The other day my young daughter called for me. She stood in her panties only in front of a full figure mirror and said Mommy, do I look OK?
She then took her two hands on her tummy. I told her she was beautiful, always has been, always will be and that I love every single cell she is built with and could just eat her up alive.

What ever sudden sorrow I felt inside I kept it to myself and tried to not make a big deal of it.

I blame her dad and especially someone in his first family. We went into therapy as last resort to try to save the relationship, I wanted out, he wanted to give it one last chance and I agreed.

I have felt not good enough because of his heavy critism over nothing really. Could be the home was not 100% clean, in order to the extreme after we had kids that he and his first family always demanded it to be and how he had been brought up.

I noticed that his negativity was simply moving around itself on different topics of life. If not the home, it was something I wore, some dinner I made, what ever. It was all mixed in with love and when I spoke up I was called out to be "so sensitive".

In fact I would say the attitude exisiting in his first family and him with his clumpsy remarks are surprisingly insensitive and there is no wonder to why I have reacted on it in the past.

He has in the past commented on my weight and not in a good way. When we met I was underweight due to circumstances, not by free will. I simply moved around too much and I guess ate too little. I have too been normalweight and slightly overweight and pregnant. In the past before I met him my weight would go forth and back on that same scale and it was never something that bothered me as I guess I was comfy in my own body, skin. I don't come from a family where looks and weight was as obsessed about or used as a card for making oneself feel superior and someone else inferior.

His view of himself is a mystery to me. On one hand he must know that some perceive him as really handsome and good looking. On the other he has always been physically active (which is good) and then suddenly he will go on his diets (some are up the walls, just crazy) because apparently he has seen something on his body he don't like (that I never had a problem with).

I believe he has an insecurity about him. That he and the others are chasing after something, a goal, they will never reach. It doesn't matter what they do. It is as if they don't get that they are never going to get there. That it is their mind, that's all, like a sickness, really, the problem is not the body. Not the body they are in and not the bodies of others around who are sadly too effected by their negative attitude.

In the past as soon as he was to go on a diet he wanted me to go on one too. He one time made me so insecure that I went on one. People thought I was mad too. That I did not need it. And when I did calculate on it turns out I was not even overweight by the standards.

I came to the conclusion that if I was happy with my body than I would feel a lot lighter if I was not around him.

I too had to explain what to me was pretty obvious. That if you start to complain about the person you have a sexual, intimate, making love relationship with than how hot do you think the love making will be? How attractive do you think your partner will feel? How comfy do you think she will feel? That it takes vulnerability to be naked with someone who looks on your weight or parts of your body as if there is something wrong with you when there isn't. If anything that person who claim to love you and be attracted to you should make you feel good about yourself, not the other way around. I never "threw" myself around. I had chosen him and only him to be my partner in bed. I was declaring to him it was over between us as he had made me feel insecure, down, about stuff that I never would have even thought about was wrong with me in the first place.

I too told him that perhaps his physical type that he was attracted to was the underweight type, the way I looked when we met. That he in such case should just go out and find that and let me be. He got very distraught, upset. I felt cold one minute. Numbed the next. I told him I had to think of my own well being and not continue to sacrifise myself like this for the sake of the family. That the children around me needed a healthy and energetic role model to look up to and I wasn't that no more as our issues did nothing but bring us/me down.

When I went on that one and only diet my daughter was too young to capture what was going on. That was the one and only time I did it and I cut it off early on. He was to continue on his.

On lots of photos taken when I look back at us I can see in my eyes a kind of silenced insecurity. That was when I was still trapped. Still not finding the words for it what was wrong. I kept sacrifising my self respect because I loved him too much. I had no real insight really what I was doing, the harm I was doing to myself. Never again.

I have talked to him about how unrealistic I find his own complains about his looks is. (if lets say I have a photo taken of us in a restaurant he just speaks up what he think is negative about it, his looks, his hair or what ever and as usual I don't know what he is talking about). I have too told him how hurt, how insecure, how depressed he made me feel in his company by such remarks. That it isn't just in that moment he has spoken them, it stays with you in some strange way.

My strenght was really my background, my family's views, that I was looking into self love on the body, rieki. It can too be because I have always had an interest in fabrics, clothes to work around any body type so my joy has always been the same on my body no matter the weight. Friends, others would also chose me to help them find clothes or wear clothes I had to fit them, make them feel good about themselves.

Early on when it came to my daughter I took steps back if we were in a store for children's clothes and let her come up and decide what clothes she wanted to wear. She had/has a different personality than I have and i was curious to watch her in action. In time she became sure. She is someone who makes other feel good about themselves and she too has a kind of confidence that I am looking out to keep, I dont want her to loose it.

I know that I will have no control of what his first family nor he will say or not say about weight and looks when I am not around and that kind of scares me.

One time I overheard them in the kitchen. He was saying to our daughter that he could not understand how she could weight what she weight, look like she looked when she ate that little. She at once told him that her body was perfect, that the school nurse had said so, that she follow her development just like she should and that if he did not believe her he should give the school a call.

She has inherit more my looks than his and my body type. No matter weight I think his comments has starting to effect her.

One time I was in the shower and had locked the door but she knows just how to unlock it and she did and surprised me and drew of the shower curtain. She took her hand on my tummy and said Mommy, I love your tummy, it's beautiful. It use to be my home. Then she went out again.

I have talked to him and us together with her in best ways I know how as I want her to have a positive view on her body and on other bodies too. He has in the past apologised for his "clumpsy remarks" (his own words) and will later say he did not mean it like that, but it has happened again and again. I think it is because it is such normalcy to it in his mind and from his first family.

She knows that I like my curves and am happy with my weight and have told her I was happy before with it too if I was underweight, normalweight or overweight. We strive to eat healthy food but do snacks, candy, ice cream on Fridays, Saturdays, I've tried to take out the candy and replace it with fruit, goes so and so with that...We've always liked to be physically active. In all this it is as if I have more thought of the internal wellbeing than the external or what he looks at external wellbeing.

I wonder if anyone knows how to deal with this problem that I don't know? Any advice would be so appreciated.