Will My Husband Still Think I’m Attractive as I Age?
As our bodies morph into an image our youthful-selve’s may deem unrecognizable, we may wonder if beauty is merely part of our past.
I was twenty and working at a Bloomingdale’s call center when someone handed me a complimentary pair of women’s shapewear. I didn’t know what Spanx were as I stretched them over my legs, later tossing them into a donation box. Postpartum with my second son, I regretted that decision as I spent $80 on a pair of high-end shapewear.
In my mid-thirties, insecurity threatens to wrap itself around me. Everything about my body is changing. My belly sticks out, cellulite ripples my legs, gray hair covers my roots, and wrinkles sink into my forehead. My body is nothing like what I used to see in the mirror. I feel a growing need to hide its true shape from not only the world, but my husband.
The reality is, our husbands notice when we gain weight or wrinkles, stretch marks or cellulite—just like we notice their gray hairs and extra pounds. This is part of life and marriage; we grow and age and our bodies change, together. But sometimes it feels like women are expected to look as young as possible for as long as possible.
This strikes a haunting question in the hearts of some women: what if our husbands no longer find us attractive as we age?
Botox, Fillers, and Shapewear, Oh My
As our bodies morph into an image our youthful-selve’s may deem unrecognizable, we may wonder if beauty is merely part of our past. Maybe our husbands wish they could trade in our current shape to hold our twenty-five-year-old frame with its thinner waistline. This fear isn’t unwarranted. Many husbands watch porn while their wife sleeps in the next room. Some older men neglect the wife of their youth, seeking out younger women. We know that even some Christ-proclaiming men lack self-control, integrity, and faithfulness and cheat on their wife. Not all men, but some.
What is a woman to do? We hop on Facebook and see Taylor Swift dancing sensually before swiping to the next video. Walking the mall is nearly impossible without massive portraits of Victoria Secret models hovering like a hawk over its prey. Then there’s the influencer in her 20s sharing before and after pictures of her botox journey and the ads for fillers in our email.
Though white-haired models are seen on Target.com, there’s still a whole industry dedicated to anti-aging. The culture is shouting at us that our worth is found in how beautiful—how desirable we are. We might conclude that if our desirability fades with age, we better do all we can to appear young.
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