Submitted by ThrowRADumbRules891 t3_11nizn2 in relationship_advice
I (33M) have been married to my wife (29F) for 2.5 years and together for 8 years. Aside from the situation I'm going to describe, we have really not had any significant problems. We communicate well, we compromise, we have great banter and we genuinely love each other. I have considered myself extremely lucky.
A bit of relevant context about myself. When I was 22 I ran marathons and even an ultramarathon and got into pretty good shape. Then grad school and life happened and I got somewhat sedentary. I got to about 180lbs at 5'6. I wouldn't call it fat by any means, but certainly not fit.
Fast forward to the incident. She tells me she feels "disconnected" from me. I didn't feel this, so of course I became concerned and I sat down with her to try to get out of her why she felt that way. I was calm and wanted to continue our habit of communicating effectively.
She started crying and I was eventually able to get her to explain. What she said has been burned into my memory ever since. "I'm not attracted to you anymore. Your body changed."
This was brutal to hear. I reacted pretty calmly as that's my general disposition but internally I was freaking out. It felt like a form of trust had been broken. By that I mean a common understanding between us was no more. On top of that, in the days that followed she tried to gaslight me into thinking it didn't really happen and that she meant something else by it. Frankly, the words were clear.
This resulted in me getting back to running. She got into cycling and out of support I decided to go with her a few times only to realize I actually enjoyed it too. It's now our thing together. I've lost weight and feel better physically.
But I find that I am upset at her a lot for it all even today, and I'm probably not doing a good job of hiding that from her. I feel like even if she did feel that way about me, it wasn't ok to say it to me. I felt like she should have made an effort to suggest us work out together but she never did, even if that's what we ended up doing in the end. In fact, neither of us were working out.
I used to be a very confident guy and that was one of the things she was initially attracted to me for. But now I have constant negative thoughts about myself. Of course a lot of the negative thoughts are about my physical appearance, but it's even spread to everything else. I think I'm depressed from it and in some sense I hate myself. I can also feel myself starting to resent her as I don't feel like she's done enough to make up for it and I'm not convinced she cares. It seems like she wants to pretend it never happened.
But I am wondering if I'm wrong for that. She literally only said one thing and if it weren't for that I'd have no problem. I don't think she really deserves it, and maybe I'm just a pathetic asshole for being this upset over one statement and I just need to get over it.
TLDR: how bad is it for your spouse to say "I'm not attracted to you anymore. Your body changed"