and remember the song 'i dont care where you get your appetite, as long as you eat at home'!
No how matter hot a woman is, there is always going to be someone hotter. ESPECIALLY on TV and in magazines and porn etc. There is a reason they are in the movies, they are exceptionally attractive and for us women, even beautiful women to compare ourselves to them and feel less worthy of our men because of them. Its really not a fair fight.
Those ladies on TV wear hair extensions, have make-up artists, plastic surgeons, fitness trainers, dieticians and cooks, skin experts, stylists... we are bringing waterballoons to a gunfight in that competition.
A guy can look at a pretty, hot woman and appreciate her , a thing of beauty without desiring to replace his SO with her. Without thinking less of her, at least if he is a good person and loves you.
Your man is probably not the hottest man in the world, no, but he is probably the apple of YOUR eye and that is what matters, hot or not to the rest of world is insignificant. I'm sure there are hot men popping on the TV just as much as women, guys with chizzled out abs perfect smiles and flawless hair and skin and you might go oh wow hot, in your head... but you don't look at the man on your sofa and think "rubbish!" Like the way you imagine him doing.
Give him more credit than that, he's been with you for years, he deserves it. Men don't deal with the emotions of feeling inferior to other men as often because 1. They don't have perfection rammed down their throat in the way that we do - but times they are a changin. More and more commercials for natural male enhancement, etc.
Guys tend to have way less issues with self-esteem, more acceptence of themselves. Self improvement books, diet books and plans, botox, make-up, etc... theres a bazillian dollars of advertising money (all geared at women) being spent to make us feel like we need to look better than we naturally do. Then we are exposed constantly to these flawless (and photoshopped) ladies and feel even worst about ourselves.
I watched this program where they took these women that are total 10's already and picked them apart on their itty bitty flaws that made them human and fix them up in photoshop. It makes us feel bad enough about ourselves to think we need THEIR product to improve, and sure it can give some guys unrealistic expectations. I really wish they'd leave in the cellulite, not smooth out the zits with photo paintbrushes etc so that we can see once and for all that we are not so different that those women as we think we are.
I'm rambling but the bottom line is, I do what you are doing in my head sometimes. When a woman I know is hotter than me is around my bf I feel like maybe he is looking at her wishing SHE was his gf not me. Then he treats me like a princess and I know he is happy with me.
Low self-esteem is A MONSTER. I struggle with it on a constant basis but I am aware of the downward spiral that comes from insecurity and always pep talk myself out of being upset about things that I shouldn't be.
You, yourself, know you have taken this too far... not being able to enjoy entertainment with movies , tv and even music because of your fears. You are only hurting yourself, and possibly destroying your relationship (more than possibly). He needs to help you though, he needs to provide you with some support and understanding, given your history.
If he wasn't attracted to you, he wouldnt still be there after all these years. He's into you and you know it. And you know you can't walk him around town with a blindfold , you know its not healthy. Anytime you get to feeling like he'd rather have someone from the TV make a list in your head of all the reasons he is lucky to be with you and hold those reasons close to your heart as I am sure he does.
Last edited by Hopeless Dork; 06-06-2009 at 11:43 PM. Reason: clarity
Scars remind us of where we've been...they don't have to dictate where we're going.
and remember the song 'i dont care where you get your appetite, as long as you eat at home'!
The bottomline is that: you both have issues. He's been working on his. Are you working on yours? Find a counsellor that would help you. Believe me, I was in your position. I was abused as a teen by an uncle, and was raped by my ex-husband for 7 long years (sorry to admit, my 2nd child was one of the outcome). I tried my very best to make a cludge...didn't work. Finally separated. I went to a counselor and worked out my self-esteem issues. I confided the marital rape part to my SO (I missed the uncle part, but I will), and he was receptive and supportive. I am presently about to morph now and become the butterfly he's been waiting to see play in his garden.
Nobody can help you but yourself. Find that inner strength and muster that ability to keep going...when the going gets tough, the tough gets going, so they say.... You can do it!
What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are but how you deal with incompatibility. - Leo Tolstoy
The clearest explanation for failure of any marriage is that two people are incompatible; that is, one is male and the other female. - Anna Quindlen
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You know, it amazes me how so many women on this Forum have gone from strength to strength and speak of it, to help others.
Once upon a time I was alone... Now I can rattle of a few names, and you know who you are, the key players, persay, writers.
Never stop..
I just personally want to say thank you.
It's your strength all of you that helps others that haven't got there yet but are willing to find and try.
Thank you.
CW
Do we not realise that in order to find a soul
It doesn't happen over night
if truth were to be told.
Like everything in life that's hard to achieve
you must believe!
HD has made some excellent points. She has shared her personal difficulties with this before. We all experience at least a twinge of it now and again but don'tlet this control you. There is a huge difference with a man who steps over the line, watching movine and such isn't it. The Light of my life explained looking at women at being like looking at art. Just as you can admire that a man (actor, statue, whatever) is attractive without wanting to have them in your life, so can he.
wow thank you for the advice iv got from you ladies xx i sat at my computer last wk thinking that no one would reply and i would feel silly but the advice has been amazing. i dont know why but i feel so much better. i got on to my doctors who gave me some phone numbers one of a therapist and also sujested leaflets on a hypnotherapist which if any one has personal experience with hypnotheraply id love to hear weather it worked for anyone and why. i tried the positive thinking and took the first step the other day i no it sounds silly but i watched about 3 american pies and wild orchard the other night. cheesy i no but normaly i wouldnt go anywhere near films with inuendo and sex. it symbolized a new me and a leaving of my negative issues behind. i can feel some of the weights lifted off my shoulders already. not under the illusion that thats it my prob will just go away but what i do know is that i can turn things around if i work at it. i had a heart to heart with my longtime partner who left me the other week because he couldnt handle my issues. he took me back and we are going to work threw it together. thanks everyone xx
Good Steph! I hope we hear from you that all is working out.
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