Hmm..Where to begin?

Before I got married, my wife and I went to see a marriage counselor to get some advice and some insight on what to expect. One of the things he told us was that, there will be times when you don't feel love. I haven't really felt love for my wife in over a year. I have a lot of resentment towards her because of things that have happened in our marriage.

She lacks any sort of initiative and has no sense of motivation what so ever. She used to set goals for herself and strive to achieve them. That was something that I found very attractive. I want to be with and indepedent woman; not someone who has to rely on my to do everything. I didn't marry her to become her guardian. There are tons of other things. She complains we do not have enough money and yet I make 3 times as much as her and work between 45-60 hours a week. She has passed up many opurtunities to advance in her career because those advancements would take her out of her confort zone. Then she has the nerve to spend money on frivilous things that she uses once and puts in storage. I can't help feeling resentment towards her because I feel like I am pulling a overwhelming majority of the weight and I feel like we don't have the same goals. When the topic of goals comes up she basically says she wants to stay right where she is. I'm finishing my degree and working all of those hours and trying to make life better for us but she doesn't seem to be.

We share housework. She doesn't do more than I and I don't do more than she does. This was a problem at first as she was doing a great deal of the housework but we've since agreed that I will take care of half of the work and she will take care of the other half.

Our sex life is horrible. We might have sex 3 times in two weeks. When we do have sex it is absolute crap. There is no foreplay involved and it obviously hurts her when I enter her because the "motor" is not running. We rarely are in anything but the missionary possition. I know that she has no real sex drive and she probably considers it more for me than for her but for god's sake, lets do something to fix it! I've asked her about it and she just says that she doesn't have much of a sex drive. What would make me happy is if I felt like my wife wanted me and wanted to be physical with me. I feel that, right now, she doesn't care whether we are intamite. She says that sitting on the couch watching TV is being close. I can't do that night after night!

Hobbies are another thing. We have nothing in common. We can't do anything physical because she doesn't like anything like that. She is about 80 pounds overweight and has back problems that prevent her from going out and doing anything other than walking. She doesn't even want to do that half the time because she is so tired from her long 6 hours at work. She get's into her pajamas as soon as she gets home and doesn't want to go out and do anything else.

Like I mentioned, she is very overweight. I still find her attractive because I love here. I've noticed that what I find physicaly attractive has changed greatly because of my being attracted to my wife. I still think she is beautiful but I know that her obesity is a very serious health concern and it puts strains on our relationship. The food that she eats is rediculously unhealthy. Then she wonders why her stomach is upset every day and why she spends a half hour in the bathroom. (She has her gal bladder out and anyone who has had it out knows what happens when you eat fatty food.)

I guess my main theme here is, even though it's not my job to be her parrent, I still feel like I'm being taken advantage of because I'm being made to support her. I don't feel as though she contributes to our financial situation nor do I think she's taking any steps to improve our marriage. In fact I think she is a hinderance to our financial situation more than anything. She is wasteful and she blatantly takes what we have for granted. She rarely wants to be intamite and wonders why I start voicing any sort of frustration. She has hinted around that she wants me to dress better and get my hair cut more often but I figure, after all of this, why the ****** should I? I really don't care about my hair or the clothes I wear. I don't look like a slob or anything. I just wear casual T-Shirt and jeans most of the time. So the only reason I would change is for her. But why would I do anything for her when I know that the things that are making me so unhappy will continue even after I've addressed them with my wife. I have before and nothing has happened.

After all of this, it's been hard for me to keep that sense of respect for her that was so integral in my falling in love with here. It's been gone for quite a while actually. I really haven't felt love for my wife in over a year because of it. Please offer constructive critism to my situation. I know that you only get half of the story but if you were me what would you think and what course of action would you take?

Let me ask you a couple of questions. Have you read his needs/her needs? Have you filled out and had her fill out the emotional needs surveys? Have you two filled out the recreational activies surveys? I guess what I'm asking is what steps have you taken in the last year.

You've stated a lot of things that are directly related to Emotional Needs. I'd be interested to know what you top 5 are in order and what your wife's top 5 are. Have y'all considered marriage councelling?

I can only second all that the previous poster has maintained.

Now I am going to add a little insanity to the mix.

Is it possible that she thinks you are as "fat, dumb, and happy" with the situation as you say she is?

You say you are like her "guardian".

Heck, at this point you might as well go all the way. She wants a daddy--might as well tell her what to do. Do the shopping, put her on a diet, count her calories, sign her up for weight watchers and drive her there, throw the junk food out--whatever it takes. This can only work if you keep it light, fun, loving, and even sexy.

Women get real depressed when they put on weight and this depression just feeds on itself with more food and weight.
They know what they need to do but just can't. Sometimes they need to be snapped out of it with some kind of loving intervention.

I am a strong advocate of respecting autonomy in a marriage, but sometimes a spouse needs to step in. If your wife had a lump in her breast but was too depressed about it to call the doctor, you would take the matter into your own hands--do what ever it took. And she would be grateful.

Most men only get hostile about their wife's weight gain and this only makes the situation worse. The longer she puts off dealing with it, the more he reacts and the more she eats and withdraws.

About the exercise...

Does she like to dance? Most women do--heck of a way to loose weight! And dancing can be so intimate--so sexy.

The best way to warm up a woman to sex and passion is to woo and pet for a few days without the actual intercouse. Tell her what you are doing ahead of time though and say you are doing it because you love her.

I agree with the others advice and I will also put my two cents worth in. I am a mix between your wife and yourself. I have made some serious mistakes that I now am dearly paying for. First of all was your wife spoiled as a child? Was she made to work or was everything given to her? Because the first part about how your wife has no initiative was me in the past! I grew up extremely sheltered and everything was handed to me on a silver platter. My parents thought they were doing me a favor but I dissagree. What about you? Were you made to work from the get go by your parents? Did you struggle to get things that mainly were given to other kids like nothing? Have you had to work for everything in life? This was my husband's childhood and the difference in how we were raised has made some major conflicts. Also was your wife very pretty,skinny, perhaps a girly girl? Did she really take pride in her looks before the weight gain? I gained weight after marriage and I felt very unattractive and ALWAYS wore nothing but pj's, didn't want to go out because that meant wearing more tightly fitted clothing and made me very uncomfortable in front of others. It affected everything in my life and marriage. I refused to buy new clothes and had no interest in keeping myself up. I felt unable to control my weight and was depressed. My husband,like you, kept telling me that he felt overwhelmed by his workload and that we were never going to get anywhere in life. He said he was tired of having to be my parent. He also kept telling me to please wear normal clothes and was saying that he wanted me to eat healthier.He would tell me of these outfits he would see in the mall and how desperately he wanted to see me in them. It only depressed me more and backfired. I began feeling like he didn't understand my problem, he thought I was lazy and just didn't give a hoot how he felt but he was dead wrong! I desperately wanted to change but couldn't seem to get a hold of myself. And then when he would nag at me about the clothes, I would question his love for me. I was feeling so gross and ugly at that time and I remember thinking that he was so insensitive to my lack of self control. I felt that he didn't care about my feelings, so the thought of caring about his was out of the question. I also felt scared that when we began to get older he would just leave me for some other younger women or something. It had no idea of the His Needs,Her Needs book and thought that the need for an attractive spouse was entirely superficial. One way that my husband helped me to start getting out of this rut was #1: small amounts of tough love and #2 he would start buying me clothes. He started with very feminie pajama pants with matching tops, and slowly stepped up more and more. It really helped because it started to make me feel more attractive and then I began to desire it. One more thing, don't give up trying to reach her, you just have to be creative. I have come a LONG way since he took some very smart steps in helping me and our relationship. You will be in my prayers!