I have to wear LB leggings under my dresses, but it sure as shit beats the chafing.

Ditto. My husband is 6'2" and maybe about 155. He's wiry, he's strong, he has the most beautiful legs I've ever seen. I do love how he looks, but he was honestly as surprised about that as I was when I asked him what his favorite thing about me was and he proclaimed it was my (large, apple-shaped) ass.

I wish I could rec this a hundred times.

Ubiquitous, eh?

I've cared far too much for far too long about what people think of me. My opinion matters, but I'm biased against myself. My husband is my barometer. He worries far more over my mental state than my physical. If I'm treating myself like crap because of my depression, that worries him far more than a 5-pound weight…

Some people do. What of it?

That's really not the feeling I got from your OP, however, I will assume that the misunderstanding is mine.

Specifically, I'm frustrated by your assertion that you need to be a gym rat in order to keep your man interested. Whether I gain or lose 10 pounds shouldn't matter that much in the grand scheme of my relationship, as much as still maintaining shared interests, close physical contact, etc. I just find it all very…

I once asked my husband why he married a fat, tired old woman. (It was a bad self-esteem day.) He asked me why I married a beanpole. Fair point, hubs.

I work on my emotional well-being for myself and for the sake of the relationship. Funnily enough, that involved not beating myself up for not being what America assumes is the romantic ideal of every man alive. He fell in love with a person, not a body.

If my body doesn't turn my husband on the way it is, with all its glorious variability, then my marriage is dead.

Also depressing: Reading the gray comments.

I'm strong because it's more useful when trying to move a car that won't start. Otherwise, I didn't pick it any more than I picked being short, so... Bluh.

I saw the headline and thought Hugo Schwyzer was running.

My scars say, "I lived through that." It gives me a Superwoman feeling. I did that, I can do anything!

It's starting to get to be that season again. The wild blackberries are threatening to take over the lot next to mine. The berries are sweet and juicy, but you will prick yourself on the thorns to get to them. We might wish to avoid all the thorns and have only the berries, but that's a guaranteed recipe for not…

I don't think I could appreciate my marriage and my husband half as much as I do without my first failed marriage, or if I hadn't seen how my mother did relationships (badly). I have the benefit of learning both from my own failures as well as hers. I often ask Mr Simon how it was we managed to luck into such a great…

Thank you! :)

Because I don't tend to believe in wishing for things that couldn't possibly come true. It's a waste of time and energy. I don't spend a lot of time angsting over being short, for example.

Well, I honestly believe this is true, for me. If I hadn't been suicidal in 2010, if my sister hadn't rescued me and moved me to Washington, if I hadn't gotten the job I did, I wouldn't have met Mr Simon. He and I had both just moved to the area.