The best thing about finding this message board is that it helps me feel less "crazy" about my situation.
The issue that is making me "nuts" now has to do with my self-image. The only suggestion my LDH has made regarding what I can do to improve our sex life is that I could lose some weight and buy some new clothes.
So, I've done some shopping and I've already lost half the weight I feel I need to but I'm wondering where this is going to lead. If I make a reasonable effort, will that be good enough?
Also, I've started to get this weird feeling that maybe I don't know what I really look like. Am I like one of those guys who goes around with a really bad toupee and thinks he looks just swell? How can I get an objective opinion on this subject? If I ask my sister or a friend she might be biased and lie to be nice. If I just go by what my LDH says, I might become an anorexic, plastic surgery addict. If I flirt with the guy in line at the post office, how do I know if his reaction isn't due to being gay, in love, super-friendly, HD and miserable etc.?
I almost wish I were back in high school and could walk through the hall full of jerks who would yell out "6.5" or "9".
My husband is away on business this week, so I bought a new nightgown yesterday for when he returns. But, I felt kind of "schizo" when I tried it on again this morning. One second I would think it looked good and the next second I was regretting having read Dave's post about gravity's effect on breasts and the next second I was thinking the amount of droop was acceptable given their size and my husband hates fake breasts anyways and then I was obsessing about where the hemline hit my thighs. You get the drift.
My natural HD tendency is to be optimistic about my appearance and appeal, but my current situation is driving me in the other direction. I sometimes truly feel that leaving this marriage would be a good thing for my mental health.
Any suggestions for how I might become more "centered"on this issue?
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Quote: So, I've done some shopping and I've already lost half the weight I feel I need to but I'm wondering where this is going to lead. If I make a reasonable effort, will that be good enough?
Good enough for what? Or whom? Don't do it for HIM, do it for YOU. Do what makes YOU feel good.
Quote: Also, I've started to get this weird feeling that maybe I don't know what I really look like. Am I like one of those guys who goes around with a really bad toupee and thinks he looks just swell?
I recently shaved off a beard I had worn for over 22 years. I had never given a thought to shaving it, because I thought it was "part of me". Since shaving it off, I'm rediscovering myself, and liking it. It's made me look at least 10 years younger, and has given my self-confidence a real boost. But I didn't consult W about it, and it really isn't about HER, it's about ME and how I feel about myself.
Quote: But, I felt kind of "schizo" when I tried it on again this morning. One second I would think it looked good and the next second I was regretting having read Dave's post about gravity's effect on breasts and the next second I was thinking the amount of droop was acceptable given their size and my husband hates fake breasts anyways and then I was obsessing about where the hemline hit my thighs. You get the drift.
It sounds like you could really benefit from examining closely your attitudes about yourself and your body, and how that fits into your self-image. Do this without regard to what your H thinks - discover how YOU feel about you. This could give you some great insights...
One thing I have come to really believe and realise is people who love you, love you for who you are inside!!!!!!! Thats not to say that there can't be some improvement on the outside. Heck, 90% of people in this country are not happy with the way they look. But if your H is basing his non-desire on the way you look, then I have to say he has a real problem. If you have lost weight and it hasn't made him look at you in a different light, then maybe he should go to C and figure out what his "real" issues are.
There's no such thing as an objective opinion on this kind of question. I play jazz flute, and my first teacher told me, "don't ask your audience if it was good, play for yourself - and your audience will find you". It's important for me to practice and to be able to play my music with conviction, but I don't have to prove that I'm as good as Matt Eakle or Hubert Laws. In fact, I don't even be all that good. If I'm playing with someone else, and we both enjoy it, that's great.
Wear clothes that show that you care about yourself and that you'd like to look nice for your husband, exercise to make yourself feel better, take off weight if you can and make sure you appreciate for yourself every bit of progress you make.
But there are fat, ugly women who carry themselves with conviction, listen well, make good contact, and are very attractive indeed even though they will never find their pictures on magazines. The most attractive thing about you is that you are you, so be the most you that you can!
Quote: If I flirt with the guy in line at the post office, how do I know if his reaction isn't due to being gay, in love, super-friendly, HD and miserable etc.?
Well, if it's me, the last three conditions usually apply. I'm thoroughly in love with my wife as well as being HD and miserable, but I'm also a super-friendly guy. And I defy you to accurately interpret all that while standing in line at the post office. I'm quite confident I'm not gay, so that simplifies interpretation somewhat. But please don't flirt with me, it will only make me more miserable...
Quote: My husband is away on business this week, so I bought a new nightgown yesterday for when he returns. But, I felt kind of "schizo" when I tried it on again this morning. One second I would think it looked good and the next second I was regretting having read Dave's post...
It's the image you project that matters most. If you have to wait for someone else to pass a judgement on you so that you can know whether you are pulling it off successfully, and you are then willing to go along with this judgement...that's not going to work out well.
Mojo, One thing I found when I was losing weight after baby #2 was that you will just KNOW when you are getting to a good point. I too was deathly afraid of losing my grip on the weight loss and having it turn into an eating disorder, even though I have NEVER been prone to anything like that, ever! I love to eat after all. But I was becoming so obssessed with weight loss as a way to improve intimacy in my marriage that I was losing my sense of reality. Plus, H is not the type to give positive feedback about my body or my efforts to get and stay in shape so I never knew if I was on track or not.
However, I knew when I was getting in shape just by the reaction of the public at large. I started getting looks and comments from people I knew. I felt good in my clothes and no longer picked my body apart. Part of it was that I truly WAS to a size that was good on me and part of it was that I just started to relax about it. I realized that me being slimmer was not a magic bullet for his desire and once that disappointment faded, I got on to the business of liking myself and changing for ME. It was not easy to go from literally loathing myself to thinking HE is the one missing out (and really believing it) but it did happen.
Keep on with what you are doing and I'm sure you already look fantastic!
Few of us are perfect, and many that look so have so many body issues they cannot appreciate their inner much less their outer beauty. It's a shame that we are pressured to comform to a certain societial ideal of beauty, which few can achieve and maintain naturally.
If you have close girl friends, ask them to be brutally honest with you about how they perceive you. Then you decide what you want to change if anything.
It seems to be okay for a man to ask his woman partner to make exterior changes to please him, but what happens if we women ask our men to do the same? Very few men would be willing to do to their bodies what they ask us to do.
Honey, I love you, but really I would love it if you could get plastic surgery to make your penis bigger. I think that would be such turn on for me.. Many men don't think twice about asking their partners to have breast augmentation, tummy tucks, face lifts, but if we would ask them to have major surgery to please us, what would the reaction be?
We all grow older and we don't look the same as we did when we were 20. That's just a fact of life and we can accept it or fight it.
I certainly do not fit in the societal standards of the perfect female form. I'm a large lady, curvy, voluptous, beautiful where it counts, in my heart, and I like and accept my body how it is. I am atractive and have a positive attitude. Sure, I could be smaller, but I am not going to mutilate my body with surgery so I can fit into what another persons ideal of beauty is.
No matter what I have done with my appearance, my H never appreciated what he had, even when I was substantially smaller. He has never commented on the fact that I have gained weight during our marriage, but so has he. He never noticed a new outfit, hair, makeup, nothing. If he has had a problem with my appearance, he has never said that to me.
A lot of appearance it attitude and confidence, and if you are happy with yourself it shows. I have guys calling me just waiting to date me after my D. Jees, maybe they know something that my H could not figure out in all the years that we have been M.
Work on your self confidence and don't have anything done that YOU don't want to do. The proliferation of these makeover shows really bothers me. Appearance is not everything or the only thing. It's who you are that counts and I hope your H can appreciate you for that.
I can't tell you what weight looks good or not on a woman. I can tell you a few things though. Most men don't like unnaturally skinny women. It is the curves that count. Most women I have have known could have varied 30 pounds in their weight and I don't think I would have noticed.
The part that bothers me most is what you said about the mirror. Be sure that you don't compare yourself to other women. If you must, however, make sure that they are REAL, not fixed up models. Photos are commonly retouched and computer imaged pictures are modified heavily for magazines, Hips are shaved, blemishes covered and all manner of crap done to the models - all without surgery!
When is the last time you saw someone with plastic looking perfect skin that was a uniform shade with no blemishes other than in a magazine....
I don't know your background, NoMoJo, but my personal experience when I was a wee bit younger, afforded me the opportunity to see a lot of naked women, up close and personal. No two were alike, and none of them had plastic skin or perfect proportions. I tell you, it was heaven! I loved it. All shapes and sizes :-) Oh, but I am married for a long time now, and I never think about those things anymore. They are in the past after all (BS ALERT!).
On my soapbox; I wish all women could enjoy themselves for who they are and not for what TV or cheap rags tell them they should be. In my opinion, feminists should be fighting to get rid of crap magazines that mostly women read. Stop making images of idealistic models that DON"T EXIST IN NATURE, a status quo. Victoria's Secret is that even her models don't look like her models!
Off my soapbox now.
NoMoJo, I bet you look great. Don't you dare let ANYONE, including your husband, start screwing with what you see in yourself. Your own common sense will tell you what looks good or not. If you see yourself start making assumptions that you would consider extreme when made by someone else, then discard the notion.
"Well honey, if you just lost a few pounds, you would look better" BOOOIIIINNG. That's the sound of you clubbing him upside the head. When he comes around, you can tell him to think again...
Sorry, but I am a firm believer in certain behaviors being unacceptable, regardless of any political bent. Dumping my problem onto someone else by belittling them is simply bad form. In southern speak, that would be called "chicken sh!t"
All the best! -NOPkins-
I will ferret out an affair at any opportunity.
-An affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect. -An infidel will remain unreachable so long as their sense of entitlement exceeds their ability to reason.
Although I've been sexually very conservative, I have been in cultures and subcultures where I saw a lot of women naked.
I was active in massage for a number of years when I was younger.
I lived in Berlin for 7 years, where many beaches have an all-nude area and the textile area of a beach generally has some nude people regardless and lots of topless women.
When I'm in Europe, I often go to saunas, where the naked people are of obviously diverse gender.
I'm firmly married, and am staying away from all of these women, come come in all kinds of attractive shapes and sizes, but I'm pretty sure that if I were single, I wouldn't have a hard time adjusting to most of them. And having seen all these women does not make my wife any less attractive to me.
