Ever since I remember my mom had me on a diet.  I harbor a great deal of resentment towards her about that but I'm working through it in my own due time.  However, when you're the age of 5 and on a diet for being chubby it's not cool.  What I didn't realize at the time but realize now is that what my mom was telling me in her own passive aggressive way was that I was less than good enough for her.  I was on diets at 5, 6, 8 and on up into my puberty years.  I was never good enough...pretty enough.  Wouldn't it have been just as good to enroll me in a sports program?  Swimming?  Or maybe just tell me that I'm pretty as I am?  I don't understand what was going on in her mind...but it has taken years for me to realize that I AM ok, just as I am. 

Some days are easier than others to understand that...I still have the occasional issue about not being good enough...especially when it comes to being with my husband.  I know he loves me...there is no doubt in my mind about that.  But I also know that I was never his "type".  Some people are attracted to fatties and some people aren't.  He isn't.  And so, while I have been with several men in my life...all of whom were very attracted to the fact that I was comfortable in my own skin...the one man who means the most to me I have the most problems with feeling adequate enough for.  I want him to see my personality and positive nature when we make love...but instead I see myself through his eyes.  Fat, unattractive, ugly.  And that hurts.  While men in my past love that I can climb on top and get all aggressive on them...I feel embarrassed and unattractive if I even THINK about doing it with him...let alone actually doing it.

This is not his fault.  He loves me.  And I love him.  Love is not the problem here.  Acceptance of myself...and of him...is.  I'm having problems.  Even now I'm crying while writing this because I feel ashamed that I feel this way.  Ashamed that I don't trust my husband enough to love me in the way that I need to be loved.  Ashamed that I don't give him the chance to.  God I want to.  I want to feel gorgeous and attractive in his eyes....and in the eyes of my parents.  Whom, I might add, still find me less than adequate.  My father reminds me that I need to lose weight almost every time I see him.  My mom...well, in her own way reminds me of the same.  My husband doesn't tell me any of that.  He just wants me to be healthy.  And that's all that I want, too.

I need to be loved, appreciated, accepted, and wanted without reservation.  Will I ever allow myself to do so?