Hello Curious,
We do have a fair amount in common- you've commented on my posting (the 'fatty' one )
I'm British, with an older-than-me H, with a porn habit. And my H's choice of viewing makes me feel sick as well......
You mentioned, in your comment to me, that you had started 'comfort eating' due to your married unhappiness and putting on weight.
This is something I can, hopefully helpfully, comment on!
The Gym.
The best thing I think I ever did for myself .
It took a lot of guts to start there, but once I got going it was brill. The type of gym you have to choose though, is important.
The one I joined used to be part of a council-run leisure centre (it's called Stantonbury, in Milton Keynes). As such it's *not* what could be described as a 'meat head' gym full of young testosterone going crazy ; it's the sort of place where people who have been 'prescribed' gym by their doctors go! It's full of absolutely un-intimidating gym members, great sociable and friendly people with [amongst the solid core of regulars] an age range of about 35 to 70.
What you choose to do in the gym you pick, is also quite important.
Try different group exercise sessions till you find one you get some enjoyment out of (OK, the point of most exercise is hard work, which isn't usually fun, but that can be balanced out by the satisfaction of having done it, and the sociability of everybody else in the group being equally knackered and pleased it's over!)
One of the things I, suprisingly, found to be really good fun, was playing badminton (Stantonbury, as a leisure centre, is large enough to have badders courts ; not many gyms do, sadly

)
I had *never* played in my life before, was rubbish at it (still am!) but some of the other members are also extremely bad at it and it becomes just a very good laugh with a lot of exercise thrown in
Personally speaking, the social aspect of my gym is very important to me and keeps me going there: as I work with my H, or on my own, the gym fills the 'need to see and interact with other humans' that most people get by going to work. Even if that work is as bog-standard as working in Tesco or an office or something.... you still get to chat to other people occasionally!
So if you already work *with* other people, I can see that sticking with a gym regime is more difficult to do, as you 'need' the social part less....
The comfort-eating thing is a bit of a big hurdle to get over; But if you look at being 'at the gym' as being out of the house; and you can't comfort-eat while you're out doing something else, so you'd be doing less of it anyway.. ifyouseewhatImean!
Comfort eating is a very bad habit/sometimes even an addiction, and giving it up is really hard. So if you back-slide and find yourself eating rubbish when you had tried to give up, don't be too hard on yourself. Just try again the next day and don't think that you'll never win; every *single* day that you are eating healthily is a Good Thing. All missing a day of 'healthy' does, is put back the day you reach your goal only by one *single* day. (i hope that lot makes some sort of sense

)
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Giving up eating problems is so much harder than giving up other addictions; If you give up smoking, alcohol, drugs (or even porn!) the trick is NEVER TO DO IT AGAIN.
You can't do that with food ; doesn't matter how fat you were at the beginning, if you never eat again you'll die eventually.
It'd be like asking George Best (for any US readers- GB was a very well known British alkie ex-footballer!) to knock the booze on the 'ead, and just replace it with 'normal life' and popping down the pub once or twice a week and drinking 2 or 3 pints with his friends....
Or asking a junkie to kick the habit, but still have just one or two joints with his mates at the weekend.......
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Please be careful *not* to use weight-gain as a 'good reason why he won't get anywhere near you' - this is not *your* problem; it's his. Took me 20 years to work that one out.
I wish I could help more with the SM part of your problem, but I'm stuck in a quagmire of 'what the hell do I do' as well.......
After my recent blow up about H's girlfriend and the ensuing upset, I thought H and I were getting on better by being more honest about all this deep stuff and there was a chance of more normality, affection and possibly more..... wrong. just had another shattering 'being-yelled-at-session' (can't really call it an argument- I don't say much when he's off on one...), started off with something totally un-related to SM stuff, but ended up being re-curved back to the blow-up.......
Do you and your H generally get on well in other bits of life?
Do you argue a lot about things un-connected to SM problems?
Do you have children?
(Apologies if you think I'm being a bit nosey

, I shan't be offended if you don't wish to answer

)