I feel I can't get a guy that meet my standard because my confidence & self-esteem is extremely low right now. I am used to being thin so these last 5-6yrs have been hard for me. When a guy talks to me I am shocked b/c I just don't think a guy would want to be with me at this size.

My husband thought that I was pretty and he still calls me sexy, and I just respond with a disgusted look thinking, "you need to see a doctor if you think that allllll of this is sexy." Yet, looking at it, maybe he's is right. Maybe I am pretty and maybe I always have been. (Still don't think I'm sexy lol)

I never let myself think I was pretty. I never gave guys the chance because immediately after looking at them I would evaluate and say that they were all out of my league.

If I had given guys the chance and even just tried to open up to them a little bit, things may have worked out differently. Not saying I would give my husband up or anything. I will always love the man who thinks I'm sexy at 200 and at 140 both of which I've been since I've been with him.

Because the men who interest me aren't interested, and the men who are interested aren't good enough for me. I'd rather be alone than settle.

When I was in my teens and twenties, I also thought that anyone interested in me, wasn't good enough for me. It wasn't a fact, it was an assumption, and a false one. Telling myself that felt like "self-esteem," but it really was the opposite, because I never took the time to get to know anyone who was interested in me - I just decided that if they were interested in me, there must be SOMETHING wrong with them. And if I did give the guy a chance, I inevitably found something (but in hindsight some of those somethings were very petty. Finding fault was a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially as I often judged men by standards I didn't want them to judge me by).

I also rejected guys, not because they weren't everything I wanted, but because I didn't think they'd impress my friends. For example, I liked geeky, science nerds, but didn't want anyone to think I was "desperate."

It's funny because everyone (including my mother, my husband and his mother) thought I was "settling" for my husband, because he didn't fit the stereotype of what women are supposed to want in a mate. (I was a four years older, I had more education and made the slightly larger salary), but he's everything I wanted (if he'd been buff with an Irish accent that would have been the cherry on the cake, but those were fantasy "extras," not my requirements).

I think the personal ad worked for me, because I advertised for what I wanted. I described myself as best I could (physically and mentally) and described what I wanted.

I got a lot of responses from men who didn't fit my preferences, and I didn't go out with them, but with my husband he not only had the qualities I had wanted, I got some bonuses as well. I didn't have to settle, but I did have to do more active in the search than is typically acceptable for women. Waiting for Mr. Right could have taken 60 years, and I might not have recongized him when I saw him (I certainly wouldn't have picked my hubby out of a catalog, and I would have made false assumptions about him based on his appearance. Instead, I got to know him on the phone first, so I found out that he did have my most important must-haves). His appearance was a bit "biker-viking" which did throw me off at first, because I didn't expect him to be the easy-going, intellectual, techno-weenie that I wanted. For a while, it even seemed that the guy I talked to on the phone couldn't possibly be the guy I met on the first few dates (he was very quiet and almost withdrawn in person, for the first few dates).