My man loves me. He really loves me. In fact, when we got our tattoos together, the tattoo artist looked at us and said, “You guys are like gag me kind of cute.”
…..
“Lol, oh wow thanks!”
Anyway, it was her way of giving a compliment and we appreciated it. Nevertheless, we have a lot of love for each other and it easily shows.
There is one thing, however, that when I do it, Daniel is just completely turned off. Of course the love is still there but perhaps not the attraction.
For women, we don’t even think twice about it because for some of us it’s so normal. The one thing that is a complete turn-off to him is when I criticize myself or exacerbate my insecurities.
It’s when I try on a new pair of jeans in front of him and just give myself this disgusting look in the mirror—wishing I looked a different way in them. It’s when I spend some time getting ready for a night out and when I walk around the corner, getting ready to leave, and he smiles at me and says, “Wow honey, you look beautiful,” and I reply with, “Well this is as good as it’s going to get.” Or, “Thanks, but I feel really fat in this top.”
He just rolls his eyes and we go on with the evening. If you think about it, it’s not really fair because when he shows his admiration toward me and I shoot it down with a look, or another comment that dismisses his, it’s disrespectful. At times he has told me, “It makes me feel like you don’t believe what I am saying.”
The truth is though, that I do believe that HE sees it. At times I just can’t see it for myself. We’re human and we’re going to have insecurities but when it’s frequent it starts to really take a toll on our men (and on us).
When I told my husband last night that I was going to be writing this article, he expanded a little bit on his thoughts. He said, “We already have you. When men are dating you or married to you we already know how unsexy you can be at times and we know how gorgeous you are in all your forms. There’s no reason for you to feel insecure around us.”
His words, “We already have you” were ringing through my head. This really resonated with me because oftentimes I feel as if I have to keep being perfect for his love but the opposite is true. Oftentimes when we’re the most un-perfect is when they love us the most. Like all the times I would be crying like a baby, all my make-up running down my face, and he looks at me with those non-judgmental eyes, just pure love. Or the times when I have my hair in a messy bun, chilling on the couch with my raggy old shirt when he comes home from work—heyyy there sexy.
Don’t get me wrong, I still want to dress up, look nice and take care of myself but at the end of the day it has to be for ME—not him. Men are so much more attracted to us when we own who we are, love every piece of us, even the times when we feel the most ugly and insecure. They cannot be the ones to ‘fix’ us. We’re the ones who have to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, “Okay, this is it today and this is enough. I am enough.”
Our inner voices of discouragement and fear and insecurity will still be there but as we focus more on the spaciousness in ourselves and focus on the beauty we have within, then the voices will start to fade fainter into the background.
Although this may be the ultimate turn-off to men, it should be the ultimate turn-off to women, too. When the feeling of insecurity starts to arise inside of yourself, smile. Know that you are 100% human and 0% the lies we tell ourselves. You can even chuckle a little bit knowing that you are all kinds of beautiful.