It’s My Wife’s Appearance That’s Destroying Our Marriage

My wife thinks I’m cheating on her. I see her trying to sneak around, looking for evidence to back her claim, and I feel sorry for her—sorry that I’m putting her through all this stress when I could just communicate my feelings. But it’s not easy to say what is really bothering me. It’s a sensitive topic. It could crush her, maybe even ruin our marriage, and I’m not ready to take that kind of risk.

She is a very smart, beautiful woman, yet I can’t bring myself to be with her. It’s not her fault, but I can’t take all the blame either.

We are now in the fourth year of our marriage, and everything about my wife has changed. All the things I once admired, her beauty, her figure, the way she dressed, have changed. Nothing is the same. When I look at her now, I see a stranger, a faint shadow of the woman she used to be, and she is only in her thirties

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I have a specific taste. We all do. There’s something I need to see and feel to feel complete as a man that I am. She didn’t exactly have it, but I looked at her and told myself, “You can’t lose a good woman because of one small thing.”

I am attracted to flat stomach. She didn’t have the kind of stomach I was drawn to, a flat one with abs that I could just easily fold my hands around, but she was amazing, and it didn’t make sense to let her slip through my fingers. I even convinced myself that maybe after childbirth, things would somehow fall into place.

We have our rainbow baby now, a beautiful baby girl, after losing a set of twins in our first pregnancy. They were almost in their third trimester when we lost them one hot afternoon. That period stretched us thin. It stretched her even more. Her stomach had grown so much it scared me, like it might burst open. After the D&C procedure, her body changed in ways I wasn’t prepared for. She looked like some of the women you see in the market, a stomach that seemed to have layers and full of wide stretch marks. I hated that I noticed it that way, but time passed, and slowly her body tried to return to what it used to be. Not the same thing but I worked with it.

Our child is almost three now, and my wife’s stomach is worse than it was. Bigger than I ever imagined, and it’s taking a toll on my mental health. She had a cesarean section, and we couldn’t even try certain things early on because of the healing. I understood that then. I really did.

But now, two years later, I keep asking myself—shouldn’t there have been some change? Some effort? I’m not saying I don’t love her. I loved her before all this, loved her through both pregnancies, gave her time to heal before even thinking about anything else. But I am attracted to a flat stomach. It does something to me.

Right now, I can’t even look at her properly. She walks into the living room, sits beside me, and I suddenly remember a call I need to take. At night, our intimacy is dead, quiet like a cemetery. I try, I really do, but nothing in me responds. And you know how attraction works.

I’ve encouraged myself so many times, but the truth is, my body doesn’t respond anymore. Not even a little.

I don’t know how to tell her. How do you even say something like that? “Your stomach is the reason I can’t be intimate with you.” It sounds cruel, even in my own head. Sometimes she asks questions: “Why am I not attractive anymore?” “Baby, is there anything wrong with me? Why have you not touched me? Is it my stomach?” And I dodge them because I don’t know how to confirm her worst fears.

At first, I thought maybe it was just me. Stress, maybe. But when I step outside and see women with flat stomachs, my body reacts immediately. And I don’t want to cheat on my wife. She’s a good woman. She went through surgery to give us a child. This is not her fault.

It’s Not God’s Law For A Man To Apologize To A Woman

But because of this, I can’t satisfy her. It’s affecting her, and now she thinks I’m cheating, when I can’t even bring myself to do it.

I’ve thought about solutions. The gym, but from what I’ve read, after a C-section it’s not always straightforward if not done carefully. Then there’s surgery, a tummy tuck, but that costs between 50,000 to 80,000 cedis. I don’t have that kind of money. If I did, I would take her there myself, just to have some peace. I’ve even seen her trying herbal medicines and drinking all sorts of concoctions, but nothing seems to be working

Because right now, I’m fighting something deep inside me. It’s frustrating. All this energy with nowhere to go. It’s eating me up slowly. I want my wife, I really do, but the moment I get close, everything in me just shuts down.

Anyone with real knowledge or experience, help me. I feel like I’m losing myself and my marriage. I am not the man who hates his wife, it is whatever it is that is wrong with me

—Taller

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