The terrible side-effect of my Mounjaro weight-loss jabs? I now find my husband's flabby body and man boobs repulsive: ALISON COX
As I watched my husband walk up the beach on our winter sun holiday last month, I felt, if I'm being painfully honest, disgusted. With his sizeable belly straining at the waistband of his shorts, his sunburnt man boobs and flabby arms, Daniel Craig sexily wading out of the sea he most definitely was not.
By contrast, as I glanced down at my toned size 12 figure in a new bikini, I felt proud and happy of how I now look, the most confident I've been in years.
As Tom waddled back to our double sun lounger, lowering himself on to it with a groan due to his achy joints, he reached over to cuddle me, prompting me to leap up swiftly and declare I'd had enough sun, and was going for a nap.
Just the thought of his sweaty, chubby skin on mine, and in public view, was too much to stomach.
We weren't always so physically mismatched, and intimacy with the man I love didn't used to be something I avoided like the plague.
Both have been unexpected, and upsetting, side-effects of my decision last year to become one of the thousands of women turning to the weight-loss jab Mounjaro.
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I've heard of other users developing aversions to fried foods and alcohol, but I never expected to develop one to my own husband.
Yet over the past year, as the excess pounds have disappeared from my body, I've found myself increasingly turned off by his chubby frame.
Tom and I met at university in 2004, when we were 20. I was then a size 8, weighing 8½ st, while Tom, who is 6ft and played rugby so was chunky but muscular, weighed around 15st.
I loved his manly frame and firm physique. He made me feel delicate and I couldn't get enough of him in the bedroom.
We travelled together after graduating, before settling in my home town of Newcastle and getting married in 2011.
It's such a relationship cliché but, content and loved up, we enjoyed nights in with a takeaway, trips to the cinema with huge buckets of popcorn and romantic three-course meals in restaurants.
We both got a bit chubby, but neither of us minded if I had to go up a jeans size, or if Tom's chiselled abs were now a distant memory.
We became parents in 2014, and after giving birth to our second child in 2016 I never 'bounced back'.
I was far too exhausted from juggling motherhood with my career as an accountant to think about exercising or eating healthily.
Around the same time, Tom suffered an injury playing for a local rugby club, which marked the end of his amateur career – and saw his weight increase as he swapped training sessions for pies and pints.
Our 30s passed, and together we grew bigger.
Every now and then, one of us would insist we needed to start eating more healthily and join the gym. But then the other would suggest a carbonara and a nice bottle of wine.
We were happy, though, and our sex life was a healthy one – as much as any couple's is when you have jobs, young kids and a hectic life. Our size was irrelevant to us in the bedroom.
Everything changed – for me, anyway – in January last year.
By then I weighed 13st, placing me in the 'obese' BMI category for my 5ft 4in height, and I was wearing size 18 clothes.
Looking in the mirror one day, just after New Year, it was like something switched inside my mind.
After years of ignoring my body, I felt horrified and ashamed. Who was this overweight, frumpy woman?
Perhaps it was the subliminal influence of all the 'new year, new you' advertising on social media, or the fact I'd started to feel breathless when I was playing with the children, or my wobbly thighs chafing.
Or maybe it was because my 40th birthday was on the horizon and, subconsciously, this wasn't who I wanted to be for that milestone.
The slimmer I got, and the bigger he grew, the more I was turned off by him, Alison Cox* writes
Once I'd made the decision to tackle my weight, I felt determined.
To begin with, I assumed I'd do it the 'natural' way, through diet and exercise, although I knew it would be a huge slog to lose enough and not fall back into bad habits.
A week or two later, over coffee with a friend, I told her about my plan and asked about her own recent weight loss, which had left her looking fantastic.
She confessed it was down to the weight-loss jab Mounjaro, and my interest was piqued by her positive review.
After some research, admittedly with a bit of trepidation, I decided to take it, too. Why torture myself with deprivation and hunger, when according to my friend I could simply jab and the weight would gradually disappear? I completed an online consultation with a leading pharmacy and was approved to take the drug, for around £200 a month.
What I didn't anticipate was how Tom, who then weighed around 19st, would react. I'd already told him I was planning to lose weight but I don't think he'd believed me – it wasn't the first time I'd said it, only to fall off the wagon days later.
When I told him I was going to take Mounjaro, with a target weight of 10st, he was shocked and angry.
He said I was being 'ridiculous' turning to drugs to lose weight, that it could be 'dangerous' to my health and that there was no need – I was 'absolutely fine' as I was and he still found me attractive.
I know he had good intentions, but it felt like a very 'male' attitude – that as long as he still fancied me, I should be happy. He didn't understand that how I felt about myself was really what mattered and I felt upset by his lack of support.
After a few days of us not speaking, things thawed and he begrudgingly said it was my body, and money, so it was up to me what I did with it.
However, he insisted, he had no plans to change himself; he was happy with his body.
I decided it was best just to leave it at that and quietly get on with starting Mounjaro.
Every week, beginning early last March, I jabbed myself in the thigh or tummy, and as the 'food noise' in my head was silenced and my appetite dulled, I began losing weight at a rate of 1.5-2lb a week.
I was elated seeing the scales go steadily downwards and feeling my clothes become looser.
I ate healthily but there was no more picking at the children's tea or tucking into huge portions the same size as Tom's, and I had no interest in my evening glass – or two – of wine. I also took up running and yoga, to tone my shrinking body.
However, not only did Tom continue to eat as he did before, he started to put away more food, almost in defiance. When I struggled to finish a meal, a regular occurrence with my new tiny appetite, he'd happily polish off my leftovers, and when I opted for just a starter from the local Thai on a Friday, he'd still order two mains and sides for himself, washed down with several beers.
I felt like he was trying to make a point, that he wasn't going to be coerced into changing his own lifestyle and body just because I was.
At first, I just rolled my eyes at his male stubbornness and ignored it. However, as I lost weight and became more aware of how much healthier and more energised I was feeling, I began to worry about him.
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Once, I did gently suggest he rein it in a bit and think about losing some weight too for his health, explaining how much better I felt for tackling mine.
He told me I'd become a 'fat shamer', and huffed for days.
Watching him demolish a cheeseboard and bottle of wine in front of the TV, while I nibbled on a cracker and sipped fizzy water, I felt sick at his greed, something I'd never experienced before when I was joining in with him. That change in feelings began to extend into the bedroom.
The slimmer I got, and the bigger he grew, the more I was turned off by him.
I began to invent excuses not to have sex, from a 'headache' to having my period when I didn't, and even sitting up late at the kitchen table working until he fell asleep. The sensation of his belly pressing against me was just too revolting.
Formerly a 'once a fortnight' couple, we became a 'once every six weeks' if he was lucky. A few times, when I rebuffed his advances, he sighed and commented that it had 'been ages', but I don't think he realised I was deliberately avoiding it as much as possible.
The gulf between us felt all the more apparent as, despite his original resistance, Tom loves my new figure and is very complimentary about it.
By October last year, when I celebrated my 40th birthday, I'd reached my goal of 10st, and wore a size 12 sequin mini-dress, feeling fabulous as I hit the dance floor.
Tom hasn't weighed himself in years but I'd estimate that he's put on at least 1½ st since I started taking Mounjaro. That puts him at around 20½ st – more than double my body weight.
I still love Tom deeply but, to borrow a phrase from Love Island, he now gives me 'the ick'. In other words, I'm no longer physically attracted to him.
Sex has become a rarity, only when I absolutely cannot come up with an excuse to avoid it.
When we go out, I wonder if people are surprised someone like me is with someone like him, although that thought makes me feel like a terrible and judgmental person.
I never used to think about his weight when I was fat too, but now it's on my mind a lot. I stopped using Mounjaro after I hit my target weight around my birthday, and am now successfully maintaining my new weight through diet and exercise.
I have no regrets about taking the jabs when it comes to how it's changed my body and my self-confidence.
I feel very troubled, however, about the impact it's had on my feelings towards Tom.
I have no plans to do anything drastic like end our marriage; aside from this 'problem', I'm still happy and we have a lovely life together.
But it's not sustainable to feel physically repulsed by him, nor do I want to risk getting fat again just so I 'match' with him like before.
Recently, he's started to complain his joints are sore and he's developed sleep apnoea as a result of his weight.
A few times, he's even joked that perhaps he needs to try Mounjaro too, and I've noticed him cutting back on portion sizes and doing Dry January.
For now, I'm saying very little.
I know that, like most men, he needs to come to a decision himself and not feel pushed into it, but my hope is he's reaching a point where he wants to change his body.
When he does, I'll be ready to support and encourage him – not just because I want a healthy husband, but because I don't want a chubby one any more.
*Alison Cox is a pseudonym. Names have been changed.
- As told to Eimear O'Hagan
