HG: damndamndamndamn.... Can I say I feel your pain? Several of your points strike a chord: Since "some" touching makes you want "more" touching, she ordains from on high that there shall be "NO" touching.
"Life is not about having constant sex and being close." No, but marriage ought to be about being close, and, just to clear this up, honey, I'm not asking for "constant" sex.
"Life is about learning to control your urges, gaining control of self so that all that physical stuff is no longer important." Oh really? Says who? Perhaps the Stoics, perhaps the Puritans, but not me. And if this is what you thought Life was all about, you might have tried to clue me in on that before I made a promise to spend my life with you, forsaking all others.
"breaking our vows..." Here, I echo what nicegal said about the Bible. My W once said something like this to me, so I went right to our copy of our vows, which we had cobbled together ourselves from various sources, and found a passage like, "I will honor you with my body." (Did I mention I was a lawyer?) Of course, she responded that the passage had more to do with NOT ML with someone OTHER than our spouse, and did not represent a promise TO make love with our spouse. Go figure.
I'm obviously venting here, but let me share some ideas with you, my large friend. You're not asking her for the physical aspect of the relationship to be entirely your way, but she definitely is.
Your feeling that you need "intimacy to feel close" is natural, normal, understandable, even healthy. It's a feeling shared by a great majority of healthy males, and many healthy females. It is not "overactive hormones" (although hormones do have something to do with it), and for her to characterize it that way is incredibly disrespectful of your feelings. Don't buy into this. Do you treat her feelings or physical urges with the same disrespect? (I sure hope not...I'm sure you don't). Your feelings deserve respectful consideration. If she refuses to give that to you, then you need to walk away -- from the conversation, not the marriage. You need to let her know that you will not take her disrespect, that you will leave the room/house/whatever, if she pulls it again. And you need to follow through with that. Because, if you sit there and take it, and then feel guilty for bringing up the physical issue again, you're just buying into her world view, her view of you as a sex maniac who needs to be castrated, her view that marriage is about not being close and controlling our immoral urges, etc.
With regard to her health -- you can lead a horse to water -- you can ask her to go to the doctor, to go on a diet, etc., but you can't make her do anything she doesn't want to do. If she's anything like my W, the more you push, the deeper her heels go in.
With regard to counseling, I was shaking my head at this: "says she'd end the marriage before seeing a counselor." And you're upset about ending the marriage because she's cut you off, physically? HG, you have your work cut out for you. I suggest you make an appointment with a MC, tell her about it, and if she doesn't want to go, go by yourself. You need someone to talk to about this besides (or, in addition to) us here on the SSM board.
Sounds to me like her body issues go beyond just the "oh, I'm fat, why would you want to ML with me?" Sounds like she's been abused and has never dealt with it.
My heart goes out to you, HG. You definitely have your work cut out for you.
