I actually felt very confident in my body right after I had my twins, and pretty attractive. This made absolutely no sense, as I was empirically not attractive AT. ALL. My hair had major roots, I had 30 pounds on my old self (at least), and my body had changed in lots of ways, none of them lovely. I have continued to feel good about my appearance until the miscarriage. No longer, though. I hate my body right now. I hate my appearance.
I think now that there maybe was a strong biological urge to feel good about myself after I had children. Maybe I thought, hey, I’m fertile after all, and that made me attractive to men (my husband in particular, of course), because they know that I have borne children in the past, and I can do it again (even if that is a flawed argument for me, at best). How lame.
Now, though, my body is back to normal. Back to its crappy, infertile, baby-rejecting self. I have never felt less attractive in my life. And deep down it makes me think I’m less attractive to my husband. I wish I didn’t feel this way.
I’ve never thought about it in those terms, but you. are. so. right. That’s how I feel, too! Of course the eating-away-my-grief weight isn’t helping at all.
I hope your husband is as good at mine as telling me how beautiful and attractive I am…especially when I feel it the least.
Thanks Amanda -sounds like you have an amazing husband! And I sooo have the eating-away-my grief weight going on right now too (this HAD to happen right when the Girls Scout cookie season began. Curse you, Thin Mints!). My husband does say nice things about my looks, I don’t know why it’s so easy for me to forget that.