My wife has gained a lot of weight since we had our 3 children. She now has a belly and big hips and still looks pregnant to me. Maybe that is an overstatement, but her shape is a lot more like my own mother’s figure than like the woman I married. I feel superficial, but it bothers me a lot. Aren’t most men like that? I feel it means she doesn’t care about me. I find myself fantasizing about women in porn magazines, and masturbating rather than approaching her. This isn’t a good way to deal with it, but I don’t feel I can say anything because I am somewhat overweight myself. Do you have any advice?

Dr J replies:

I think there are several issues here.

You are, as you state, angry about her weight gain, taking it as a sign she doesn’t care about you, or desire you sexually, or both. However, from your description, you are the one not desiring her. Is this a topic that could be broached with some tact, helping you to understand whether or not it really is, as you fear, about her loss of interest in you?

I suspect there are other things making you angry besides her love handles. Perhaps her attention to your children has limited her availability to you, so that you feel either neglected or excluded. There is some reality to the fact that at this time in your relationship, she cannot be the wife that she was in numerous ways. Your feelings about her weight may be a “psychological shorthand” for your feeling like much less of an emotional priority. I would also wonder about your own level of maturity or self-centeredness. Can you tolerate a period in which you do not come first without undue resentment?

Your associations to her weight gain may provide also clues to why these extra pounds are particularly troubling to you. You write that she looks “still pregnant” or has a figure reminiscent of your mother. Nothing is more sexually taboo than sex with a mother, especially your own mother. I would wonder if you wish you could be the recipient of her maternal love, possibly placing you in competition with your own children, a competition in which you must invariably lose. On the other hand, you may fear that in some way she has actually become like your mother, and that makes her “off limits” sexually.

As people age, some pay more attention to their appearance than others. Women frequently gain weight after pregnancies and find it difficult to lose. The culture puts more pressure on women to remain slim than on men, and also communicates that men, especially if they are good providers, are “entitled” to sexy wives.

This double standard is outdated. Both spouses should make an effort to remain attractive, not only for their partners but for themselves. However, appearance alone does not sustain intimacy or sexual passion. If physical beauty were the primary basis for sexual vitality, there would not be so many “trophy wives” in sexually dead marriages. If the two of you could talk together with some candor, you might be able to defuse some of your grievances.

There is nothing wrong with a spicy fantasy life or with masturbation. Many married people continue to pleasure themselves upon occasion. But if it replaces sexual desire for your partner, it is a sign that other issues require attention.