I'd leave him. That's just me though.

If my boyfriend showed me pictures of girls I should "aspire to be like" I would have punched him in the face, told him to pack his shit and show him where the door is.

It sounds as if your relationship is on the rocks, I've been there, also had the line 'well I never really found you attractive or loved you', I threw him out that day. I've now been with a man for ten years who adores me for me, whatever weight I am.

Throwing him out may not be the solution for you, only you can know whether the rest of your relationship is good or bad. But maybe you want to consider relationship counselling - not to strengthen the relationship, but to help you both decide where your relationship stands after his emotional abuse - why is he in the relationship if he feels that way about you, why are you in the relationship with someone who doesn't realise how great you are, do you both want to be in the relationship, if so how do you make it work, if not then how to separate.

I hate to say this but, another thing that occurred to me is that the things he said to you could be an indication of cheating. Either that he's thinking about it or doing it. That he's actively looking at other women and deciding what he likes. I'm sorry to suggest it, its not an easy thing to contemplate. When my husband said these things to me he'd already started an affair - I didn't find this out till afterwards.

I think you need to ask yourself - what are you getting out of this relationship, and what are you sacrificing to the relationship. (ie self esteem, self respect) The positives should always outweigh the negatives - hopefully by a long, long way.

Lee

wow... so many good posts here.
amazing how strong we become as we get to know ourselves.
and knowing ourselves will keep us from allowing someone else to steal our happiness.

i hope you do the right thing and ....
well, you probably know by now.
good luck to you..

heed these womens words. they are going to save you much stress in the coming months.
you don't deserve it.
think about what all these women have said to you.

Reminds me of my ex. Is he Porn addicted? Does he have erectile problems? My ex blamed it on me. I was always successful while he continued to fail. I ditched him a term before I finished nursing school so I would not have to pay him alimony. It sucks to have to ask for sex all the time and be turned down.

He is trying to sabbotage your success wheather it be your weight or your education,he is threatened by you and that is not what marriage is about,listen to all the great advise that has been given to you,the day that I would support a man who wasn't even giving me sex,who was verbally abusing me would be the day he would be kicked to the curb,son or no son,you deserve better and the longer you stay the longer you will believe you don't deserve better.Intellectually you know the difference,put your intelligence over your emotions,remember I over E.....Glo

your weight will never matter to him, whether you're skinny or fat. i've been in a similiar situation in the past... and i couldnt figure out for the life of me what the hell was wrong with me. i lost and gained(purposedly at one time) just for his attention. You know where it led me????? Into a full eating disorder and hospitalized., thats where my weight issues began. It has nothing to do with you...

He used to look at porn occasionally, but doesn't anymore. I'm more computer savvy than he is, so I know how to check up on it. (And he knows I check up on it.) The last time he looked at porn that I can tell was 11/29 of last year... because the baby and I were at my grandmother's for Thanksgiving and he didn't come with us.

I had the doctor check his testosterone levels at one point, because he also has anger issues that I considered abnormal. His levels came back fine, so I assume it's all psychological. He was a virgin when we started dating (and he's actually 10 years older than me) and is very religious, so he had this "sex is bad" mentality beat into him pretty much his whole life. I think some part of the problem is stemming from him being unable to get over that, but I don't think it's a big part of the problem.

Whatever his problem is, it's really complicated. I don't think it's just me and the way I look and I also don't think it's just the religious stuff. I'm usually pretty intuitive about psychological stuff (I'm training to become a psychologist), but even I haven't been able to figure this one out. :/

But I agree... Getting turned down all the time... It got old. I did that for a couple of years, and gave up trying. I only initiate it when I'm desperate.

My husband has his good qualities. I'm certainly not defending him, but he's an excellent father and helps out with the baby as equally as possible. He's been to all but one pediatrician appointment. My son's 15 month check up is today and my husband is arranging with work to come to the appointment. We have our differences as far as parenting goes... and understandably so considering we come from drastically different backgrounds, but we've managed to compromise on even the most difficult issues. For example: He believes in spanking. I don't. Our compromise is that he is to NEVER spank our son-- period.. because he has a temper. If such a situation warrants it and all other options have been exhausted, we both have to agree to do it and then I'm the one that's gonna have to do it. Luckily, our son is so well-behaved (I seriously lucked out, because he's got the best temperament I have ever seen in a child) I doubt it will ever come to that. As far as my husband is concerned, I've rarely, if ever, encountered a father that was more involved in his young child's life than he is.

He's not a good husband though. Financially speaking, I had the foresight to never combine our finances. If I had, me and the baby would probably go hungry because my husband just can't manage money. He's racked up some crazy credit card debt. The primary reason I give him $300 a month right now is because I wanted to have the living room floors redone because the carpet was just dog pee soaked from when we first got our dog. I wanted to replace the floors before my son started walking for obvious reasons. My husband didn't want to have to pay for that, but allowed me to charge the floors to his credit card (And this is the only amount on his credit cards that belongs to me) and I took on sole responsibility for paying that back. Given that my husband maxed out every card he had aside from that amount, he doesn't make enough to pay the household bills AND afford to feed himself (because we also buy groceries separately because I buy LC stuff for myself and food for the baby and I don't want him to eat any of it)... We decided that I would give him $300 a month in cash so that he can use that for his expenses instead of his credit cards. I took his credit cards away from him and now his cards are finally getting paid down (because I also pay the bills). I could have paid him back for the floors all at once, but he would have blown it all and the financial situation would have stayed bad. Not sure what he'll do once I've completely paid him back for the floors though. Spreading it out the way we did, he should be covered through next July.

As I mentioned before, I have a counselor that I have seen for quite awhile. I've tried to get my husband to go to counseling on his own. He went to one counselor about 5 times over the course of 5 months, which wasn't nearly enough. He stopped going... then since money was tight he found a free counselor at a church (because he refuses to go to anyone that isn't a Christian counselor). He went to him for awhile, although it wasn't consistent. Then the counselor had a heart attack in July and was out for awhile.. My husband hasn't gone back since. This past week we discussed marriage counseling, but I refuse to go to a Christian counselor after the experience we had in premarital counseling-- The counselors we had for that spent the entire time trying to convert me rather than focusing on pre-marital stuff. And my husband refuses to go to anyone that ISN'T a Christian counselor. This week we discussed it again, and I told him there are counselors like my counselor who is trained as a Christian counselor, but only utilizes that when asked. (We can't go to my counselor for marriage counseling though because after 5 years of going to him almost weekly, he would have far too much of a bias toward me.) I'm going to ask my counselor next Monday when I see him if he can refer me to a marriage counselor that works similarly to him.

Also, given my current career path... I'm kind of hyperaware of diagnoses. I really believe that my husband is depressed, although I don't think he suffers from Major Depressive Disorder. I'm thinking either Dysthymia (which is what I have) or, more likely, Depressive Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. I'm not a fan of medication, but I do think my husband could benefit from it because he lacks motivation in almost every area of his life. He's not what I would consider traditionally depressed (sad, blue, whatever)... but he has intensely low self-esteem, anxiety, chronic fatigue, and anger issues. Every time I've suggested medication, he's shot it down, but last night we talked and since he can't afford it, I asked if I paid for him to go to a psychiatrist and get medication if 1.) he would go and 2.) take medication regularly if I bought it. He reluctantly agreed to it, but it's a matter of getting his counselor to refer him to a psychiatrist... and for that I've got to get my husband to actually go see his counselor. To complicate matters, he's also got practically every symptom of ADHD inattentive type... and getting diagnosed with ADHD as an adult isn't easy--although he was diagnosed with Learning Disorder Not Otherwise Specified in the early 80s... which is what they would have diagnosed someone with who had ADHD at the time since ADHD didn't exist yet as a diagnosis.

I want to thank everyone who has commented on this thread so far. I really appreciate the support and I definitely need it since my motivation has been waning a bit. Aside from my birthday on Monday, I haven't cheated on the plan though, so hopefully the diminishing motivation is just temporary.

Your responses have brought to the forefront of my mind the possibility that his lack of support of my weight loss and his open criticisms on my weight have a lot more to do with his own feelings of inferiority as they pertain to me than I initially thought they did. Across the board, he's expressed that he feels inferior to me. To the point that if I say something he doesn't understand (which I guess is frequent), he thinks the very act of me saying something is me "lording my superiority" over him. The one area that he's "better than me" is the weight/fitness thing and now that I'm getting that under control maybe it's threatening to him that I'm risking taking away his one thing that he's better than me at. I literally just remembered this... But when I was in the 230s (maybe a couple months into LC this time around), DH was around the same weight. I weighed more than him for awhile, but as I approached his weight he started trying to lose weight... Not for his own health, but to compete with me. I surpassed him a couple of times, and then he'd drop a pound or two... (primarily just because he chose to work out more often)... Eventually I passed him. He's still fluctuating between 230 and 235 (He's 6'4") and now I'm at where I'm at. It was like he rejoiced in weighing less than me. I don't really understand it. It hasn't come up again since I passed a point where he couldn't really catch up and he wasn't really motivated enough to try.

Coincidentally... being around 197 right now... I was at this weight once before in May 2007. He had wanted me to quit smoking so I gained some weight. Other than the recent stuff, that's the only other time he's directly criticized my weight. At 197 in May 2007 he told me he wasn't attracted to my weight because I'd gained some from quitting smoking. You know what I did? I started smoking again and lost the weight that I'd gained. And aside from when I was pregnant, I haven't been able to bring myself to quit since. (But I NEVER smoke around the baby, just in case anyone's concerned about that.)

I don't know though. I get that I'm better than him at most things. I don't mean that in a snooty way or anything and I don't look down on him for it. I'm just one of those annoying people that is good at pretty much anything I try to do. (I was also one of those annoying people that never had to study in school to get good grades.) But I totally understand that people generally aren't like that and honestly I wish I were bad at some stuff. Being good at everything kind of results in this mental thing where I feel like because I can do it all then I should. I don't know... I'd purposely try to do badly at some stuff if it made him feel better, but I'm crazy honest and I don't think I could bring myself to misrepresent my abilities?

Believe me, I know what you're going through, and in my situation, if he starts berating me or making fun of me or whatever, I just leave the room. If he follows me, I put my earphones in my ears and listen to my iPod and grab a book, sit down and completely ignore him. Sometimes you just have to look him dead in the eye and say "if you don't have something nice/positive/supportive to say, then I have no reason to listen to anything coming out of your mouth"... he's trying to get a reaction from you, and trust me, if you do it enough times, he's just going to shut up. If I were in your shoes, I would start pointing out all the guys I saw on TV that he can't compare to... how would he like it if he had to meet THOSE standards? I mean, have you seen Ryan Reynolds, lately? Good gravy, he's got some abs!

That's interesting about the anti-depressants. I know with any anti-depressant, there's a risk of suicidal ideation as a potential side effect. I actually took Celexa for awhile when I was much younger and it worked very well for me. It doesn't sound like you needed it though. Doctors are too quick to recommend medication, which is why I'm not a fan of it. I only recommend medication for my clients if I feel they absolutely need it, and the same goes for my husband. I really do think he needs it, but I believe it needs to be closely monitored by a psychiatrist to ensure he gets the right prescription and dosage. I was thinking he may do better on something like Wellbutrin, but I know it's consistently prescribed along with an anti-anxiety medication because it can increase anxiety. (I've taken Wellbutrin in the past, but wasn't prescribed an anti-anxiety with it... I couldn't last a week on that stuff-- I'm not presently on any medication though, btw.)

I am interested to know at what age you were diagnosed with ADHD? I'm not sure how to go about getting confirmation that my husband suffers from it as it's typically diagnosed at a much younger age. Also I haven't known anyone as an adult who takes Ritalin, so I'm glad to hear that it works for you.

I think my husband's general lack of motivation needs to be addressed. Even he doesn't understand why he's that way, but I think he's been depressed for so long that it's just become something that he thinks is inherent to who he is, when I believe it's the result of depression that he's likely suffered from since he was a teenager. Until we can fix whatever is causing his lack of motivation, I can't see how he will even care enough to really work on the marriage.

Life probably seems pretty hard to your husband. He has a wife who is good at many things, but the things that he excels in are not things that are often measured or even noticed. (For example, you mentioned how devoted he is to his child, but that doesn't reflect itself in a higher paycheck.)

There are probably many, many things that he is very good at, and many qualities he has that are wonderful. After all, you married him. And then chose to make him the father of your child. Since you could have chosen anyone in the whole world to marry, you must have seen some good qualities in him, or you would never have invested your whole life and future with him.

Can you remember those good qualities that first attracted you to him? Could you sit down and make a list of them? And don't forget all the little things..."he makes me laugh" is just as valuable as "he earns lots of money." Does he fill up your car with gas? Mow the lawn when it needs it? Ask you if you are too hot or cold? Fry up some eggs just the way you like them? Let you choose the TV program to watch? Is he kind to others? Does he help your elderly neighbor shovel snow from his driveway? Laugh at your jokes? and so on.

Once you are focused on looking for his positive qualities, you will start to see more of them. Then maybe you could share your positive thoughts with your husband. As in, "It made me so happy to see you holding the door open for that man in the wheelchair" or "Thanks for carrying Junior's dirty diaper outside to the dumpster so I don't have to smell it all day."

Yes, these are little things. But it will let your husband know that you value him. And he will eventually respond by being more appreciative of you and having more motivation to improve your marriage. There's an old saying that goes "You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar."

I will now step down from my soap box.