The Bumpy Road to Recovery #2

[Bagheera]

What DQ just did for you... Your woman needs that, too, to feel worthy of spreading her feathers. Just in case you haven't told her lately...

I hear ya; and yes, she hears it from me often, and in a variety of ways. I have been working to shift her own negative body-image throughout the past year and a half since our reunion. It's been slow progress. A little background:

By society's standards, she is overweight, hates it, and is currently unable to change it, despite major efforts to do so -- her body right now would rather reduce her metabolism to zero than burn fat -- I've seen her on 800-900 calories a day, losing hair, feeling awful, and still not able to lose anything. For a time, while our relationship was very strained and we were separated most of the year, she became very discouraged, had stopped dressing in a flattering way, had stopped wearing make-up, had stopped pampering herself in any feminine way. I'm also guilty here too: at the height of our SSM, I was angry, withdrawn, NOT complimentary and occasionally critical of her weight and the ways in which she was 'letting herself go.' I was a jerk, really.

During that long, lonely, six-month separation in the first half of 2007, however, I finally woke up and smelled the coffee. I realizing, among many other things, that my wife was her own worst critic with regard to her body and looks, and that I needed to become her -primary- source of positive remarks, compliments, and feedback, and to NEVER 'go negative' again with regard to her body/looks. I needed to become the counter-balance to her own negative self-commentary, and help her to see the positive in herself. Secondly, I discovered that thanks to my love of curvaceous women -- and my wife tends to carry her weight primarily in her curves, making her even more curvaceous -- that I could be extremely turned on by her body regardless of current weight status. I found my own confidence to say "Screw what 'society' considers attractive," and proudly enjoy the woman that I had on my arm in public, and in my bed at night. Thus began my campaign.

For the first few weeks/months following our reunion, my wife simply didn't believe that I was being genuine with my compliments and praise. Or she attributed it to horniness on my part and the male 'fog' of arousal (what I called 'arousal goggles' in your thread). However, with time, she has come to trust and appreciate my appreciation of HER. She has started dressing more attractively again, and even in ways that show off her ample curves occasionally (although she's still very 'proper'). She's started using make-up again (lightly, as has always been her style), and with my encourage she now has regular manicures and pedicures. Privately, she still won't dress in lingerie for me, but I'm working on it, and the rare laced panties or bra always draw a nice growl of masculine appreciation from me.

At this point, I think that she fully trusts and enjoys the fact that I find her lusciously curvy, sexy, and attractive. However, in the same sentence she'll claim not to understand it, shaking her head as if I must aberrant or blind. She doesn't feel it yet for herself, which is the next important step.

In time,

-- B.

P.S. I also owe a bit of appreciation to the on-line BBW community for showing my wife that there is a significant number of men out there who truly appreciate women of her body type, and that it isn't just the 'young, nubile playmate' types that turn a man on. It helped to show that I'm not such an aberrant husband, after all....