Hold, I don't know you or Mrs. Hold personally and I don't know the details of your past being that I've only been here for a little over a year. From what I gather, Mrs. Hold has not been interested in sex for almost the entire marriage, has vastly overspent and lied about it, did not want to go to MC or do the homework necessary, all of which aided in your spiral down into withdrawal and depression.

That's my outsider's view in 25 words or less. LOL

Now I'm going to go out on a limb and make some big [censored] assumptions (which will probably be wrong, but maybe there will be something in there that will allow you to take a new view).

I see Mrs. Hold as someone who has major self esteem issues. How and why they developed, well I don't know and...there's not much you or she can do to change that. How she appears to deal with them is to hide. She used to use food. She avoids sex because it's too much "out there" and leaves her to vulnerable. I guess you could even say that being fat gave her an extra layer of protection.

But now she's dealing with the weight issue. Pardon the pun, but that's huge. She has a new body image, physically. Mentally she is trying to catch up. She still appears to be very uncomfortable with the entire intimate nature of sex...she can't even *say* it; she has to communicate via hand motions and facial expressions.

It would be ideal if she could really get on board the MB program and realize that SF is a huge need for you and she needs to do whatever she can to meet it. She already is meeting other, less important needs of yours quite well...DS, FC, right?

I might get flamed for saying this...especially from the other guys on the board who insist SF is a valid and important need for men. I don't disagree (and I agree it is for women too, just not in the same way, perhaps). But I thought I'd throw it out there....

What if you tried to NOT equate everything back in your life to sex. What if you tried to figure out what other needs SF fills besides the obvious and focus a bit on those? When you have SF you are of course getting sex. But are you not also getting affection and admiration? And perhaps conversation? And recreational companionship?

I'm not suggesting you bury your need for SF. Just realize that there might be other needs of yours that are getting wrapped up in SF and try to figure out other areas of your life where those needs can be met *in addition* to being met in the SF area. Perhaps Mrs. Hold would be more than willing to step up to the plate and ramp up Admiration, Affection, Conversation.

Perhaps you can pull back on the degree of honesty. I'm not suggesting don't be honest with her. But this statement: right after she admitted to you that she was freaked out...

probably freaked her out more.

Maybe you could have just told her that she is the major focus of your attention and thoughts and left it at that, without sharing what you think you need to do?

Sometimes I try to put myself in Mrs. Hold's position and I empathize with her because I immediately feel a lot of *pressure*...that the success in your life is totally dependent upon HER. I feel a lot of this in my own marriage, so I might be projecting. I can tell you that I wind up feeling resentful about it.

I wish that my husband could base his self-esteem on well..himself!