He said, "I can get better than you."

There's been a distinct "what the OW looks like" theme in the threads this week, so I wanted to share a story with you all. I know it's long - read it if you care to.
- Ally

I have always struggled with body image. Though I've never been overweight, I've always been tall, and therefore always felt "big." My whole life, people have literally stopped me in the streets to inform me that I am tall, as though this fact could have somehow escaped my attention.

These constant comments led me to be hypersensitive to ANY comments about my physical appearance, no matter how well intended. Every comment - including "are you a model?" which you would think would be flattering - was just synonomous with being called tall (aka big and ugly.)

I never developed an eating disorder, but I did have quite the body complex. If a boy I was interested in wasn't interested in me, I KNEW it was because of my looks. Obviously, I was too tall. I probably wasn't skinny enough either. My feet were too big, my legs were too long, and my ribs stuck out weird. I found something wrong with every part of me. How could I even THINK he would be inerested in me? I would look in the mirror and cry daily.

Anyway, when I began dating my ex-fiance (N 2 of 3) I was just starting to get past the body image issues. I had moved to California, where there is a much more active lifestyle than in my home state. I was getting out into the sunshine, hiking, lifting weights, and developing a lot of muscle tone. For the first time in my life, I LIKED the way I looked.

It wasn't long into the relationship that my ex started critizing my appearance. It was very subtle at first. He told me he'd take me to Ibiza and my skin would get so tan that my eyes would pop out like lights. He said if we kept hiking every week, I would get so skinny I wouldn't believe it. He started planting little seeds of insecurity that took root very quickly. I started to wonder if my skin WAS too white, if I SHOULD be skinnier.

One day, we were talking casually in my kitchen when he said, "every woman has insecurities about her appearance. What are yours?" I smelled a rat. I made him answer first. He was so nonchalent about the whole thing that I decided to tell him.

I told him all about my insecurities with my height growing up. I told him that I'm self-conscious about the stretch marks across my hips, there because puberty hit me like a Mack truck and I hadn't had the flesh to accommodate the growth. I told him that my breasts weren't firm enough, my feet were too big, my arms too spindly. I put it all out there.

His response? "Those are the things I see wrong with you, too. I've never cheated on you, but I'm going home to Switzerland soon and I will be in touch with other girls I've known. I will be thinking to myself, Ally is pretty, but I can get better."

I was horrified. It was my worst nightmare coming true. My fiance, the man who had told me he loved me and wanted to spend his life with me had just revealed that I was so physically inadequate that he was probably going to cheat. Oh, AND it would be MY fault. Every insecurity I'd ever had came tumbling down on me all at once. This was more than eight years ago, and it makes me cry to this day thinking about it.

The end of the story is better though. When I got over my shock, I kicked the fiance out. Told him to go figure out his shit, but not to dump it all over me. I told him I didn't deserve to be treated like that by someone who said he loved me. I did and said all the things any of you would have wanted me to do in that situation. In other words, I let him have it. :)

The pain took a long time to heal. Finally though, it did. It's so hard to explain, but in a way, he did me such a tremendous favor by saying the things he did. I had to come face to face with my greatest fear and survive. And you know what? I've concluded that it's ridiculous to think that a man will reject me because I have a couple of stretch marks or a little fat on my upper thigh. I am so much more than what I look like. I have so much more to offer the world.

The point of this long story is that I hear over and over on this board about what the OW LOOKED like. We obsess over it, don't we? If we find her unattractive, we feel vindicated. If we find her pretty, we feel humiliated. This is so disturbing to me. We are all - even those pesky OWs - more than what we look like. My ex attacked my appearance because, like many of us, my looks were my deepest insecurity. The point was to stab me in a soft spot. That's how these guys operate.

Someone who TRULY loves you sees beyond the skin.