"Like many on here, I have given much thought to the GAL concept and what could I do. I have had some success with adjusting my mindset, but with small kids, I do feel guilty going off and doing something that is just for me."

Er...Why? Why feel guilty about doing things just for yourself? What kind of example does doing only things for others teach them? Lose the guilt man. ;\)

"While I know how to lose this weight, I just haven't been able to make a disciplined effort and I think part of it is because of our SSM. At the end of the day, when I am not getting affection (not just sex, but affection and focus) from my wife, I find something else to do, usually on the computer or tv. Part of this habit involves my love of a bowl of ice cream in the evening, and can involve a beer or glass of wine or two. Finally, I get tired by 10:30-11 and go to bed, extra calories and all. Because I stay up later, this frequently means I don't feel like working out at 5:30 am, which is generally the only time of the day I can, and I get a double whammy towards my gut. Hence, my theory that the SSM is linked."

I'm afraid this is all just one big lousy excuse. Man comes before Marriage - both in history and in real life (and in the dictionary as well). The only link between your physical shape and your SSM is in your mind - cut that link right away.

The "If only I had more sex I could start being a real man" programme is becoming increasingly recognised as faulty software that creates an endlessly-replicating virus, gradually slowing down your whole system, and eventually resulting in a crash.

Reboot.

"Part of the issue, and hang with me because this is where I am going with this, is that I have no one to hold me accountable. My wife won't because these habits keep pressure off of her and I don't have anyone else trying to lose weight to pair up with."

The only person you should ever be accountable to you is YOU. No-one else...Ever. That's not to say you should go around acting the egotistical jerk. But it does mean taking responsibility for your OWN mental, physical, emotional, economic and spiritual well-being. ALL THE TIME.

It sounds to me like you're in serious need of some proper, hard, authentic, masculine re-energization. Join a sports club or a gym (a proper man's one - not filled with lycra-clad beauties) and start going regularly. Get disciplined and get into the right physical shape. NOT for your wife, but for YOU.

The mental, physical, emotional, economic and spiritual aspects of a man are all inter-linked in my view, but probably the biggest and most beneficial effect a man can bring about in his own life is to get into (and stay in) great physical shape. The rest almost inevitably improves as a result.

If your wife chooses to follow your example, so much the better. If she doesn't that's frankly her problem, and would suggest that her "weight" is just an excuse not to make the effort to have a passionate physical relationship with you. And as you must have already realised by now, your marriage will not (indeed should not) survive in the long term without such a relationship.

Either way, you need to ditch this "I would do X, Y and Z with my life, if only I wasn't in a SSM" mentality which seems to plague so men when they first come to this board. Its not masculine and its not attractive.

Your purpose and life as a man must never be contingent in your mind on whether or not you are going to get sex from your wife. Think about it - its like volunteering to live the rest of your life in a cage - with your wife as the Zookeeper. Its no way for a man to live.

Good luck with the New You.

S&A


"A man can be destroyed but not defeated" - from The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway.

Which I take to mean that every man has within him a spirit of relentlessness and optimism. Its already there; he just has to cultivate it.