no boys allowed in the room!!!!

It's a constant fite for me to try to not care about being "pretty" btw. I am uninterested in prettiness in other people, I prefer beauty, character, individuality, what have you. But in myself I judge my femininity/"prettiness" all the time.

Sort of constantly amazed by married couples in which the men find the women "beautiful" even though they see them sick, hungover, sweaty, un-pretty all the time because omg lyfe, and I just can't...believe it? Even though it's right in front of me all the time obvs! Serious personal issue alert, clearly. AND ALSO somehow in my mind men are exempt from the reverse of this pressure.

Or, I should say, long term real life couples, not just marrieds, but since there are lots of ppl in this thread who are specif married it was easy short-hand.

xp i always chalk it up to the stereotypical thought that men are like dogs, and like the dog that loves you because you feed it, men find their ltr lady beautiful because she is the provider of sexytimes - at least that's how i felt in my last ltr

That seems...unflattering to both parties?

Or maybe ungenerous is a better word. Still, that's not an answer I can rest with.

xp - i did not say i thought it was a healthy perception!

like it's definitely indicative of "personal issues"

Heh.

still, i think "sexytimes" is a glib shorthand, really - like shooting-the-shit-at-a-bar-in-mixed-company shorthand - and it stands for positive feelings from physical intimacy.

I believe that guys find ladies they normally find sexy/beautiful the same when sick, pregnant, in pajamas, whatever - as long and they aren't weird and extremely extremely superficial (ie equating beauty with amount of makeup or w/e). If I'm really attracted to someone it isn't diminished by their looking wan or jaundiced it whatever due to sickness, or wearing stupid clothes, etc. Tbf: though I believe that, it is hard to think about myself, and my relationship and I get really self conscious STILL about Andy seeing me looking rough.

I had poison ivy all over my face this summer and literally looked identical to cotton from king of the hill. I thought, how long would Andy endure this?!

Sort of constantly amazed by married couples in which the men find the women "beautiful" even though they see them sick, hungover, sweaty, un-pretty all the time because omg lyfe, and I just can't...believe it?

Many years ago, when I was having major external-beauty issues, my mom tried to explain someting to me about how she and my father "thought about" one another. At the time, they were married for ~30 years (and are now married 40+ years). Mom said to me, "you cease thinking about someone you are so deeply intwined with as a physical being. When I think of your father, I think about a million other things before I think six-one, dark hair, brown eyes, etc.). It just doesn't cross my mind what his *physical* person is."

I have found this to be so true, even though spouse and I find each other physically attactive, that physical aspect is not what either of us identifies as *us*.

Not sure I have made sense there, but I totally get relationships transcending the physical being.

i don't think I've ever had one that did.

Not speaking for my boyfriends, but just for myself, I've never been that close to anyone that I stopped thinking of them as their physical self in a romantic relship. Friendships, easily, yes.

Yeah I mean that's what "love" is IMO? Quincie's mom super otm.

Weird.

Weirder would be the opposite!

Eh maybe I'm also thinking too much (without meaning to carry the baggage but you know how far that goes) of when exes who have let me know when they didn't find me attractive in some way, like it was my job to maintain.

xp I was kidding!

girl, ive been there. those ppl were actually evil tho

Omg yes. Evil.

had an ex BF who LOUDLY talked to a friend of mine in the other room about how he had to grow to find me attractive, in the style of "dont give up buddy, you can date anyone and eventually grow to find their appearance acceptable" *pats*

me in the other room - >:O

Someone told me to my face that I reminded him of a monkey.

Pardon the fuck out of me for being short and wiry, asshole!

Whaaaaa....?! xp

That wasn't even the worst, but it's the funniest.

Oh no fucking way is there an obligation to "maintain" other than maintaining the fundamentals of myself (aka the stuff one falls in love with); 20 pounds does not change the fundamentals of myself. I have tested this theory in real life, and it has held rue.

Also, I shit in my now-husband's pants ~2 weeks after we got engaged. SHIT IN HIS PANTS. After which there was an ambulance and a hospital stay wherein not only did I look like shit, he had to CHANGE MY EXPLOVE-DIARHHEA-FILLED BEDPANS. And kissed the lips from which I recently spewed much vomit. Not a pretty time, the norovirus weekend. So thank god one can transcend the physical, because otherwise he would be haunted by shit and vomit every time he looked at me!

if my story was inscrutable its cause i meant my bf was telling the friend how he, the BF, had been forced to develop an attraction to me - he wasnt telling the friend he had to develop one. lol. the friend was having trouble finding a GF at the time.

xp wow quincie. that's love

Once I tried to make light of body image stuff during sexytimes by telling my partner in a jokey kind of way that I was self-conscious about my stomach. He said 'yeah, I would think so'.

People are so terrible to each other sometimes! Quincie your story warms the bowels of my soul.

LJUB OMG

Jesus christ based on this thread you marry the one who DOESN'T talk shit about some aspect of your appearance because frankly all the rest do.

LJUB OMG

Xp No they don't but we fixate on and remember the bad ones! That's what's so shitty about it.

I seriously am deeply pissed that any woman in a relationship with a supposedly adult man should hear anything negative about her appearance. I mean I'm kind of floored that right hear I have heard from extremely attractive women that their physical looks have been criticized. I guess I thought that it didn't really happen??? I am dumb. And pissed.

um by hear I mean here, obv. I like to think that this is only an issue with people who audition for reality shows, but goddamn to hear it about women I know burns me the fuck up.

Weakling's desperate power grab in most cases, I'd imagine. It's just a shame they're so memorable/effective.

power grab is what i think too.

None of mine are funny, they're just mundanely, tediously cruel and evil. Suggestions for what you could/should do to yourself to be more enticing, remarks about how some woman who is the opposite of you is actually their type, I won't even bother to share the kinds of things the horrible one said and did, but even the nice/normal/average guys who were not assholes over the whole relationship still had things to say.

I guess it is probably a good thing that I am so floored by these negative experiences? Because I know so many partners (old, young, hetero, homo, etc.) wherein physical appearance is never something that I neither a) notice or b) hear about from either partners nor others? I hpe to god that this is the norm, and these assholes are the exceptions???

The collateral damage of the comments makes me way angrier than the comments themselves.

xpost um pls undo the double negative, too worked up to type I think

It's poisonous. A couple of years ago I spent some time a happy couple who were totally into each other and I noticed that she didn't shave her legs and was like, how can she even stand to present that to her mate?? He must think she doesn't even care what she looks like! Shocking.

To be fair, the stomach incident is the only really terrible appearance-related incident with a bf that I remember. Here's a counterweight: I went to a summer school when I was about 20. I was very paranoid about my appearance and didn't have any clue how to dress or do my hair or makeup. I'd recently lost a lot of weight and wasn't sure how the hell to perceive myself. Right at the end of the course, a really cool and attractive guy who hadn't spoken to me much turned to me and said 'By the way, you're the most beautiful girl in the summer school. I know you don't bother that much with doing your hair and stuff, but that's what I think. I just thought I'd let you know'. Then went back to his drink. I still think about that when I feel unattractive. I try to think: I may not be perfect but I can still be attractive despite that. Some people won't find me attractive, and that doesn't matter, and for others I'm just their thing.

^^^OTM

To be fair, there are totally chicks who give their partners (whether guy or girl) a hard time for failing to live up to their "maintenance" expectations.

Yeah, def. The thing is though that the exchange rate between currencies doesn't work out. It's not that men don't have body ish or w/e or don't like being handsome and told it and appreciated, it's that the cut to a woman is at her basic worth.

That's a good point, had not considered it that way. I had been thinging shallow chick=shallow dude, but I can see that there is difference in fundamental impact.

But I'm not rly focused on that, I'm just going to ponder ways to recalibrate my thinking to a much more awesome standard based on the healthier contributions to this conversation.

I have heard quite a few husbands call their wives fat when they were trying on clothes. Women who are size 4 or 6.

I think at least one of these instances was a about a wife who had recently had a baby.

The main bf who made me feel bad about my appearance thought he was manipulating me to change it, and thought I was not on his intellectual level and therefore wouldn't see what he was attempting to do.