Ah, nothing like knowing you yourself aren't shallow when you look at other people, and you can love them in spite of all of their flaws, but using that shallow mirror on yourself. So many of us women do that.
I've been with Maca 12 years. Not too different a timeframe there. I have 4 kids, 3 of my own body. Stretch marks, sure.
I had F-cup boobs till they cut 'em off a week ago. Suffice it to say that they... hung. You know. Anyway, now they are wrapped up in a billion layers of bandages and are little B's that can't be seen. Tubes sticking out here and there. I look like an '80s science project gone wrong, seriously!
I look in that mirror, and more often then not, I groan.
I see the hot little young 20-somethings looking at my husband. No one realizes he is nearing 40 because he still LOOKS like he's in his mid-20s (blonde/red hair, blue eyes, kick-ass arms, baby face).
But here's the thing. Even though he looks at them, and one day he may find one that he wants to hook up with too, when he crawls into bed at night, he's not looking at me thinking, "Damn, I wish you had the same tits you did when you were in school." He's looking at me with that "OMG are you going to do THAT right now? With me?!"
Sometimes it really pays to stop and pay attention. Seriously. It's not easy to make yourself do. It's easy to pay attention to the attention they pay to someone else.
Personally, I wouldn't ask him, or tell him how you are feeling, yet. I am all for honest communication. But first, check his actions, because, as they say, actions speak louder than words.
Walk into that bedroom tonight. Wait till he's there, pull your shirt off slow, sexy, set it on the chair. Talk with him about what you love about him. Watch his face, stare into his eyes while you are talking, then unzip your jeans, slide them down and kick them off.
Take a few steps in his direction, while you tell him how much you love the way he makes love to you, or if you like a little more dirty talk, the way he [pick your dirty way of putting it and fill it in here]. Slip the panties off and let them fall on the floor, too.
I always left my bra on for my ability to feel a little sexier with my giant boobs, but you can take it off and drop it on the end of the bed, or leave it on, as you see fit.
Then climb up over him. DON'T START SEX. Just keep talking to him. Hopefully by now, he will have figured out how to talk, too.
Watch his face, watch his EYES.
Does he look at you like he still sees you as the girl he first fell in love with?
Does he look excited?
Does he look like he loves you?
See, I learned this one from my boyfriend. He doesn't see me as I am today. I have to actually show him the changes with pictures for him to notice them. He still sees me the way he memorized me 17 years ago. Seriously.
When you close your eyes and you picture your husband, what do you see? Is he beautiful? Is he sexy? Does he make your motor hum?
Do not compare yourself to her. That is arbitrary.
My bf and my husband look nothing alike. Nothing at all. One is tall, one is not. GG is dark-haired and balding. Maca is ginger-haired and not balding.
Okay, they do both have goatees...
GG is skinny, with an almost emo-looking body type. Maca is muscular and compact. (Not heavy, but definitely not emo.)
They also don't TALK alike, ACT alike, or THINK alike. They are TOTALLY different.
But I love both of them. I am turned on by both of them. There are parts that I love on both of them that are completely different. Uh huh. Like their arms, for example.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE Maca's muscular arms. They wrap around me and I feel safe. Sex... OMG, the power in those arms changes the whole dynamic!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE GG's arms. They not muscular at all. They are long, and the way they wrap all the way around me, it's like the tentacles of an octopus enclosing me in his love.
So even though they are TOTALLY different, I still love them both, often for the same opposite attributes!
Your husband may very much enjoy this woman's beauty. But he obviously enjoys yours, as well, or he wouldn't be with you!
You need to find your beauty.
I was lucky in that I was never self-conscious about my stretch marks. In fact, I have a friend who has dark burgundy stretch marks from the birth of her first child, my godson. I find those marks so moving when I see them (not often). While I am bisexual, I am not interested in her that way. But I see those marks, and all the emotions of that little boy's birth flood through me. My nipples get hard. (I'm just writing this and it's happening.) I get goosebumps to my toes. My motor starts humming.
So, she stands around all the time (the kid is 13 years old!) talking about how much she hates those stretch marks. She sees them as a flaw. But when I see them, an otherwise not attractive to me woman becomes beautiful.
My ex-girlfriend looked at me once and said I was beautiful. (Actually, she said it a lot.) But this one time, I got the balls up to actually ask her, without whining, just serious as day, "What is it that you think is beautiful? Paint a picture of me through your eyes so I can see what you see."
She said I was like water.
Now, a lot of people would respond to that with a "and so?" wonder in their minds. But for me, I was watching her face, the face I found so beautiful. Her eyes were engaging, her skin flushed. She was drawn into me. She told me I was like water, soft and smooth, and flowing from one place to the other with a rhythm all my own. All of this to describe how much she loved my NOT taut, or firm, or muscular body.
All that time, I had been bent over losing the tight abs, the muscular arms, hating the wiggly-jiggliness of my belly. But the whole time, she was loving the exact things I hated! That ended the insecurity for me. I stopped presuming that what I saw in the mirror was what someone else saw, because it was not.
First, watch him with you. Stop watching him with her for a bit. Then ask him to tell you what it is about you that he loves, what it is about you that turns him on, what it is about you that he simply finds irresistible.
If you still feel insecure after that, confess your emotions asap. If you don't, then tell him, "You know, honey, I was feeling insecure. But after watching you and seeing _________, after hearing what you told me you love about me, etc., I feel so important, special, sexy (whatever)." Then ask him if he would help reinforce that emotion in you by reminding you of those things, so you can retrain your brain to see yourself as he does, not as you do.
