[SDFoundGirl]

Doc,

I'm going to ask you to have some compassion for your W around the weight issue. If you are a woman in America, you have battled the issue of how you look. We are bombarded by images in the media of skinny, "perfect" women, and we don't measure up (in our own minds). I can sit here as an intelligent woman who knows that's all cr@p, and yet, I still HATE to put on a bathing suit.

My H doesn't really understand either...he tells me men don't like those skinny sticks, that they like curves, etc., but those images have been blasted at me since I was small. I have an easier time with someone pointing out a character flaw then in going out in something I think makes me look "fat"...and I'm really not fat.

Men have more freedom there...it's okay for y'all to walk around with chubby bellies. The closest thing I think men have is the loss of their hair, but even that doesn't really happen until later in life most of the time.

She's not just being difficult; your W hates herself and hates her body, and to parade that around is just horrifying. The OM somehow made her feel attractive and sexy--probably what was pulling her toward him, like a drug because she could pretend for a little while that she WAS the hot model.

Women live with lots of "shoulds" about how they should act and be. Not that men don't, but ours are different from yours.

I live 10-miles from the beach, have lived here for 5-years, and I haven't been swimming in the ocean in all that time...something I LOVE to do...because I don't want to expose myself in my bathing suit. I know it's crazy...and I'm working on it.

Just perspective.

All in all, you sound pretty good.

SD