Latest / Unlearning Beautiful / Ep. 23 “Will I Still Be Wanted?” Why Attractiveness Won’t Save Your Relationship
Transcript
- Kristina Bruce: Have you ever had the thought, what if I gain weight and my partner stops finding me attractive? Or even more poignantly, what if I'm only lovable as long as I stay attractive? For women, appearance has never just been about appearance. It's been tied to worth, desirability, safety, status, even relationship security. We're taught both directly and indirectly that looking good gets and keeps attention and partnership. There's a reason so many women are afraid to let go of controlling their bodies. Because underneath body fixation is often a much deeper fear that if my body changes, will I still be loved? In this episode, I want to talk about that fear honestly and compassionately. I know it can be a tough subject, but unless we look at it directly, it could be the thing holding you back from experiencing the deeper freedom, joy, and connection that's available to you. Now let's get into today's episode. Welcome to Unlearning Beautiful, a podcast for women tired of trying to look good enough and ready to feel good from within. I'm your host, Christina Bruce, here to help you let go of the pressure to look right or do it all right and reconnect with your inner guidance, your natural worth, and what truly makes you feel fulfilled. Because the freedom you're craving was never in how you look. For centuries, women have been valued primarily for their appearance. Just think back at any of those Jane Austen novels, and there's so much focus and fixation on beauty and appearance. It's the primary thing that they're fixated on when trying to marry off their daughters. It's not so much their personality, but first and foremost, how they look. We really haven't made that much progress past it in this modern day. The trope of the trophy wife still exists. This idea of a young, beautiful woman marrying an older, powerful man is seen still as the status symbol, both for men and for women to some degree. Appearance continues to be a form of social currency. I mean, there's a reason why plastic surgery is booming and why so many women will endure often painful and expensive cosmetic procedures willingly and gladly. All because we bought into this idea that our value is in our appearance and more so this fear that we're going to lose our value and be feeling less than if we lose the quality of our appearance, if we age. if we don't look conventionally beautiful. With social media and online dating, viewing images is what we see more often than actually seeing people in real life. So we're trying to put out this image that says, look at me, I have value, and the way that women often do it is through their appearance. For guys, there's still this idea of money and status and powers. Sure, some will stand with their shirts off. It's often with their sports car or at their vacation home or whatever it might be. For women, it really is still strongly fixated around aesthetic. We feel this fear. If I don't look attractive enough, I won't be selected. I won't be able to find a partner. No one will love me. I won't be able to... have the life that I want because I don't look the part. And here's where I got to be real. There is some truth in that. We're going to dissect it a little bit further today because on the flip side of it, is it actually really true that we won't find a partner or love or have the life that we want? And what is the cost when we keep focusing and fixating on our appearance and making it a high, if not the top priority in our lives. What is the cost to us personally and to the quality of our relationships? First, I want to look at getting into a relationship. Now, is it true that majority or a higher number will focus first on a beautiful woman? That's possible. That's probable. We all know that any real quality or depth in a relationship has to go beyond that. We see examples of this all the time. And I have two examples to share, one from my own personal life and one that I saw from Love is Blind. We'll start with the Love is Blind one because it's a popular show right now. I saw this clip going around online where the couple that had decided they were going to get married without seeing each other, the guy confessing to the woman after that he wasn't that physically attractive to her. He said it in the way of, I'm looking for a girl who's into CrossFit. You know, kind of giving this idea of what that aesthetic is that he's looking for. Now, I don't know exactly how that woman took it, if she was actually taking it personally and feeling like something's wrong with my body. The sad thing is, most women would probably go to that. Not, I want to be able to be with a guy who can see beyond just my appearance, rather they take it on as I'm the problem, something's wrong with my body, because that's how we've been taught. We're constantly told that the ideal is a thin, young-looking, attractive body, and if you don't have it, you're the problem. Is that really true? I mean, that's just an idea and belief that we've all bought into. Now, when I saw that clip, my reaction was great. she's been spared. Thank goodness she doesn't have to go into this relationship with this guy who clearly is really focused on appearance. That's what matters to him most. Now here's the truth. I didn't actually judge him for it because I'm going to be really honest with you here. That was me in my 20s. deeply insecure and totally focused on my appearance, I was looking at other people at that level too. Because I was focused on my appearance, I was looking at other people's appearance. And because I was saying that my value and worth was tied into my appearance and who I with was somehow a reflection of my value and worth, I wanted them to be attractive too. And I had learned and was taught that appearance is what mattered. I thought, If I could be beautiful and be with someone who is beautiful, that would make me better. Now, I know that not to be true now, obviously, the work that I'm doing, but I needed to go through that experience to see that looking beautiful, that having a beautiful partner is not going to be the thing that actually makes you happy. And for most people, when that's how they're choosing partnership, it's because it's covering up. a deeper insecurity. It's trying to fill a void or a gap. They're feeling within themselves. I got to see this from a different perspective too. When I was so focused on my appearance and looking good and beautiful in order to feel like I was good enough, when I became closer to the societal beauty ideal, there were guys who gave me their attention. They wanted to date me. Now these were guys that I had already known. They were in my social group and yet had never paid me attention before. Something clicked in me that said, huh, on the one hand, it was kind of cool to get that attention, you when I was in my twenties. Then on the other hand, I did realize you knew me before. So you're not really interested in me as a person. You're interested in what I look like. And because I had had I'd been on the flip side of it, I could recognize it. That planted something within me that said, I really want to be in a relationship that goes deeper than this. There can be relationships where they hold this certain job or they have this certain position or they have this certain status. If a relationship is rooted in that, then when those factors change, the relationship is going to fall apart because the roots weren't connected on a real interpersonal level or more of a, you could say a soul connection. They were attached to things that are material and changing. And if maintaining a certain appearance is a big part of that, then on some level we know if that changes, we could lose it all. And that feels threatening. Underneath that is, I'll never be able to get it back. I won't be able to find another partner. My life won't be as good again. Those are the beliefs that we end up holding. that would stop us from allowing a relationship to dissolve if it was meant to. And that's what can fuel so much fixation and attention on appearance is because we're afraid I wanna keep the attraction. I wanna keep my life as it is. We have to realize that no amount of attractiveness will make somebody immune from a relationship ending because We have celebrities as a prime example of this. Some of the most beautiful women in the world, Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez, and many supermodels who have been cheated on in their relationship and their relationships ended. So I can't think of a better example of some of the women who are considered the beauties of our time and no amount of them being beautiful could save that relationship. But some people have the very real experience of their body changing. Sometimes this can happen after having a baby or as a woman gets older and then all of a sudden the partner says, I'm no longer attracted to you. And what happens is the woman in most cases will make it her fault. Something's wrong with me. Instead of looking at and saying, maybe actually the person is unable to have a deeper emotional connection or be able to go beyond appearance to find that attractiveness. Because you may have even had this example in your own life that when relationships deepen and as bodies change, attraction is still there and love grows. I'm planning on having my husband on the podcast at some point in the future because I want him to talk honestly and openly about his experience through my journey of going from thin and weight suppression to gaining weight. What I can say is that because our relationship has a deeper level of connection, it thrived and got stronger when I quote unquote let go. Because what I was letting go of were behaviors and patterns that were actually hurting myself and hurting the relationship. Because what was needed to be able to keep my body small and taxing on me. It was making me very emotionally unstable, difficult to be around. And my husband later had said that we likely wouldn't have been in the relationship if I had kept going that way, because it was just so difficult to be around me when I would gain weight and I would lose it anytime the number went up on the scale. We know that people of all different sizes and all different appearances are in loving, attraction-based relationships. We can forget that. when we're feeling fear and when we have these beliefs that our value and worth and appearance is contingent on how we look. But it can be even more complex than that. Back when I first started my shift away from dieting, I did the body trust provider training that was offered by Be Nourished. I had met a woman who healed from her own disordered patterns of eating and exercise, and she was starting to have a breakdown in the relationship. And she had the awareness to realize it was because her husband was also disordered with his exercise. So what can happen is when we're so fixated on managing and controlling our body size, it becomes so much a part of our life. And if we have that in common with somebody in a relationship where it becomes so much of your life and then one person shifts away from that, that can be disruptive to the relationship. If there isn't enough deeper connection beyond that in the relationship, and or if that person is so deep into their own disordered eating or eating disorder and cannot see it for themselves or is unwilling to make that transition, then that's going to be hard to sustain. And that's the same really of any relationship in different areas where you may have had a shared way of life or behavior pattern that is no longer working for you anymore. and the other person isn't changing. Sometimes there can be a fear of what if my relationship is based on appearance and there isn't anything deeper? What if I do quote unquote let go and my partner no longer wants to be with me? Well, that's a really hard place and it's the place that we don't really wanna look at. If that ends up being the case, it's an opportunity for exploration. It's actually a portal into making a deeper connection because it can bring up to the surface some things that maybe have been buried under the rug or have been distracted from in a relationship. So that's where if you go to couples therapy or counseling, it really can be that crack that lets the light in and is able to shine the light on some issues or certain patterns that are up to be looked at, open up a way for that relationship to deepen. And if there wasn't the ability to reclaim the relationship, then when looked at from one perspective, an opportunity to go on a path of being able to live more in alignment with who you are now. Because we're not meant to be exactly the same throughout our lives. And because for centuries, many people have taken vows till death do us part, the trouble with that is it leaves little room for change. Because so long as you are growing together in partnership, then it's serving both of you to be in partnership. But if somebody has quite a radical departure in how they're living their life, then it's not actually serving either person to continue to be in the relationship. There can be so much fear of being on our own. But I'm sure you have examples maybe even in your own life or you've heard stories. of people who have had a whole new existence after that one partnership dissolved. Either they went on and found a new partner who was now in alignment with who they've become, or they found a whole new sense of self-discovery and freedom in spending time alone. This whole body peace journey is really about coming back into true alignment with ourselves to find the sense of deep safety. and trust and joy and worthiness that exists in each and every one of us and is not dependent on someone finding us attractive or looking a certain way or having this or that. Those are things that we've come to grip onto because we are using them as a way to fill this feeling of not good enough, of loneliness, of unsafety. And the truth is, is that Safety, connection actually lives within us. So when we go beyond just needing a specific partnership or needing to have this thing in order to feel fulfilled, and we realize we can actually find that connection and fulfillment right here, right now. And with many people in our lives, it becomes less scary to feel like I need to keep myself looking a certain way or being a certain way that feels out of alignment with the truth of me. because I know that I'm going to be okay. I know that I am safe. If a partnership was to dissolve, if you could know that you're actually being guided towards a path that is going to bring you more fulfillment and more joy and a deeper connection and relationship, it won't seem like everything is lost. I love the quote, the universe loves a vacuum. When all of a sudden a space opens up, it doesn't just remain empty. creates a vacuum and starts to draw in new experiences and new people into our lives. We can see it as a state of grace and know that it doesn't always feel like that. I'm sure even you've had examples in your life in other ways of a job ending or something that felt really bad at the time and you look back and you say, wow, that actually happened for me because I wouldn't be where I am today if I still stayed where I was. The more that you come into your own sense of worth and confidence, you will radiate that out to other people. And then we are going to be attracting that back into our lives. It's actually coming more into a place of empowerment when we're back into our alignment with ourselves and we can let go of needing to tightly control, manage and fixate on our appearance. So this is a position that you find yourself in or you're just yearning to be able to come back into that deeper alignment with yourself. to not be living in so much fear around your appearance and your body. This is what my body peace coaching is designed for because I know this is intimate work. I know that this is deep work. I'm here to support you to do it together. If you wanna learn more about it, either one-to-one coaching or small group coaching, there's a link below where you can book a free body peace consultation. I'd love to meet you and we can chat. All right, I know that this was a... deeper episode today and it could be a tougher one. I hope that you found value in it and I hope that you found it empowering to find out that maybe you can appreciate more of the love and connection in your relationship or if it ends up being something that needs to change, know that ultimately it's happening for you and that greater things are on the way. We just need to come back first and find that safety within ourselves. Thank you so much for being here and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to Unlearning Beautiful. If this episode resonated with you, follow the show and share it with another woman who's ready to see beauty and herself in a new way. And if you feel moved, leave a rating and review. It will help the show reach more women who need to hear it. Remember, you're already everything you've been trying to become. Enough worthy and free. I'm Christina Bruce. Until next time.