I am not conventionally attractive. In a way that isn’t salvageable without various surgeries, which is an option I’ve ruled out for various reasons. I don’t like my body but I can rationalise that people are attracted to different body types. And you’d be proud of me if I was yours, I lost more than 60lbs. I trust my partner with everything apart from when he tells me that I’m pretty or that he’s attracted to me. Or any other similar sentiments. I don’t believe him, I can’t make what he’s saying make sense. I can see what I look like, I know that I’m ugly. This had also been confirmed by multiple outsiders, or at least a lot of people told me I was ugly in high school. He does everything you’re supposed to, he says all the right things. I love him so much, and I’m a less good wife/sub/daughter to him because of this. We had a few threesomes early on and he would love to do more but now the idea of another girl with us just makes me feel like I’m nothing, I can’t. My face makes me so sad. If I was one of your girls I guess the answer would be they would never doubt you like that but I’m still spinning this out hoping you have some pearls of wisdom for me. Therapy hasn’t really helped. Trying to make peace with looking like this or ignoring it hasn’t helped. I just keep picking at it like it’s a wound.
Okay, first… 60lbs? You fucking bad-ass! I don’t care who owns you, I’m proud of you. That’s not easy, and requires a level of determination that can be incredibly difficult to muster. You deserve far more credit than that one little sentence allows.
Second, I cannot begin to stress how utterly irrelevant the opinions of high school kids truly are… as a whole, they’re among the most emotionally myopic people on the planet. I know the petty cruelties of insipid children can haunt us, but I promise, absolutely nothing said by a teenaged boy as you passed his locker in 2010 is worth a single nanosecond of your adult time.
Third, I need you to start doing some serious work on developing your ability to trust. Because it sounds like you have a solid guy on your hands, someone who cares about you and actively seeks to include you in his life. And while I know you don’t intend it to be so, it’s a little insulting that you’re so dismissive of his admiration. You don’t need to agree with his assessment of you, but you’ve gotta accept that it is his assessment… he’s entitled to a differing opinion.
Fourth, humans each observe the world from unique perspectives. I know you’re aware of that, but I don’t think you’ve internalized it. Our perception of beauty is largely a matter of focus… it’s all about where we choose to rest our gaze. When you look at yourself, you’re looking at both popular superficialities and microscopic, generally unnoticed details… meanwhile, when he looks at you, he’s taking in all the parts of you that your brain chooses to ignore. He’s seeing how you move, sampling your scent, feeling the comfort of your proximity, recognizing the fullness of your love… the kind of shit your mirror will never be able to show you. Please, let that man embrace all of you, even if you can’t.
You’ve got to stop fighting, and let people love you. As someone who spent decades dismissing every bit of praise he ever received, I can tell you that belief —not in yourself, but in others and their ability to be right about you— will transform your life.
But you have to let it happen.