Dear Dr. Love,I have been with this guy for about 2 years now, and he is a very friendly type of guy to other females that is! But lately he has become crazy about female moviestars, wanting me to look like them, hair, body, breasts and all!I feel really uncomfortable when he looks at other females now, he also tells me that he wants me to take care of my body becasue he will not go out with someone who is overweight! I know that I am not an ugly person, I have been in many pagents where I have done really good. I work as a bartender and I am always getting compliments, but that dosen’t seem to work, I really don’t care what these people have to say I care my my boyfriend has to say!!I don’t know if it is just me but, I hate feeling like he doesn’t like what I look like with my clothes off, which trust me is not that bad, (I placed 2nd in a Miss Hawiian Tropic pagent) so I know that it isn’t bad but he makes me feel like it is!! To make things easier he wants a somebody who is perfect, and I am afraid that I am not!!Please Help!!!
You have a big problem and it’s not the size of your boobs. I know you think that your problem is your boyfriend’s superficiality. I grant you that he is incapable of appreciating you for who you are. But, I’m afraid that the real problem here is that you are buying into his Barbie delusions.Listen to your laments about not being perfect!!! Of course you aren’t. No one is. And, trying to be perfect is the formula for failure. You really must examine why you are so caught up in trying to develop the perfect body. I know the culture places a lot of demands on us women, but you are taking this to an extreme. Why can’t you accept yourself as you are? Beneath the lack of acceptance of your physical self often lies feelings of low self-esteem. Low self-esteem is expressed in endless searching for physical perfection (if only my breasts were higher, rounder, etc. , I would be good enough, loveable, and so on).I think it would be good for you to figure out where your low self-esteem stems from. When you were growing up, did you receive the message that you weren’t good enough the way you were? I suspect that someone, early in your life, droned the idea into your head that you were inadequate. (Hence your endless search for physical perfection, hoping that if you can achieve this goal, that you will feel better inside). Your boyfriend is a mere continuation of the voices from your past that hammered on you.So, my advice to you is: figure out where your perfectionism and low self-esteem stems from. Next, begin to work on accepting yourself as you are. You are much more than your outer vessel, and it’s time you began loving all of you, warts and all. When you are willing to accept yourself, you will draw a different type of man into your life (a man that loves you as you are). And, if this process of self-healing means that you lose Mr. Barbie, all the better.In fact, if he can’t grow past this superficiality, you’d be better off without him. God forbid something happens to your body that you can’t control–for example, certain illnesses cause weight gain and of course the body does age. If you stay with him, you will always live in fear of being abandoned if and when you can’t control your image.By the way, have you ever considered redirecting the perfectionistic standards back onto Mr. Perfect. He has appointed himself the judge and jury of your body, have you ever thought of pointing the fickle finger of fate in his direction? I would start pointing out all his flaws to him. Let’s see if he likes how it feels to be physically dissected. By redirecting the poison darts back on him, he will see what it feels like to be on the receiving end of such behavior, and he may actually stop.Keep in mind that stopping his behavior, will not change his inner values. So, you will still need to do the self-work I discussed above and beware.
