Gentle Disregard: How Someone Else Can Help You Get Past the Ugly

I caught one story in NPR's ongoing series on obesity in America today. The focus was on the sex lives of the overweight, and the impact obesity can have on a marriage's sexual intimacy. 

It's worth listening to - find the story here.

One man featured in the story particularly got my attention. After struggling with weight for years, he came to feel entirely unlovable. Counseling and a determined effort to get his weight under control helped, but what made him turn the corner was the love of his wife:

"My wife, saying to me, 'I love you and I'm attracted to you regardless of your weight.' That was something I needed to hear and something I needed to believe, though I still struggle with it," Leckbee says. "But it's, now I'm more self-aware, now I understand it, now I'm able to look at it and go, 'My libido is really low right now because I've been eating too much and I'm feeling bad about myself.' I can express it to my wife and let her know I'm feeling this way."

We all need someone who looks at us and says, "I love you regardless of your _________." Maybe that blank is filled in with the word "weight," but maybe it's "stubbornness," or "controlling nature," or "bad breath." Maybe it's all of the above. 

The Indigo Girls have a song, Free In You, whose chorus sums it up:

And I don't know / How you show / Such gentle disregard / For the ugly in me / That I see / And for so long I took so hard. / And I truly believe / That you see the best in me / I'm enough for your love / And the thought sets me free.

Here's hoping you have someone (spouse, sister, father, friend, God) in your life capable of showing "gentle disregard." Knowing you're enough for someone else's love is the best motivation possible for tackling "the ugly in me."