Me too! And here's my lengthy reasoning:




I did some research, and it appears that her BMI is in about the 50th percentile. It doesn't seem likely that 15 lbs. should single-handedly cause your arousal problems. In total, she is about 15 lbs. above her wedding day weight, after having 7 kids, caring for a handicapped child, and dealing with a disrespectful husband.

Nobody is going to tell you that you are wrong for wanting your wife to get back to her wedding day weight. However, the fact that you myopically focus on her lack instead of the possibility of your lack is a red flag.

I have paid close attention to all that Dr. Harley has said about this issue. Based upon what you have written about your history, I would suggest that you turn your heart, your sexual focus and your extraordinary care toward your wife and this program.

A habit you started very early in the marriage was to seek outside comparison points and blame your wife for your own bad habit. It does not need to be porn for this to occur. You have been an active "comparer" and that habit alone would prevent you from being aroused by your wife, even if she had never gained a pound.

Difficulty getting aroused never JUST boils down to one thing. It is a CHEMICALLY driven phenomenon and the reason why many women, with lower testosterone levels don't get turned on by just looking at a man.

I would guess that if you and your wife were on a deserted island, as long as your chemicals were at the same level as when you got married, and as long as your relationship problems were fixed, that you could close your eyes and be aroused by her touch or the sound of her voice.

Again, I am not telling you that you are wrong for having a desire for your wife to be thinner. But my feeling is that you have hurt your wife terribly with how you have blamed her for not arousing you. And I am worried that you are so fixated on your own beliefs about the reasons for the problem that you are blind to the bigger picture of what has gradually happened.


This shows that you have very little empathy for your wife. It also shows me that you have a poor understanding of how to have a great sex life in marriage. It is a red flag that the first thing you do when you can't get visually aroused by your wife, is to try to get that arousal visually elsewhere. Practice turning this around a bit, and see how you would feel if your wife told you that you weren't a sufficient specimen to get her there, so could you both go watch other men to see if that could work? This very thing happened to a couple who recently posted on this forum. If you read the thread, you will see the sad, damaging consequences of this type of thinking.

It is very common for people to seek solutions from OUTSIDE their marriages than from within. But just because it is common, does not make it appropriate or less damaging.

From what you have posted, I can see that your wife has tried and tried to explain how devastated she has been by your proposed solutions to "her problem".

The Marriage Builders program is about demonstrating empathy through our actions. I think that your wife would become so happy and grateful if you were to actually learn and practice the MB rules instead of using them against her by demanding that she meet a certain need. That, in and of itself, is ABUSE. In MB, we try to motivate our spouses first by showing extraordinary care. Based on your posting, it is clear that you have some cleaning up to do on your side of the street.

My guess is that your wife was so fed up with hearing your condescending comments, that she told you to just give it up, and forget about her ever losing the weight. She wants to mean something more to you than a specific composition of body parts. Fifteen pounds is totally doable. But a disrespectful, blaming and demanding attitude will create the opposite effect. Be prepared that it could take quite a while after you have changed your judgmental and disrespectful ways for her to feel safe and cared for, and for her to want to put in the huge effort of losing the last 15 pounds just to make you feel great.

If you can't get aroused before that, then I would start looking in the direction of other contributing factors. Just because Attractive Spouse is a common category of need, doesn't mean that you CAN'T have a great marriage without it, as long as she meets several other ones. But, based on what you have said here, there are enough problems to eliminate on your end, and if you did that, it's likely that your wife would eventually become motivated to lose more weight.

From reading this post it sounds like you are disgusted by her weight. ***EDIT***

Secondly you say that you have to watch porn to get aroused,that is a major problem. **EDIT**

It sounds to me like you need to work on this stuff and find your way back to your wife,instead of watching porn pull out your phone and **EDIT** I listen to it on my way to work and just started listening to marriage builders radio,both are great. Good luck.

Contrast effect is that the new easier thing will be more appealing (more arousing) than the previous one, and that previous one will pale by comparison.

In the first article in When to Call it Quits it speaks to my situation except the positions are reversed. My wife is the one not meeting my need, and Dr. Harley advises a plan that includes separation. Other posts have said that this situation is not abuse, Dr. Harley calls it neglect.

I must be open and honest with her, according to Dr. Harley. Thus I must tell her how her weight affects me. Why is this seen as disrespectful?

Neglect is a refusal to meet any of your needs. Putting on 15 pounds does not meet that criteria. However, I don't understand why you referred to that article when you know that Dr Harley wrote that for women?


I think the others are right that you are overly affected because your standards are warped by the contrast effect.

What are your wife's top EN's and how well do you meet them? Do you know?

Her top needs are affection and conversation. I work on meeting them all the time. She doesn't think I meet her need for affection well because my communication is not affectionate, that I don't know how to have a conversation with her that is pleasant for her. We spend at least 7 hours in undivided attention that I initiate. She doesn't do much to make the other 7 hours happen. We have been doing this for about 10 years. We typically take the motorhome to the river, go out for coffee, shop, dinner, watch movies and have sex. Before that it was maybe 3 hours of UA, it was pretty difficult with all the kids, we also homeschooled. She has not been enthusiastic about UA.

i can tell she has fallen out of love and very much agree with Markos and Prisca that this where you should start. If she says you don't meet her need for affection how can you say you "work on meeting them all the time? " What are you doing wrong and what are you doing to effectively meet her needs?

When a woman is not in love, she has very little sexual desire. I would strongly suggest you read their posts again and follow the advice. Additionally DidntQuit had some great insight.

Tell us how this applies to your situation.


Good - go on and read the entire When to Call it Quits series.


Nope, according to Dr. Harley, what do you need to do first?

Okay, so how well do you meet her need for affection?

This is nowhere near enough. You need to bump that up to 20-25 hours a week.

btw, any man who has trouble getting aroused needs to stop masturbating, 100%. Arousal is much more difficult when the seminal vesicles are emptied all the time. Stop making it harder for this poor woman to arouse you.

Wow, wish I could say the same after 8 kids! 15 lbs over her wedding weight is pretty darn great!

It will be easier to lose that weight when she's in love with you, Indiana. You're her biggest obstacle right now. Can you start taking her on dates, 20-25 hours a week?

By the way, I hate to sound like a book salesman, but I noticed you said you got His Needs Her Needs 20 years ago. HNHN has had two major revisions since then (the most recent was in 2010), and one of the sections that got the most revision was the chapter on the need for an Attractive Spouse.

I always recommend people get the latest editions of the books, and I would especially recommend it in this case.

By the way, I would also encourage you to try to talk to Dr. Harley directly on his radio show. Read about the show, get the app, send your question in an email, and they will usually be glad to have you on the show. For many of us that was the beginning to turning our marriages around.

No, masturbation is not an exception to the policy of joint agreement. It's clear that your wife only said "I don't care" because she is fed up with you, and it's clear that it hurts her dearly.

Stop hurting your wife dearly. That's probably the most important thing you need to do in order to start turning your marriage around.

The policy of sexual exclusivity says that ALL our sexual experiences should be with our spouse.

The more you repeat a sexual experience, including sex with yourself, the further you drive yourself away from arousal and sexual satisfaction with your wife. The fact is, you have trained your brain to light up for anyone but your wife.

There is a reason why your wife was having to put so much work into arousing you. Like Marcos said, you really should approach Dr. Harley on this. It is a tricky topic.

I fully understand that the masturbation is a problem and I have ceased doing this. I am looking for a permanent resolution to the weight issue which was long before any other issues. There were years we had information from HNHN (yes I have the most recent edition) and my wife knew her weight was too high and she didn't change anything. I didn't say anything to her about it for a long time, and when I finally did talk about it I feel it was in a respectful way. Again, how is this disrespectful?

So is the problem here that you think that your wife doesn't care about how much her extra 15 pounds bother you to look at?
Or is it more that you get the feeling that she doesn't care about how you feel regarding her appearance in general?

I'll bet that your wife would love to have a permanent solution to weight gain too! She "painfully" lost several pounds despite your critical nature. But it is a very tall order to ask her to override her body's tendency to gain weight under the historical marital conditions. You cannot expect her to care about it like you do! She may not be as bothered by overweight as you are. And if you want her to feel motivated to respect and care about this very specific request, you need to first prepare the marital environment. Marcos and Prisca are offering to help you change her marital environment which in turn can motivate your wife. Remember that failing to meet a specific need is not grounds for separation unless it was a serious threat to your emotional or physical health. If you feel that 15 extra pounds on your wife is a serious threat to your emotional health then you really need to discuss that with Dr. Harley to stabilize you until the issues are solved.

As for our assertions that you are disrespectful, you are blind to your own tendencies to be critical and judgmental toward your wife. We can see the instances as we read your posts. It is as if they are written in bold red to those of us having studied this program in detail. We know that the problem you came here to solve won't be solved if you don't learn to avoid these lovebusters. I will say it this way: There is nothing wrong with saying "Honey, I loved the way you looked when we got married! I prefer it when you are thinner. " But it is a more effective plan to give your wife extraordinary care through 15 positive UA time hours, eliminating criticism and disrespect.
I would make a habit of complementing other positive attributes like her face, hair, eyes. Also suggest UA ideas that are active like bike riding or walking.

You, sir, have a big problem with disrespect. Read Lovebusters again.

Are you ready to start the program so that your wife will fall in love with you and be motivated to lose the weight?

It will be easier to lose that weight when she's in love with you, Indiana. You're her biggest obstacle right now. Can you start taking her on dates, 20-25 hours a week?