I'm not going to delve into all of our problems (wall of text is long enough as it is), of which we've had many, but we're both agreed to at least the basic principles of MB. What I'm most concerned about is a comment my wife ***edit*** made when we spoke this evening, trying to resolve our separation. She said it was to the point that if she "didn't leave one way, [she] would leave another," - she was having suicidal thoughts and is now getting treatment for them. She is sure that the problem below is the deepest cause of her withdrawal over the last couple years, so it's my first priority.

I've become a nag about her appearance, and more importantly, her health. When we were dating and married, we agreed that her health and self-care would be something we'd work on together. As a result of her upbringing and emotional traumas, she has a hard time taking proper care of her self. She's diabetic, clinically obese, and her father died of a heart attack in his twenties - clearly her health is on my mind. These were issues we agreed to work on together when we were dating and continuing into our marriage. As we slipped into Love Busters, her efforts became less serious over time. One of my emotional needs is definitely an Attractive Partner, so nagging became a really bad habit in efforts to get her to 'behave'. She has always been 'cute' to me, and her body remains attractive to me in many ways. However her weight (almost all carried in her belly, the worst healthwise) and her self-care is a real problem spot (showering, medication, hair and skin care, teeth, and so on).

Anyway, my poor reactions to her lifestyle have led her to the conviction that she simply cannot fulfill that need for an attractive mate, though she says she still loves me very much, she wants me to be free to find someone I'm attracted to.

I have NOT had an affair nor have I had the opportunity or motive, or even friendships with women. At worst, and at ***edit*** behest, I've pointed out women with traits I admire, but never meant as though to say "I'd rather be with someone that looks like that," I just as often point out traits I don't like (too skinny, too goth, weird hair, what have you.) Part of the issue is simply that I'm not easy to arouse, sexually. It could be a hormonal issue with me, or it could just be natural. I require more mental stimulation than just looking at something 'sexy', so even when my heart says "I'd like to be sexual right now" my body doesn't always agree, and so I've made her feel like she's not attractive enough to stimulate me. I've never even been titillated by nudity or pornography. Our computers are right next to each other and I have nothing to hide from her. Feminine bodies are beautiful, of course, but I don't 'rise to attention' for Playboy. On the other hand, there are things she does which actively repel me, and she knows this but has been reluctant to change them - for obvious reasons.

She also chose to get a breast augmentation several years ago, and (at least to my knowledge) we've both been quite satisfied with the results. She's often said how much she enjoys the change and even claimed she would like to upgrade when possible (though I told her she was wonderful as she is). She asked about getting lipo last summer, but we came to a mutual agreement (I offered some suggestions I could be enthusiastic about, without realizing it) to try a personal trainer first, but things stalled. I haven't asked her about any lingering interest since then, events the last few months have been getting in the way; she still has two months of trainer sessions she is owed. I don't need her to look like a giant barbie doll, I just want her to be mindful of her body, her health, and her appearance.

Me, I'm not herculean, but I am reasonably fit and she's never complained about my physique. We have been recreational partners, sharing roller skating, rock climbing, hiking, and many other activities. ***edit*** isn't really 'kinesthetic'; she struggles to learn new activities - for example I got the basics of 'Night Club Two-Step' in two minutes and spent three hours helping her figure it out. I'm happy to teach where I can, or let others direct her when they're more adept than I, I've learned that my teaching often leads to more feelings of inadequacy.

TL;DR - I guess the question is: Are there any suggestions on breaking through the self-doubt? I love her more than I can possibly express and I've just been blown away by the MB concepts, I wish I had made an effort to look before it got so bad. I don't want to lose her, and I definitely don't think she's as easy to replace as she wants to believe. She's committed to more talking and 'peeling the onion' of her feelings of inadequacy. She says there's other things she's sussed out that she needs to tell me, and that they'll hurt, but for me, nothing could hurt worse than being apart and knowing how badly I've hurt her.

Welcome to MB.

Has she actually moved out?

Does your wife now about MB?

Hi Discord, welcome to Marriage Builders. If you could kindly answer a few questions it would help us understand your situation.

1. are you married? if so, how long? any children?

2. do you watch any kind of porn? look at naked women?

Do you gawk (focus) on other women? Even dressed ones?

Hi Discord sorry to hear that you are having such a hard time.

I can relate to you in so many ways. My wife has MS and we had the same kind of talk you guys had before we got married. I have found that my wife works harder to maintain the body I want with diet mainly because of her physical limitations as long as I make her feel desired by me sexually.

Unlike you I struggled with porn for years, and after I stopped porn I struggled with looking at women and thinking of them sometimes while making love to my wife. When I stopped looking at women I have found it much easier to desire my wife sexually.

So my advice to you would be to work on making your wife desirable, which would include not looking at other women or making comments about them in you head or out loud to her and others. I believe your desire for her will give her the energy to take care of her self. The 15 hours a week of undivided attention will also fuel you desire and hers as long as you are not committing any love busters.

If she's clinically obese and there are fatal medical problems in her family related to that - this isn't a PoJA issue, it's a health issue. (Health and safety outrank PoJA)

I don't think this is something the two of you can waylay with talk of personal trainers and lipo, like it would be if she was just a bit more overweight than you would like her for PA reasons.

See a doctor, maybe more than one, and follow proper medical advice. Losing weight safely from the starting position of obesity is no joke and you should go with her.

You can talk about her feelings of inadequacy and makeup etc afterwards, for now - get medical help with the pressing issue!

If she is this overweight then she will have very low energy and the thought of the task ahead will be overwhelming. However the weight loss would be very slow and simple and a doctor would explain this.

For someone tired, who has a huge weight loss task ahead, it is probably easier to talk about your PA need and about her feelings then it is to get started on a basic health issue.

Those things simply don't matter though. I'd say you want one doctors appointment with yourself in attendance and say flat out that it is for health reasons. I wouldn't get sidetracked into other issues, like your PA need or her feelings of inadequacy - I'd just say you're worried about her health and want that one half hour from her and you need either a yes or no answer.

It's not nagging if you allow people to say no to you. If she says no, tell her though it is what you want, it is up to her.

Her answer should be quite revealing, though.

Thanks for the responses and questions. In order of questions posed:

"Has she actually moved out?""Does your wife now about MB?""Are you married?""Do you watch any kind of porn? look at naked women?""Do you gawk (focus) on other women? Even dressed ones?""I struggled with looking at women and thinking of them sometimes while making love to my wife."In response to the health related stuff:

I've often said to myself that we'd be better with a housekeeper like the Brady Bunch. :p Someone to clean up, cook meals, and generally do the things we don't want to. On the other hand, she LOVES to do those tasks for random friends, so it's kinda frustrating. I do a lot of the regular chores, before anyone asks whether I'm doing my fair share, including care for her son which she gets paid for.

We ARE talking pretty well, at the moment. She is afraid that if she came back right now, she would alienate her friends who encouraged her to get away from me and things would end up right where they were before. She promised her closest supporters that she wouldn't come back for at least three months, which coincides with when she wants to end our lease at the apartment, whether we move in together again or separate more permanently. I'm okay with that, and will use the next few months to work on my behavior and understanding of my needs, and she says she'll do the same. I've sent her a link to the Basic Concepts page on ENs, and she sounded excited to look at that.

I'm slightly worried that she is masking her feelings, though. She has also become quite afraid of how I will respond to her about certain things, because I'll admit I've snapped or been grumpy with her a lot in the past, combined with her dysfunctional childhood, so she hides her feelings to such an extent that she isn't always consciously aware of them. I'm concerned that she might be holding out for me to finish school and get a job before jumping ship again, worried for my needs and willing to sacrifice her own. While honesty isn't one of my top ENs, it's hard to trust that she's being truly open when she isn't always even sure how she feels about things. (From a Jungian standpoint, from my limited understanding of it, her Persona is perhaps too rigid, obscuring her Ego from others but also from herself, therefore making self-knowledge hard and limits understanding of her Shadow. On the other hand, my Persona with her may be a little too transparent, too likely to act or speak without thinking about how it will affect her, without 'wearing a mask' or 'filtering my words'.)

I hope I don't sound like a jerk here, and if so I'd rather hear it. I sometimes come across as cold or snarky, but that isn't my intention at all. As I said before, I'm dedicated to making it work, I came into this as a lifetime bond and I'm not going to just give up. I may have been a fool, but I'm not a quitter. That being said, there IS a tiny part of my heart saying, "She wants you to move on and find someone else; maybe that would be better if she really wants to live like that." It's hard to extricate my feelings of need and love for her, my desire for her well being, my feelings of loneliness, and that little selfish part of me, to figure out what is really going on inside. She has said recently that she really does love me very much, but we can't keep abusing each other and ourselves. I think we're on the right path; she's getting personal counseling and time to work on herself, and we're both learning new behaviors to refill those LBs.

I'm going to kinda brain-dump here, please feel free to respond if you like. If I write something negative or judgmental, it's only because I'm trying to understand how I'm feeling about the situation.

We've been talking a lot, though there are times that I feel like I don't want to call because there must be a reason she didn't call me. We had a date on Tuesday, she came over and I made dinner, we talked for a few hours and watched an episode of Psych together, one of our favorites to watch together.

We've come to an enthusiastic agreement about her coming back to the apartment to stay until she's ready to move - as she really needs a few months to feel like she's capable of taking care of herself alone. Admittedly, everyone told her she should do that before we got together, to take some time to learn to be happy with herself. Anyway, that way she has her home and her own place, no extra stress of changing places and splitting up all our things, bills, et cetera. I would be temporarily staying with my family nearby, but welcome to stay over if Harmony wants me to - whether on the couch or with her.

One thing that's contributing to the delicacy with which we have to manage things: her self-esteem has always been in the tank. According to a form from her counselor, she's high on almost every symptom of codependency. Dr. H writes that some codependency in marriage may be beneficial, but when your entire self-worth and emotional state revolves around other people it starts to seem like every offhand remark is a personal attack.

I've always believed that self-worth and self-esteem are built by knowing and proving to yourself that you're able to handle difficult circumstances and not give up. Even if you don't win the game, you tried your best until the bitter end. Even just stupid little things like taking a cold shower sometimes to build endurance. I almost never feel like I can't do something, and where it takes a 'talent' I don't possess, I can accept that without feeling as though it reflects on my worth. (I'm reminded of a MASH episode where Winchester said, essentially, that he was a skilled surgeon but not a musician - no amount of practice would make it so. That's what I mean by talent here.)

Harmony seems to spend a lot of mental energy on worry. Most commonly, worry about how others will react to her words and actions. At times, it seems like she in one thought will worry about how someone sees her, and do exactly the worst thing for that particular situation. We all do it sometimes, but it's hard to watch when it happens daily. Almost as though it's a subconscious self-sabotage, like some part of her wants to fail or thinks she deserves to be unhappy. I certainly don't see her as inferior, as it might sound that way, I just wonder if there's any way I can help her thrive in this situation. I hate to see her suffer when friends or family are upset with her, she deserves to feel loved and worthy even when people are frustrated with her.

A lot of it comes from a very hard childhood, filled with abuse and neglect. Every time she would exhibit some independence or maturity, she'd be dragged down for it. The only thing that worked was to hide and to run. The fight was physically and emotionally beaten out of her, all she had left was flight. To the extent that once we saw a hobo that looked like her last step-father, she startled, clung to me, and rushed past. Several times in the "wonder years" when she needed friends the most, she was uprooted from her support network and moved to a place where she was an outsider. I can't look her mother in the eye, because of the things she allowed and perpetrated in Harmony's youth, things she still won't take responsibility for (even outright denying that they ever happened). But there comes a time when each of us must stop blaming our parents for our misfortunes and grow into what we choose to be.

As an aside here, I tend to be solution oriented. If I have a problem or an issue, I look for a way to make sure it won't happen again. Lock the keys in the car? Make a habit to put them in my pocket before I get out, AND check my pocket before I close the door, every time. Missed a bill payment? Set up auto-pay. Losing my keys? Put a rack by the door and always hang them up. Harmony will get very upset with herself, apologize to anyone that was affected by the situation, and then promise it won't happen again without making any changes to fix the problem. It astounds me why someone would do that, but I can't explain it any other way. She's had her purse and phone stolen from her car, but she still regularly leaves them in the car, unlocked. A several times a year she locks her keys in the car or runs out of gas. She often forgets to pick up her son from school until long after school is out. I just don't understand unless there's some reward she gets for holding on to these behaviors.

She's getting some regular counseling from a couple different directions, classes on coping skills, and so on, so I hope that she will be able to come to terms with some of her more troublesome emotional struggles. IIRC, Dr. H writes that emotional problems make it very difficult to use his method effectively, and I can see where that is true. Harmony is not as poorly off as some - she still manages to maintain a relatively normal life despite some serious hardships. I'd just like to see her learn to worry less and enjoy her life instead of stepping in every snare along the way.

Have you thought about emailing Dr. Harley?

This is all stuff that can be solved with PoJA - but not apart.

Why don't you try resolving your marriage issues together? It's like trying to fix a car miles away from a garage. You seem to be going along with this separation plan.

This will only encourage independent behaviour and you'll never learn how to PoJA