To ask, in your honest opinion

Print out the lyrics.

I’m 39 and I’ve felt my best for the past five or six years or so. I started taking much better care of myself - I lift weights, I run, I cycle, I have great muscle definition and a washboard stomach. I look after my skin. I dress for how I want to look, not for a fashion which doesn’t suit me. I’m far less self-conscious than I was in my twenties, which conversely has been an improvement: if you constantly stare at yourself in the mirror finding faults and trying to correct them, all that correction shows in how you present yourself.

Heed the wise words of Mary Schmich:

“Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.”

I felt most beautiful when I was at my happiest.

I would say I was more beautiful in my late teens and 20's physically but felt most beautiful when I was in my mid 30's to early 40's (before perimenopause grasped hold of me) It was when I felt most happy and content with my life.

Early 40's. My features had 'settled down'. I stopped using most makeup and my weight stabilised. I looked and felt great.

20 years later I'm a bit heavy but (reasonably!) OK with that. (Like everyone a 3kg loss would be nice!).

Are you the same poster who posted a couple of days ago about losing your looks at 35 under a different name?
If so, repeated threads aren’t going to make you feel any better. You need to work on your own self esteem.

Honestly, I never did. However I now look back on photos and crack up, knowing how I felt fat, ugly, maybe old in those photos, from where I am sitting now. I wasn't. I was (comparatively speaking) bloody gorgeous!

Honey, you are NOWHERE NEAR past the prime of your life. I know it's hard, but try and enjoy the body and the looks you have now. Your looks, your worth, your value - they're not defined by your relationship.

Try to get your voice inside your head telling you the stuff you would tell your best friend if she were saying such things to you. That's the you that you need to be talking to you right now.

Probably about 40 although I didn’t appreciate it at the time.

Caveat - I’ve never felt “beautiful” but at 49, I was happy with my body, fit and able and was quite confident generally in life.

Im now quite overweight, much less fit, have a dodgy knees so can’t be as active as I’d like and my eyesight makes it hard to apply make up. I feel a bit like an old hag but I’m working on it lol

posted too soon - 💐for you. A relationship breakdown is hard but you are still young. Love yourself like you want to be loved as a kind, happy, confident person is the most “beautiful” of all.

I'm in my early 40s and honestly some of my peers look better than ever

You will never be as beautiful as you are now.

Don’t look to the past, look to the future.

Relationships are not built on looks. Looks are lovely to have, and do make like easier and more pleasant in many ways, but ultimately they are not what matter.