It all started a couple of weeks ago. A petty disagreement turned into a heated discussion, which I then took a step further by the statement, “I’m sorry I’m not as pretty as I was when we got married.”
The thing is I truly believed that. Maybe that’s why his next statement hurt so much.
“You’re not the girl I married. The girl I married was so confident in who she was that she already KNEW she was beautiful. I think you’re the most beautiful girl in the world, but you’ll never believe that til you believe that about yourself.”
My husband said this to me in love, but selfishly all I could think was that he didn’t think I was the same person. The thing is, I wasn’t, and that is what hurt the most. Knowing that I had unknowingly lost myself in marriage and my own self-doubt was the worst feeling in the entire world. That, and the fact that I had dragged my husband into defining my self worth and beauty.
When we met I knew that I was lost in disordered eating, but I also knew that I was beautiful. I knew I could walk into a room and OWN it if I felt like it. I knew that and I believed it, which is not a common quality among a lot of 20 year old girls. As time went on though and I started to settle into our relationship, little changes started to happen. I started to gain a little weight (which was actually a good thing for me at the time). I wasn’t able to work out 2-3 hours everyday anymore. And I was stuck in jobs that I hated with no sense of what I actually loved to do.
Nate became a sort of safe haven for me, one where I felt secure and loved and like everything was right in the world. And y’all? That’s a GOOD thing for a marriage to be, but that can’t be EVERYTHING a marriage or a partner is to you. I can say this because that’s exactly what I did…I made Nate my everything.
If he was in a bad mood, I was in a bad mood.
If he was having fun, I was having fun.
If he was fawning over me and telling me I was beautiful, then I was beautiful.
And the times that he wasn’t…well, I think you get the picture.
The problem is that no matter how much I love my husband, he is only human and he will fail me. I am only human and I will fail him. The problem was in me thinking that I needed him to define who I am rather than letting myself and God’s grace in my life do that. Kind of a hard job for a human, right?
Over the next 30 (well, 26 now) days, Tina is hosting 30 Days of Self Love and Reflections. It’s a daily devotional of sorts of learning how to love ourselves, one day at a time, one subject at a time. Amazing, right?!
Yesterday’s post was about Intrinsic Beauty, which is clearly something that spoke volumes to me. She asks us to define beauty…is it found in a teeny tiny waist? Full lips? Long blond hair? What is beautiful?
[source]
Beauty is the ability to love yourself as you are. To KNOW that you can own a room when you walk in. To be able to laugh and smile when your face is old and wrinkled and you have no teeth…because life is worth laughing and smiling about. I can honestly say that I wasted 14 years of my life with disordered eating and defining myself by how others treated me. I’ll be turning 27 this month (ancient, I know), and I’m not going down that road anymore. Not to be morbid, but we’re never promised tomorrow, and I’m not wasting one more second of this precious life worrying about a number on a scale, if I am wearing mascara or not, or letting someone else (even my husband) be the defining factor of whether or not I’m beautiful!
Tina’s incredible willingness to begin this project ironically coincided with my own launch of Faces of Beauty, a blogsite wholly dedicated to women posting pictures of themselves and shamelessly announcing to the world that they are beautiful. The women on Faces of Beauty are already changing lives and making a difference in the world with each word they say. I would encourage you to join them by reading through Tina’s post on Intrinsic Beauty, and then submitting your own Faces of Beauty photo and paragraph. You can find instructions on that here, or feel free to email me at heathersdish@gmail.com.
I know this is dramatic, but there’s no reason in the world why anyone should ever feel less than perfectly beautiful just as they are. My hope and prayer today is that YOU would know this about yourself and that your life would be infinitely better because of it!
thank you for this wonderful, honest, open post. i can relate more than you may think and i admire your bravery confronting this kind of thing. 🙂
Exquisite post, Heather. It’s sad but true that women often remember their disordered days as their most “confident.” I’m passionate about helping others to change this, and also about helping women find sources of self worth and confidence that are all internal (rather than rooted externally, in lovers or family), so this post hits home!
I can relate to this so much. Great post, thank you for sharing 🙂
This post is amazing, really.
Thank you for sharing this for us, thank you for opening my eyes.
I’m only 20, but I think I should stop feeling ugly and not good enough, looking for confirmation in others.
I do that all the time, if I feel beautiful, but my bf doesn’t mention it, I immediately start feeling ugly, and fat. Which is awful, a vicious circle.
I’m trying to build up my self-confidence, and I’m getting there, slowly but surely.
All I can say is Thank You.
love you
Thank you so much for being brave enough to post something so honest. I can definitely relate and am constantly working to not let my self-worth/confidence be based on anyone’s opinion, especially my partner’s. So inspiring!
BEAUTIFUL post!
Powerful post Heather.
I absolutely love this post. It’s so honest and poignant. I think the trap of becoming enmeshed in a relationship and relying on that relationship to sustain our views of ourselves happens for so many women. As women, we are nourished through connection. But sometimes we take that connection too far and become subsumed, losing ourselves in the process. What you write about inevitably failing one another is so spot-on. We must find self-love because relying on others to sustain us will only lead to disappointment and heartache. Thanks for so openly chronicling your journey. You’re an inspiration!
Wow – so appreciate your honesty about both self-image and marriage.
Heather, that post was amazing 🙂 you are so inspirational!
😀 I’ll be turning 28 next week .. even more ancient ;-).
And yes, how sad it is that we wasted so many years of our lives on feeling “not beautiful” when those were some of those years that we are going to look back on when we are old and grey and will say “we were so young and fresh and beautiful” (and will not, for a single second, think that we were “not thin enough” or “too xy”!!)
Let’s just all have as many years with beauty from within as possible!
Beautifully written Heather!
It’s funny, last night I was talking to my boyfriend about how I was heavier when we first started dating. He said, yeah but I didn’t think you were fat. You were actually MORE confident then, I miss that.
It got me thinking about all of the things that changed about me since we started dating. How my disordered eating and the HUGE crutch I made him to be took me so far away from myself.
Things are getting better now, but it’s wonderful to know that this happens to other people too.
Thank you!
Well said! And, you are NOT old at 27. I’m 35 and still a spring chicken… age is all in the head. 🙂 Love the project that you are doing, and I am sure that it will make a difference to a lot of people.
This is a terrific post. Truly.
My only objection is that you are “old” at 27…I am 29 and in the most rock-bottom place of my life. I try not to think about age!
I love this post Heather! Thank you for opening up so much of your life to your readers and honoring yourself in the process. Beautifully done;)
What an amazing post, Heather. Thank you for being so open and sharing what so many others would hide. You are beautiful, just the way you are. And for what it is worth, I wouldn’t have you any other way!
Heather, this post made you love you more. THANK you for this amazingly honest, simple, yet inspiring post. No matter how beautiful you are physically, that is temporary. The most of beauty is say, 30 years. But you, Heather, are eternally beautiful because that’s just how you ARE.
Such an inspiring, beautiful post! I truely appreciate this 🙂
Thanks for this reminder. It’s needed everyday.
You are so beautiful Heather. Seriously, one of the biggest hearts I know. It tears me up to know that you, the best big sister in the world, still does not see the beauty that everyone else sees. We love you so much!!!!
Thank you for being so honest. This is a beautiful post. I know, from time to time, I struggle with the same issues, and my guess is that MANY others do as well. You are a beautiful woman, inside and out. And you deserve to be your #1 fan.
<3 Laur
I have gone through this same thing before, and even though I am not married, I sometimes get carried away and I drag my poor boyfriend into my own self doubt.
You are GORGEOUS Heather, don’t EVER forget it okay? 🙂
Heather, what a lovely post. I honestly saw myself in your story and it makes me a little sad for myself. I know I am beautiful and I feel confident in who I am, and yet the smallest thing/event/comment can break me down into nothing. I am hoping that with time and dedication (from me) I can break those awful cycles of feeling good-feeling bad-feeling beautiful-feeling ugly.
Thank you for starting FOB — I have shared it with some friends and my sisters and they love it too!
Heather I can’t even begin to tell you how much I appreciate the honesty in this post. My relationship ended yesterday and I am at a point of feeling lost. I allowed that person to become my safe haven as well and at a time when I am living in a new place, trying to make a new path for myself, it feels like a huge loss. I really admire your truth about failure and finding guidance within.
Thanks for sharing about Tina’s blog. It’s something that I definitely need to read!
I love this post. I also have my ups and downs about myself, but I’ve recently been happier than ever about myself. Thanks for this post!
Thanks for sharing that post! I seriously started to tear up a little…
I do agree with you each day … except days when this new and beautiful self confidence is not with me …
I use to repeat to myself all you say … And I try a skirt which is too little for me, for example, and I promise to myself that I’m going to begin an another diet !
Right now, for example, I’m fighting against myself every day … And in france, where food is soooo important and such a pleasure, believe me, it’s hard.
But I DO LOVE THE WAY you see life today and I’m trying hard to think this way each day.
What a wonderfully written and beautiful post! Seriously. It really touched me. I love how you mention we are human and will fail each other in marriage so we can’t depend on another person. We have to depend on God’s guidance and work to care for ourselves and become who God created us to be. And God created each of us to be beautiful so we must OWN that! 🙂 Have a fabulous weekend.
Thanks for sharing so openly in this post. It rings really close to home for me and how I’ve behaved in my own marriage.
Thanks to you and Tina both for giving us all a LOT to think about these days.