[readytobeme2010]

I have no idea sometimes who is female or male LOL unless they have a pic. Ok ladies you can chime in too.....

I have a question....

After coming out of a 20 yrs of abuse (physical and mental) I am now in a great place emotionally with myself. HOWEVER, I also after taking a LONG sabatical from relationships to work on myself, I now have a loving wonderful man in my life I will be marrying hopefully this year.

A STRANGE thing to me though.....

I have quite a bit of weight to loose. Everyone says the nice line I carry it well, your face is so beautiful all that BS but anyway.....

The very fact that my significant other loves me in spite of my weight has caused me not to deal with this issue in my life. NOT that I want it to be any other way...I now am doing this for me....but the fact he does indeed accept me...physically....is VERY hard for me to accept...

DOES THIS MAKE SENSE???

OH and just another tid bit...he is all of 170lbs and eats and eats and eats I've never seen a darn thing like this in my life. He eats cakes etc every night before going to sleep NEVER A POUND GAINED>>>>

I am wondering from a guys perspective how they would feel and also any women ever feel this way?

[Sunshine73]

I'm not a guy but I'll chime in -

My hubs is like your fiancée - or at least he used to be. He used to be able to eat and eat and eat and never gain an ounce. He was painfully thin and would try to gain weight and couldn't. Then he turned 35 and his metabolism caught up with him just a bit.

However, regardless of his size my hubs has always loved and found me attractive and it is difficult for me to fully accept. He says that it's not that he loves me and finds me attractive "despite the weight" - he just loves me and finds me attractive - period.

Really I think it's just a matter of learning to love ourselves. It's hard for us to accept that someone else could love us "warts and all" because we can't even bring ourselves to love ourselves "warts and all".

[Paloma]

It is very natural for his acceptance of your body to unnerve you when you yourself do not like your body. But different people find different things attractive. Some people like stick thin, some like a little extra fat. Some (prob most) guys like big breasts, but some guys out there prefer A-cups. Really, most guys don't care as long as they get to have sex with you. Men aren't as picky as a lot of us think. Believe me, I have had just as many guys hit on me at my biggest as at my smallest.

Another issue is that emotional feelings do play a part in physical attraction. I hate, hate, hate body hair. It is my biggest turn off (or so I thought). But I'm currently in a fwb situation with a VERY hairy guy and it does not bother me in the least. Why? Because I have romantic feelings for him (there are a lot of reasons why we can't be more than fwb right now, so far it's working out pretty well as is).

So I think you should just be happy that you've found someone who finds you sexy for who you are and stop over thinking it!

[Ashley777]

Iknw you asked for male advice which I would be really intested to hear as well, but I also wanted to note you are a lucky lucky girl which you probably already know. I use to weigh 140 which is now my goal but my ex husband would say mean things to me how shocked he was how I looked naked (he was a sick man) and I ended up gaining weight after our son was born and he would say like who woould ever want to be with me cause look at me, so to have a man who loves you like yours does is such a gift as you know. My ex was also very abusive. I have not seen him in over 15 years and still hear some of his comments.

[sacha]

One thing that women from abusive relationships often forget (and I say "forget", because it's been so long that they don't remember) - there are good men out there who will truly love you, for who you are, as you are

I still struggle with my DH. I know he is a good man and I know that he loves me - but there are moments where I think back and wonder, "is it really possible that there is a man who doesn't treat me like garbage? Is he going to turn around one day and be like [other guy]?"

You have to have faith that there are good people in this world. Your faith has been shattered, but it can return

[readytobeme2010]

YES you ladies are correct HOWEVER....what happens is I become complacent Does that make sense? I am motivated now to lose weight yes, but the struggle is actually in some ways harder because he accepts me anyway...

OK My reason for loosing weight is NOT to get acceptance from a man. But when you were told for 20yrs that you were NEVER good enough NEVER added up etc.....and now I have the total opposite its almost like "I CAN EXHALE" but in some ways its not good because I do not need to carry around all this extra weight!!!

Make sense?

[Ookpik]

Sort of...(I am a female by the way). My whole reason for losing weight was to get into the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and I lost 100 pounds to do it. Well, I got so far into the recruitment process...the third of eight stages and got deferred for a year because I didn't give specific answers for some of the questions. The interviewer told me to try again because he said he could see me succeeding and becoming a Mountie some day.

During the year that I was deferred I gained back quite a bit of my weight...almost half. I went on with my life and am now a social work student at university, and because my physical shape doesn't matter in that field, I am fighting becoming complacent as well and letting the weight come back on because I don't need to be thin for my job. It is hard, but I am still struggling...I have recently lost 15 of those pounds I've regained and have a renewed enthusiasm for weight loss. Everything I'm doing is what I did to lose the 100 pounds, and I've been very consistent in tracking calories, exercising, etc. Plus, although I love what I'm studying, my dream is to still become a Mountie and I want to keep that option open someday.

I know what you mean about the men though. I used to be with a guy who'd tell me what he wanted to do with other women because he found me too fat. I'd never put up with such behavior now, but it's still hard to convince myself that a man would like me. I had a flirtation going with a musician passing through town recently, he was on stage, me close in the audience. I just kept looking at all the other females in the audience thinking, "why would he be interested in me, there are a lot better-looking women than me here." Needless to say, that is something I need to work on in myself.