fear of inti-no sex please, we’re eating

169

macy, unexpressed anger, or hostility, Dr. Reinisch replied: “It could be [any or] all of those things or her unhappiness due to depression.

The question is, when a woman starts to gain a lot of weight, what’s going on in their relationship that they haven’t dealt with together, as a couple?”

I think his lack of sexual interest is one of the main reasons I had gained the weight. I didn’t put on weight until after we stopped having sex. Looking back, I think it was my way of giving myself an excuse for his no longer wanting me. I gained forty pounds and have taken twenty off. (Female, 30s) SOME MEN DON’T WANT THEIR WIVES

TO LOSE WEIGHT

Most women aspire to be thin, but if they aren’t, there are men who prefer it that way. Some men don’t want a trophy wife because
they
want to be perceived as the prize. Others feel superior because they are thin as Jack Sprat, but their wives resemble his spouse. Although these men may pretend to encourage efforts to lose weight, they secretly hope for failure.

A man might say he wants his wife to lose weight, but in actuality be threatened by her doing so. A newly thin wife might expect her husband to be more sexual, especially if he has been saying he lost passion because of her weight gain. Stuart and Jacobson give an example of a man falsely blaming impotence on his wife’s obesity, and then having to sadistically continue the charade to avoid the truth:

“For years he refused to have sex with me, claiming that he only found slender women attractive. Believing this, I worked hard at losing weight, and actually got to three pounds under goal. But he still says I’m too fat. Currently he points to his secretary, who is 5'10" and 170

HE’S JUST NOT UP FOR IT ANYMORE

weighs 115 pounds as a woman that he finds sexy.” In their research, men were often depicted as cruel, comparing their spouses unfavorably to thinner actresses, acquaintances, or even former lovers. Many were accused of sabotaging attempts at weight loss by bringing home fat-tening foods or complaining about the expense of a health club mem-bership. Some women even reported physical abuse as they were close to attaining their goal.

Other men are apprehensive that a slender wife might stray, or is getting thin for some other guy. They might think a newly attractive partner might demand more attention, complicating a life they find comfortable. Or they may simply dislike change.

AND SOME MEN WANT TO HELP

Of course, some husbands genuinely care about their wives and want them to lose weight for positive reasons; they just don’t explain themselves effectively. Dr. Reinisch, who believes conversation should begin early, after a weight gain of about twenty pounds, suggests expressing concern without negativity. The husband might start by saying: “Honey, what’s going on here? It’s not that I’m losing my attraction for you, but something’s wrong here where you are gaining so much weight. What’s going on in your life? What can we do as a couple?” Sharing in a problem and its solution, rather than making it one-sided, is an effective tactic for any marital conflict.

Some men feel deeply rejected by their partner’s weight gain and refusal to diet and exercise, believing that it is an indication that she just doesn’t care if she’s sexy anymore and therefore doesn’t love him.

Just as it seems illogical that one can stop being sexual for years, do nothing about it, and still demand fidelity from a mate, it seems equally illogical that one can gain a great deal of weight and adopt a less than healthy lifestyle and still expect to be desired with frequency and great passion. Both situations are possible, of course, but no sex please, we’re eating

171

unrealistic, and tend to exist within the boundaries of religion and culture, not logic.

A BATTLE FOR CONTROL

My wife has never been a petite woman, but in college she was not nearly as heavy as she is now. In 1983, I asked her to marry me but asked that she promise to lose some of her extra weight. She agreed, so we got married. It took about two years for me to realize that she had no intention of losing weight. In fact, she started getting bigger. We began to fight about her weight but kept having sex. The fighting and growing lack of attraction on my part began to take its toll both in frequency and quality of the sex until I told her not to touch me anymore.

We have not had sex in sixteen years. Her weight has gotten up to 350 pounds. She currently weighs around 260 pounds—

she is 5'5". (Male, 40s)

The man in the preceding quote married a woman who, in his opinion, needed to lose weight. Similar to the man quoted at the beginning of this chapter, he intended to turn her physically into the woman he desired, a plan that was doomed to fail, leaving him frustrated and in need of exerting power in some other way. His partner responded by not only refusing to lose weight but gaining more, checkmating their relationship at the expense of her health. With a current BMI of 43.3, she would be classified as morbidly obese. In a follow-up interview, we asked if there was any other reason the intimacy stopped. He replied:

There wasn’t at first. In the beginning, weight was the only issue. However, after all these years I just don’t feel an emotional connection with my wife anymore. At this point, even if she lost 172

HE’S JUST NOT UP FOR IT ANYMORE

lots of weight, I don’t think we could reconnect physically or emotionally. I’m not sure what will happen to us. I’m committed to getting my son through college; we are not in the best of shape financially so staying together will help. After that, I’m not sure.

When questioned about his wife’s reaction, he answered: There hasn’t been much reaction. My wife has always been pretty tight-lipped about her feelings. She has said some things about it—that it hurt her when I refused to have sex with her.

But, most of the past sixteen years she has barely acknowledged it.

When asked if he had any other sexual outlets, he said: I was celibate for the first eleven of the sixteen years; since then I’ve had several affairs and a number of casual encounters. Besides getting just sex, I’ve gotten companionship, warmth, and intimacy.

He says his father-in-law is “harsh, judgmental, and overbear-ing—always on her about her weight. I really think staying fat is a way of her resisting his control of her.”

Curiously, he blames her father, seemingly unaware of replicating the man’s negative pattern. He takes no responsibility for his own bad behavior. His wife is staying in a relationship that is unpleasant but familiar, and it is possible that her lack of acknowledgment about sexual problems and obesity are a way of keeping some control, no matter how dangerous, over her life.

no sex please, we’re eating

173

IS THERE SEX AFTER WEIGHT LOSS?

Thirty-five percent of the male respondents answered yes to the question “If a reason was weight gain, do you think you would have sex with your wife again if she lost weight?” Forty-two percent said they didn’t know, and the rest (23%) answered they would not. The women were skeptical that weight loss would result in bringing sex back into the marriage. Although 47 percent said they were trying to lose weight, only 10

percent of the dieters were certain it would make any difference, 52

percent were uncertain, and 37 percent felt it wouldn’t change a thing.

They may be underestimating the positive physical and emotional results of weight loss on libido, their own as well as their partner’s.

It is certainly possible to restore an active and exciting sex life once the pounds start to come off. Once a woman begins to diet seriously, her partner might be turned on by what he perceives as positive attention, and she might feel newly confident and sexual by the early success. Julian Slowinski cautions that the outcome might well be positive, but whether or not it is depends upon the rest of the relationship; June Reinisch said absolutely, if a couple deals with whatever the issues were that caused the weight gain in the first place. She adds that some women gain a lot of weight during pregnancy, and then keep it on, and that is something that the couple can beneficially work on together, as a team. If he doesn’t need to lose weight, he can be her workout coach, changing his coaching venue from de-livery room to gym. This puts him in a positive position where he is assisting with her health and well-being, at a time when she can really use the extra attention and support. And if and when she loses the weight, their sex lives will probably “come back with a roar.”

We believe that if you are a significantly overweight woman married to a man who no longer desires intimacy, a sensible diet along with exercise is an excellent idea whether or not you think your 174

HE’S JUST NOT UP FOR IT ANYMORE

weight gain contributed to the problem. Remember, you are losing weight for yourself, and not for him. However, aside from the previously mentioned health benefits, and they are numerous, the change in your appearance (and maybe even your sense of self-worth) may alter your husband’s mood and trigger a rise in his levels of dopamine and norepinephrine.

eleven

MAYBE HE’S GAY? ASEXUAL?

I was kind of hoping that he was gay. I thought we could live together as friends and raise our kids. It would have been a relief that it wasn’t about me and clear that there was nothing I could do about it. (Female, 40)

It’s understandable that a woman might want to believe that the pas-sionless man she’s married to is, in actuality, not interested in her because he would prefer being intimate with other men. There would be nothing she could do; losing her anger or twenty pounds wouldn’t mean a thing. It’s not that he’s just not that into her, he’s just not that

“into” her entire gender. It’s in his genes, it’s the way he was born, and she’s in no way to blame for the lack of sex in their marriage.

What a relief! And, oddly enough, it can be less painful for some women to believe that even if he’s cheating, it’s not with another woman.

However, most of our female respondents were realistic. They didn’t think that their spouses were gay; in fact, 82 percent disagreed with the idea, and only 2 percent agreed with it. (Sixteen percent were neutral, which we interpret as uncertain.) Of the men, less than 176

HE’S JUST NOT UP FOR IT ANYMORE

1 percent identified as gay, and 4 percent as “neutral.” About half the neutral men said they were bisexual.

It was once generally accepted that gay men (that is, men who have sex exclusively with other men) comprised about 4 percent of the total population in Western countries. The University of Chicago’s seminal 1994 survey, however, looked at the question of sexual orientation differently. Focusing on 18- to 59-year-old men, it explored three different aspects of homosexuality: being sexually attracted to persons of the same gender, actually having sex with them, and self-identifying as gay. When phrased this way, 6 percent said they were attracted to other men, 5 percent claimed they had sex with another man at least once since they turned 18, but only 2.8 percent self-identified as homosexual.

It therefore becomes understandable that while only 2 percent of our female respondents are certain their spouses are gay and less than 1 percent of the males replied they were gay, many indicated uncertainty. Indeed, these men (and women) may be conflicted and confused. A 1990 study conducted by University of Chicago sociologist E. O. Laumann found that “3.9 percent of American men who had ever been married had sex with men in the previous five years.” Laumann estimated that between 2 and 4 percent of American married women were either now, or had previously been, in marriages of “mixed orientation,” and they may or may not have been aware of the situation.

However, it is also important to consider what a small percentage of the male population is, in actuality, homosexual, and that the Chicago studies were conducted in the 1990s. Much has happened since.

Gay men are having commitment ceremonies and adopting children.

Support for same-sex marriage has been tabulated as high as 40 percent in the overall population, and for college-aged people it is even more widely accepted. There is far less cause to be secretive about being gay; in most large American cities it’s both accepted, and mainstream. Indeed, in America’s twelve largest cities the gay population is estimated to be, on average, 9 percent. Few young men (at least in maybe he’s gay? asexual?

177

those large cities) have any realistic reason to keep their orientation private and to choose heterosexual marriage as the only way to have the “normal” family life of their dreams. (Some, however, may. As we write this, there are no openly gay senators or governors, which might be why Jim McGreevey, the former New Jersey governor who was blackmailed and “outed” by a former lover in 2004, made his clandes-tine lifestyle choice.)