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.

To put this in perspective I always think we're all ageing at the same rate. I find that very reassuring. All the girls I was at school with would have aged as I have.

I am only a year older than you and I do start to notice a few grey hairs and a few wrinkles. I don't say I enjoy it but I accept that it is part of who I am now. There are a lot of positives of being older, not least having kids, so try not to get down about it.

I do think people with kids do tend to look a bit older than those without of the same age. You can't spend as much time looking after yourself; you don't eat as well nor exercise as much. You don't get as much sleep and you stress about the kids. Also pregnancy does take a certain toll on a woman's body. But I wouldn't swap places with childless friends for the world

Say goodbye to your sexual power and concentrate on developing a personality

Haven't read the whole thread.

I'm 36. Was gorgeous all my life, but very thin. Then I had a child, and never quite lost the weight.

He never sleeps.

Now I am fatter, and wrinklier. And I look more womanly and stronger and more robust. Now I look at my former self and think she seems waif-like and fragile. Which may well have its appeal, but I prefer it this way, especially since I have a child to protect.

Forget about wrinkles and the like. The French don't care - it's mainly a Hollywood thing. And it's not even true - as in, people really don't notice and then analyse these things when they look at you.

just wanted to say, thank you for the lovely posts, i was fully expecting to get an mn arse kicking

There's something really toxic about this culture that encourages women to pin so much of their identity and self-worth on looks, to the extent that we can start to feel like non-people when that begins - as it inevitably does - to fade

the OP has valued herself by her looks alone and thinks others, including her husband, do the same

^these^^ points really resonated with me. i agree that there is a culture of being obsessed with looks and youth and i guess i do get caught up in it. i read a lot of magazines ie heat and grazia maybe i shouldn't?

i do feel i have not really got anything to offer other than my looks, i am no great shakes academically, was average at school and spent most of my 20's in rubbish jobs until i had dc and pretty much gave up working. have recently started my own business but its very small at the moment. but thats basically ALL i do, SAHM and a little bit of part time work.

my DH admits he was attracted to me because of my looks. he didn't know me as a person at all but says when he first saw me he fell in love with my looks and got completely infatuated before he had even spoken to me. it was months before we even spoke to eachother. (i can't say how we met as it may out me, am a regular, have namechanged)
i honestly don't know what he sees in me other than my looks. he always tells me i am gorgeous and sexy etc but i don't see it myself.

ironically in my 20's i honestly didn't have a high opinion of myself (as another poster mentioned upthread) but saw others compliment me and got a lot of male attention, which is the only way i knew i was attractive, and now look back on pictures and can see i was attractive. i hate having my picture took now, and avoid it mostly, i won't even have my picture taken with the dc, which is sad.

i always think my DH will be looking at younger, sexier women, and comparing me unfavouribly as when i was younger, i always used to clock older men, often with their DWs and DCs staring at me, i also got lots of older married men coming on to me (which i always rejected) so my opinion of males in general actually isn't that high tbh

someone asked how old my DC are, they are 5 and 2, so i don't think its PND. but both pregnancys were very very hard for me body-image wise, i hated changing and was terrified of "ruining" my body. my second pregnancy i am ashamed to admit i restricted calorie intake and exercised probably too much so i didn't get "too big" :( luckily my baby was absolutely fine but i know i could have harmed her. in the name of vanity, how pathetic, eh :(

anyway, i have rambled, god, i bet you all think i am awful :(

I'm eager to jump in this thread because something happened to me a year or so ago, aged 41. I don't know what it was, but suddenly after all my 30s being about the kids, I am really interested in clothes and fashion, I LOVE exercise again and am committed to running - therefore I am now a fab (in my eyes!) size 10. I reckon I look good for a 40 something person - I don't' look 30, I never will again, but I am much happier and more confident in my looks than in recent memory. I love clothes and shopping. Now the kids are in teens and near-teens, I can spend time on myself, going to the theatre, going for drinks with the girls. Of course I have wrinkles and grey hair, of course my butt is sliding down the back of my legs. But my confidence in myself over-rides this.

You do sound down. Are your dcs very little? It's hard. Maybe the worry about your looks is masking other worries about your life?

I don't think men really do the comparing thing. I mean, I think they look, but I don't think they tend to compare. (I may be wrong - any men about to verify/correct?)

Havent

just wanted to point out that although your DH might have been interested in just your looks at the beginning, that's not why you are still together, lust does not a marriage make!

32 is young, you can't have changed in 5 yrs, it's all in the mind....probs you don't smile as much and that's why people don't look. You're giving out a different vibe. It's like when a performer makes up and goes on stage, they switch something on. I would work out how to feel good again from the inside.

So you have two young children, have started your own business, have a DH who loves you, and are (by your own admission) slim and look good in clothes. Sounds like you're doing amazingly to me! 2 years on from DC2 is still very early days.

i do understand how you feel - im nearly 50 and some days i bloody feel it! i think its all too easy to 'lose' yourself at times, i think thats proberbly whats happended to you right now, dont worry, you are bright and seem very self aware, you will find yourself again! (that sounds a bit 'californian' but it is true!)

I haven't read the whole thread but 30ish seems very young to be getting worried about wrinkles. You say you are thin, how thin?. I'm a firm believer that as you get older you do need to carry a little extra weight or your face will suffer the consequences.
I am 50 on Friday and a size 14. my sister is 48 and a year younger than me but at a size 6 looks 10 years older.

Maybe you should treat yourself few cakes

havent many couples were first attracted by each others' looks. After all, it's the first thing that is visible about someone. But they have stayed together despite their looks inevitably changing/fading as they get older. This proves that just because looks are the first thing someone notices, doesn't mean that is all they care about. Nor is it why they stay together.

Besides, there is a well known effect which is that when you love someone you think they are better looking than in fact they are... the rose tinted spectacles!

And yes maybe some older married men used to ogle you. But there were probably plenty who didn't - not all men are like that.

You say you have nothing else to offer... Are you not proud of your DCs? The job you have done as a SAHM? Do you think you are good company for your DH, does he seem to enjoy spending time with you? I am sure you have all these things to offer.

Oh and ditch the heat and grazia! they are sooo looks obsessed it's awful.

I'm in my mid forties with unkempt greying hair and have never worn any makeup, but I'm pretty much comfortable with how I look (not completely, of course) and find that men my age or older are still quite happy to react to me in a slightly flirty way, in appropriate situations. I really do think it's much more about smiling and being a fun person to talk to than anything else, and I agree with fartmeistergeneral that I have more confidence than I did when I was your age, in spite of obviously being much older and wrinklier, because I am more comfortable in my own skin now.I think frutilla is on to something - it's very easy to forget you exist as a separate person from your wife and mother self, when you are bogged down with young children, and to value yourself too little - you are not the sum of what you look like, but of who you choose to be (sappy but true!)

Looks only matter superficially for an instant.

Five minutes after anyone has met you looks become irrelevant. What matters then is what is in your brain and how you convey it.

Clicking with someone mentally is much more attractive and sexual than a 'good' body and a young looking face.

So try and relax - you are missing out on so much the world has to offer.

I've been thinking about you OP as I was pushing my bike cycling up a hill today. Here's what I thought: that at the time when your identity is being formed - teens, early 20s - you had it formed for you by your looks. You say that you didnt know you were attractive, it was the response you got from other people. So it looks like you missed out that key time of finding out who you are and how you fit into the world. It is an agonising time and maybe you're getting it now? Plus you seem convinced that your DH was only attracted to you by your looks, or only wanted you because of your looks. I honestly don't think people marry other people for their looks OP, you've got to have had something else for him to have actually married you.

anyways, it has stuck with you that your looks are your identity. Understandable imo. Even without the OTT advertising and, essentially, false images blasted at us all day every day (though you probably looked like them in your heyday?), good looks have always been a blessing and a curse since age imemorial (or however you say that).

Of course it's sad that women relate to the world (or the world relates to us) through our looks but tbh, get over it. What's new? It's always been like that. I think a woman who is not aware of her looks is rare - most of us are, and most of us have varying degrees of dysfunction about our bodies (and food - but that's another topic!). I am concerned though that you restricted your calorie intake and exercised excessively while you were pg, which suggests a degree of body dysmorphia. Like I said, I think most of us have that to some degree or other but pregnancy usually overcomes it. Can you get along to someone who specialises in body dysmorphia, to talk through these issues? I knew a woman who was terrified - and that is the world, terrified - of being pg because of what it would/could do to her body and she was having therapy along the lines of body dysmorphia/eating disorder. You certainly aren't alone with this OP, not by a long chalk.

I agree with all the posts about how much exercising helps - I feel so much better when I exercise because it gives you a healthy glow. It's not easy when you have young kids but if you can find a way, it makes all the difference mentally as well as physically.
A decent haircut, flattering clothes and a bit of make up also work wonders. You're only young and I'm sure you are not losing your looks - you're losing perspective because you're tired and lacking in time to focus on yourself. A good vitamin supplement also helps I think or maybe even a tonic like Floradix.

Good god are looks really that important?

agree wit hall of the stuff about self-esteem, exercise, water-drinking, and living with integrity. That sort of stuff makes a good life, not being strikingly beautiful. And that's for us men as well!
Take a Kop at my profile piccie - and try to believe that I was once young and adorable with long blonde hair! tbh I didn't feel any less or more attractive now than then. Honest!

or show us your photo and we can all ogle you and tell you how gorgeous you are.

You poor thing.
I have never felt gorgeous, always struggled with self-esteem and always envied those who have loads of confidence.
I bet you look fabulous, this is all about your confidence and fears.

A new woman has started at work who is frankly not even vaguely pretty (that is being nice) and averagely good at the job. However she has sooo much confidence, it oozes out of her. She never makes self-deprecating comments, always bigs herself up and her capabilities and has everyone believing in her! I am trying to copy her tbh.

put a bit of weight on and enjoy it. Will fill out wrinkles.

I don't think gaining weight is the answer (unless she wants to)....plus that could come naturally in her 50's and 60's.

It's not about looking young imo, it's about making the best of what we have.

you made the most of "what you had" in the past and you need to make the most of it now. Take care of yourself, keep fit and healthy and try to find acceptance and confidence in who you are not just in your looks.

whenever I used to complain about anything to do with my looks, my mother would always say "enjoy how you look now because it's only going to get worse." That drove me crazy, and seemed so defeatist - you can be more fit, etc. even when older - but there is a nut of truth in it. The good news is that as others say there is typically a natural self-acceptance that kicks in at some point.

also, please accept your DH's compliments and appreciation of you. that is lovely. My DH is five years younger and I used to worry so much about him losing interest in me - it could happen yet - but i know that a woman who likes herself and feels sexy is a lot more appealing than one who doubts herself and shuns attention. also, apparently the good ones always see the woman they fell in love with, even when we're old and grey!

OP I do hear what you're saying but I think you need to think of the bigger picture really.

We all age; some more obviously and earlier than others. Being underweight can make you look older, as can smoking.

But if you are WELL then you need to stop and give yourself a bit of a slap. Is your body intact? Does it work efficiently? Do you depend on medication, appliances or aids to help you get through the day?

I am a nurse and spend my working days with many people who have horrible debilitating, disabling conditions. Their lives are a constant struggle. Do I waste time worrying about MY wrinkles, chin hair and fat thighs? Yes of course I do, I'm only human, but when it boils down to it my body is perfect really. It nurtured and grew 3 lovely children and gets me through the day with few complaints. I look after my body and it generally serves me well.