My husband’s pursuit of a flawless six-pack is destroying our marriage

When we met at university, my husband and I shared lots of mutual friends and a love of having fun. If we weren’t dancing together at parties we were doing drinking games in the student union bar.

Over the course of the first year our friendship turned into something more. He was never in the best shape physically, but what did I care? I’d fallen head over heels for the whole package.

We were both carrying a bit of extra weight around the middle by the time we finished our degrees – a sign of all the fun we’d had.

It wasn’t long after graduating that we got married and quite quickly had our two children. And thanks to a family gym membership we both lost the wobbly bits and toned up a bit.

Life was busy, between work and the children, but I was happy to squeeze in two gym sessions a week. My husband, on the other hand, really got into it – he began visiting the gym religiously: every morning before work and even at the weekend.

The passion for exercise also encouraged him to look into his diet. Soon enough he started to scorn the dinners we’d eat as a family, preferring to consume a very specific list of protein powders, spirulina and various other superfoods from the health shop.

Three years ago, he decided to stop drinking as well. In the past we’d love a fun evening out with friends, drinking too much and dancing until the early hours, but those occasions dried up immediately.

At a close friend’s 40th party he spent the whole night sipping slimline tonic (no calories apparently!) with a face like thunder, before grabbing me from the dance floor at the stroke of midnight so that he could drive us home. Another time he flat-out refused to go out for a curry with my family because he didn’t regard the menu choices as healthy enough.

There was no space in his life for special occasions either. When I tried to cajole him into having a glass of bubbly on my birthday he got defensive saying I didn’t appreciate how hard he worked on his physique.

Nothing could have been further from the truth: I certainly noticed the work. When friends commented on his six-pack bulging through his tight T-shirt or the biceps that looked like they were going to burst out of his shirts, I could see how happy it made him. It made me proud of the work he’d put in.

What I didn’t like – and what no one else saw – was the cost of it all. Some of my girlfriends have confided that they wish their husbands would take tips from mine and transform their “dadbods” into something more muscular too – that it would even improve their relationship. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that his obsession with his physique is ruining ours.

My fun, sociable husband who got drunk with me on nights out and loved tucking into a nice meal and a bottle of wine together has been replaced by a boring, body-obsessed muscle man.

He thinks that his body is what every woman wants, but in reality I hate feeling his rock-hard muscles laying next to me in bed and miss being able to snuggle up to someone cuddly.

I still exercise regularly and take pride in my appearance. I also eat healthily and only indulge in moderation, but it feels like he has taken normal, healthy behaviour to an extreme.

Far from being a turn-on, my husband’s obsession with his body is destroying our marriage and I would do anything to have the old, fun, cuddly one back.

At a friend’s 40th, he spent the night sipping slimline tonic with a face like thunder