Sickly Sweet BO

[DrDogman]

I've been with my wife for about 20 years and have been married the last 18 years. I used to chew tobacco, not keep active or exercise and had poor nutrition. In addition I became depressed and bipolar about 12 years ago. A year ago my wife told me she is not in love with me anymore, she has become repulsed by my sickly sweet body odor and the desire to have sex with me is gone (it is not there with no foreseeable chance of it coming back). She says she misses sex but I am not in that picture. 13 months have passed and we are still married, our friendship has been better than ever because I decided to make better choices by quitting  tobacco altogether, exercising regularly, really controlling emotions and reacting appropriately, and I've become much more social. My wife  expresses how proud  she is of the strides I've made to better myself. But she is still repulsed by the idea of ever having sex with me again. Her reasons are the years of heartbreak each of us caused each other, the fact that she had to repeated explain to me her feelings to me because somehow I needed more detailed explanation and mostly she is repulsed by my awful breath and sickly sweet unhealthy body odor.

Since I have changed my unhealthy ways and emotions these are not really a problem except for the fear they might come back.  How do I change my body odor? I shower once or twice daily, use deodorant, eat healthy, drink plenty of water. Is there something I can take to make me have that clean healthy smell?  I am desperate to save my marriage.

[DrDogman]

Thank you for listening. Really it's helping me cope right now.

[peaceinknowing]

In my opinion, you're a very sincere and honest person in coming here and putting your story out there. You seem like you're genuinely in love with your wife, but it saddens me to say that the treatment you're receiving right now is far from what you deserve, especially after all the changes you've made for yourself, but most importantly for her and the sake of your marriage. I know you've probably heard it a million times over, but the best thing to do right now is to talk to her. Even if you've talked until you're blue in the face with her about your concerns and sadness when it comes to the lack of sexual actions in bed, it needs to be brought up again until she is able to give you a satisfying answer. Once again, keep us posted and let us know how things are going.

[DrDogman]

During my darkest depression days I was not able to listen. I lost my temper many times whenever she tried to warn me how terrible the things I was doing or not doing was hurting our children, her, and us. When in my deep depression days I was blind as to how I reacted toward her and other people. I was withdrawn or defensive or ill tempered but never violent toward any other being. I finally flipped a switch about a year ago and have made great strides in being social, accepting and really cool minded. My children are so much more at ease with me than my wife (her words not mine). I have always been the hugging, tell stories, singing and empathetic parent even with the depression. But I could also be very scary to the kids and to my wife. I can see now and I'm recovering. It kills me that it is too late to win back my wife. The years of bad odor, depression, withdrawing from friends and family have taken their toll on her and she has lost that connection with me.  It is frustrating to me that my depression could not let me see until it was too late. I was in therapy most of those years but still there was no one to turn on the switch except me.

Peacinknowing, you are right about the something else underlying for not wanting sex. I know I've droned on but I feel I should explain more from the first post. I just thought that since I've grown so much emotionally that maybe there would be something chemically I could change in me as well that would negate her repulsiveness toward me.

[peaceinknowing]

I feel your pain right now, even though I've never experienced this with my husband. I've read your posts, and I have to ask... But do you think that there is something else going on that's underlying her reasoning for not wanting the sex within the relationship anymore? Sure if you've changed everything about you, she should want to give that part of the relationship another try.