Contact her doctor?

[VAnot4lovers]

Situation in a nut shell -- married 18 1/2 years, three kids, W is LD and has health problems. Sex life, never satisfying from my perspective, got worse in major way with her illness ~ 4 years ago and really hit the skids ~ 18 months ago when she went on SSRI for depression.

I feel she has always had body image problems: she said she was "fat and unattractive" (at 5'6" and 135#) even in college where she had, on average, a date or request for one virtually every weekend, and frequently two. When she got sick in '99, steroids for asthma added ~ 25-30 pounds in a matter of weeks, and she is now up to ~180 and continuing to creep up. I have kept telling her that her weight isn't an issue for me (yes, I would like to see her slim down, but honestly as much for the overall health benefits as to look better), but after constantly hearing how "fat and ugly" she is for the last several years I'm afraid I'm going to start agreeing with her before long.

We had a major blowup about three weeks ago, and while most of her complaints about how "nothing is ever enough" for me and that she has physical limitations that she can't do anything about, she added (for the first time) that "every time, it hurts." If this is the case, I don't know why she's never told me before, especially as she doesn't seem to hold anything back when she gets worked up.

Still, the upshot of all this is that I'm considering contacting her doctor -- taken together, this piece of information, along with a couple of other things I'll get to in a minute, seem to me to be things the Dr should be aware of (and may be able to do something for). But, I know her well enough to be certain that this is not something she'd tell the doctor on her own. I also wonder if or to what extent there are hormone issues on this; when we do make love, it's almost always at exactly the same point in her menstrual cycle. On a previous thread, one response suggested she may be going into perimenopause (she just turned 39); I think it may be something the doctor might want to evaluate, and again, it's not something my wife will bring up. I also know that there are some natural supplements that help reduce some of these types of symptoms, but with the various meds she's on the doctor would need to approve.

Despite my wife's verbal expressions of a desire to lose weight, she isn't changing her eating habits and doesn't really exercise. Recently, I've also found information on a medically-supervised weight loss program that includes serotonin supplementation, which should help with the depression also, but I know we'd both want to hear what her doctor would have to say before considering it.

So it seems to me that there are several good reasons to contact her doctor, who by the way is very good. Add to those reasons the fact that she is out of town for another week because she's helping her folks through some of their health problems right now. My W is also scheduled for a follow-up visit with her doctor a few days after she gets back.

I think her Dr. (if she wanted to) could introduce most or all of these subjects into her exam fairly effortlessly -- or might just tell me to go "pound sand," which I could also live with. But, despite what seem to me to be valid reasons, I can see my W going ballistic if she perceives my communications with her Dr. as "invading her privacy." We have enough tension without throwing gasoline on the fire. Frankly, I'm gun-shy and don't know which way to jump. What do you think? Thanks!