i'm losing my looks and i can't deal with it

[haventstillgotit]

i am nearly 32 with 2 dc

recently i have been looking in the mirror and hating what i see, i am starting to get wrinkles and am just looking generally shit and tired all the time despite having a healthy diet and luckily getting lots of sleep

sorry to sound big headed but i was very attractive in my 20's, i was a gawky teenager but when i got into my 20's i don't know what happened but i suddenly got a lot of male attention and people said i was pretty etc. i got with my dh when i was 26 and he used to get jealous because men would stare at me all the time, that doesnt happen now.

i'm thin and look ok-ish in clothes but shit without them but my ageing face lets me down anyway

i try my best to look nice but sometimes i think whats the point as i still look shit. feel pretty much invisible. my boobs are heading south and i have saggy skin and stretchmarks from the dc

thats it really. i know its only going to get worse and worse and there's nothing i can do.

Oh OP - you really have to sort this. At 31 it's quite possible that you have 2/3 of your life still ahead of you - all those years to laugh and love and have fun - don't waste it by worrying about what you look like when you are still SO young.

How old are your DCs? It takes quite a while to get your confidence back after being pregnant and having a newborn.

OP, do you really look old? I am 31 and yes, some lines here and there (from smiling, so can't grumble). None of my friends of the same age look old. I don't believe that you do, either.

As others have said, work on your confidence.

I think that it's normally young guys that gawp and make comments at women and though you are not old, you aren't a 21 year old that might sleep with them. Perhaps they can see that you're way out of their league?

I'd also like to see a picture though, because I'm nosy.

Confidence is what is really attractive, and remember that other women are ageing too. You can't compete with 20 y/o so don't try.

How old are the DC btw, if young they are probably running you ragged. As they get a bit older you'll have a bit of time to look after yourself. Btw re feeling shit and tired despite enough sleep, have another look at that "healthy" diet - it maynot be. Also a bit of exercise does wonders for toningand confidence.

It's important to build self-esteem that isn't based on how you look or what other people think of you, because those things are fragile and not in your control. The best advice I was ever given was 'Self esteem comes from esteemable acts' i.e. not from looking in the mirror and seeing a pretty face, but from doing the right thing, especially when it's hard. The following is from a book called 'The Six Pillars of Self Esteem' - a/c Dr Nathaniel Branden who wrote it, healthy self esteem comes from:-

1 living consciously
2 self-acceptance
3 self-responsibility
4 self-assertiveness
5 living purposefully
6 personal integrity

He doesn't mention perkiness of boobs! For me, numbers 1 and 6 are most important. Some of the most beautiful people I know are covered in wrinkles, and some of the ugliest are slim and smooth-skinned. When you're feeling anxious about how you look, think about something you could do for another human being - cook your DH a special meal, drop off a surprise present for a friend - and hopefully you will start to see the beauty that they see in you.

We all looked better in our twenties, but as we get older we acquire more confidence and - dare I say it - wisdom. Life is an on-going experience, we don`t stay the same on the inside or the out; but of all the things that you have to deal with as part of being alive, the change in your looks at thirty is so minor it barely registers on the general radar.

Lines on the face are not unattractive.
Dissatisfaction is.

Blimey OP. I wish I'd had the self-confidence about myself that you are now complaining you've lost!

Do women really go around thinking "I know I'm attractive". (sorry, but that's the bit of your OP I find astonishing) Don't most women get attention from men in their 20s, simply because that's the age group when men and women are trying to have lots of sex form meaningful relationships?

I do know (at 46) that when I was in my 20s I looked gawky, had very bad hair and was about a stone overweight. At 46 I am none of those things. Am I more attractive now? Who knows? Who cares?

As Morloth said, it's not your body here tricking you, it's your head and what you seem to be having to live up to, your expectations of how to be happy, (because if they are dependent on being attractive, that's a sad place to be)

This is really all very odd.

I feel the same sometimes, and I'm only 27, I look a good few years older thanks to a bad gene on my Dads side... fuckit though, you've only got one life, one body, it made you some beautifull kids, I'm not going to spend any more time worrying about my saggy belly or that my boobs aren't quite where they used to be because I bf... have you had a listen to this, someone on MN posted it a while ago, I kindof use it as a mantra on bad days. Yeah, you can't stop time, or gravity, but what does it matter anyway eh?

Op, DH still finds you attractive, forget what magazines say is beautifull, and take another look at yourself.

IndieNile....you only have to see my Bonnie Tyler haircut in 1986 to see it is blatantly untrue we all looked better in our 20s!

Agree with you China.

It's not that odd. Very beautiful people often worry people are only with them for their looks (I know this because they have told me, not because I am with one). This is just an extension of this: the OP has valued herself by her looks alone and thinks others, including her husband, do the same.

I'd agree it is very much to do with confidence. I was quite paranoid about getting older when I was 38, I really felt I was past it. Now I am 55 I think I look great ( well, most of the time) it is not that I think I lool young and beautiful, I'm just sort of pleased and satisfied when I look in the mirror. I'm grateful I'm not covered in nasty veins, and that makes up for being covered in strech marks and saggy bits. When they do 10 years younger make overs on TV it is usually the haircut and make up (plus wearing clothes that actually fit and are not saggy and baggy) that make the real difference, and most of us can afford that. I do have a friend who has had cosmetic surgery/botox/fillers, she is 57 and although she is unlined she does not look younger, just slightly wierd. Your DH won't be scrutinising your wrinkles, he might just notice a new frock or haircut, but being happy and cheerful and fun will have far more impact on him than a few wrinkly bits.

I agree with becstar that it's important to find some basis for your self esteem that is not based on your looks or on men's reactions to you.

Think of it this way: it is actually illogical to be proud of your looks, because they are not something you achieved, they are just something you were born with (bar the odd bit of grooming). Also, getting lots of male attention isn't really that important in terms of making you happy. If you had a crap home life, would it make you happy that men looked at you in the street? I doubt it. Much better to be proud of something you have truly achieved and that truly makes you happy - like your children or your marriage, or skills you have learned etc.

Wait till you get to your forties and resemble Keith Richards in drag. Sigh.

It is a bummer getting older and i suppose you have to work from within, if you feel good, you exude confidence and people compliment you. You don't have to be particularly good looking.

I also looked back on old photos where i was crippled with insecurity and i was rather tip top! Shame i didn't know it at the time.
I probably feel better about myself now then i did then.

Men have the right attitude to getting older. I never cease to be amazed by how many portly, balding blokes think they are gods gift, frankly.

But we all had that kind of haircut at the time, so it looked normal then! I even had a Purdey cut at one point (in the seventies) ;)

How old are your children OP? Could you be suffering from depression?

Thinking about it, and seeing how many women it resonates with does worry me. Women have supposedly come so far, and yet here we are basically agreeing that a significant part of our value as human beings comes from how we look rather than what we achieve, what we contribute, what we create. If you have a daughter, is a pretty one worth more than an ugly one? (Of course not, just rhetorical) Surely we have to try to be the change we'd like to see in the world here?

china If the OP got a great deal of male attention, then yes she was probably aware of her good looks. Nothing wrong with that. I can't stand it when good-looking women make out that they think they're ugly. Only problem is that she then began to rely on the attention to feel good.

Maybe you should try to put on a little bit of weight as being too thin can make people look worse sometimes.

It's not just a woman thing. My husband isn't that happy about his rather large paunch and thinning hair (and he used to be very handsome). He'd really really love to be 21 again whereas I really don't care. The problem here is that fleeting 'oh, I wish I was young and gorgeous' is turning into something more destructive, in terms of damaging the OP's self-esteem and relationship.

I know it sounds obvious but if you haven't recently, get a nice hair cut/dye job at the hairdressers and get a make-up lesson from Mac or Bobby Brown.. little things like that make all the difference to how you feel.

I bet you don't look half as bad as you think!!

becstarsky I agree.

That's why I find this thread so disturbing tbh.

Have we really achieved so little?

Deep "Try focussing on what your body can do, rather than what it looks like. What do you love to do? Swim? Dance? Run?"

Don't you think "what your body can do" is a bit irrelevant here? OP is a person and it is personality that counts, not running or swimming or the number of wrinkles.

I feel it's necessary for me to feel good about myself to pamper myself once a week, whether it's just painting my nails or full on bubble bath with face mask and deep conditioner on my hair. having said that following the birth of no.2 I feel more womanly and confident than ever (he's 9 weeks old and this is despite major stretch marks and saggy mummy tummy!) I think I'm just amazed and proud of what my body is capable of. I'm enjoying the changes to my body even though they're not what our culture perceives to be attractive and I'm taking a Goking moment in the morning to think about what I'm putting on so that I feel good about me. Not for any1 else but me! Personally I think that if you have a genuine smile on your face you'll find people responding to you if that's what you feel you need. Keep your chin up (if for nothing else to avoid the double chin....)