The best thing about being married is knowing I get to spend most of my time with someone who knows me inside and out.
The worst thing about being married is knowing someone knows me inside and out.
Someone knows me inside and out and still chooses to fall asleep next to me each night. Wow. That’s pretty rad.
After every blog post I publish, I always ask my husband what he thinks (mostly because I think he’s a much better writer than I am.) Not only do I hope he appreciates my writing skills (or lack thereof) but his thoughts on women and self-love are so important to me. Of course his opinion matters — he’s my love; but it also intrigues me because he’s a dude. And I write about things that most dudes wouldn’t want to read.
But he’s married to a self-love warrior. And that means he’s fighting a battle, too.
While he’s definitely immersed with me in the war against self-hate, he’s not on “the front lines” with me. He’s in the background, tossing me ammo and armor and encouragement, hoping I get out of each battle alive.
So. I asked him to weigh in on the subject. And he obliged. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: His blog post is way more “Lindsay centered” than I thought it would be. It’s hard to read and then publish something that someone wrote about me and not feel like a total douche.
Photo Credit: Ashley Poole Photography
What could I possibly have to write to my wife’s readers? She’s the self-love warrior. She’s the one pursuing domestic diva status. She’s the one that fights against the evils of a waffling Victoria’s Secret ad campaign and against a society that markets “diet” things mostly to perfectly proportional women. She’s the one who hogties the lies of a Photoshop-addicted “beauty” industry like Wonder Woman with her lasso of truth.
I’m just the husband. What do I matter?
Today Lindsay and I had lunch with a friend who wanted advice on how to help another friend of his through a time of self-doubt. He said that Lindsay’s perspective matters because she’s been through something like it, and he said that my perspective matters because I was there to help and support.
“Help” and “support.” That’s about all the advice I have to offer in this post.
Lindsay’s journey over the three years we’ve been together (half of that time, married) has been nothing short of epic. She has gone from a college girl who thought all she had to offer men was her body to a woman who fights everyday to believe the truth that she is beautiful and valuable simply because of who she is, not what she does.
And that journey has mostly been hers. If awards were being handed out, she’d be nominated for Best Actress, and I might be lucky enough to get a nod for Best Supporting Actor. (And, let’s not forget, God would be the landslide winner in Best Original Screenplay for Lindsay’s Life.)
If I have played any role in Lindsay’s (continuing) transformation, it’s that I’ve helped her by confronting her with the truth and supported her in her “Lindsayness.” Though I haven’t been anything near perfect in these pursuits, I think Lindsay would agree that everyone who takes up the fight against an oppressive, misogynistic society needs a strong support system.
Every day, the monster fights; some days, it wins. That can be quite exhausting, and I know that my role is to show Lindsay how much I love her for who she is: her curves, her soft skin, her beautiful blue eyes, her determination to run a half-marathon, her humor, her smile, etc., etc. etc.
On the days when my wife wants to give in to the pressure to lose too much weight, to be a size 00, to wear too much make-up (which is “any,” in my opinion), or to be “Playboy perfect,” I have to tell her—and sometimes rather aggresively—a resounding “no.” I have to say to her that that is not what I want, that is not what God wants, and none of that is necessary for her to be worthy of anyone’s love.
Lindsay has picked a fight with a slew of relentless lies about her, her womanhood, and her sexuality. These lies don’t get tired, but she does. And that’s why she needs help and support.the importance of support.
My hope is that you, her readers, will join Lindsay in this noble fight and prepare for the hard days by finding someone to help support you with resilient love.
I’m not perfect, but I believe in my wife, and I believe in anyone else who is smart enough to fight these lies!
That’s your “love your body” tip for the day.
fake perfection.
When I was in my teenage years, spending a vast majority of my free time perusing Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, and Glamour, I wish I would have known what I know now about pictures in the media.
Almost every photograph displayed in magazines has been modified by Photoshop.
I would say “all” instead of “almost” all but that’s like saying that Lysol kills 100% of germs. You just don’t go there. Ergo, if Lysol only kills 99.9% of germs, Photoshop is only used on 99.9% of pictures in magazines and in doing so only distorts the image of beauty to about 99.9% of people who are exposed to the photographs.
Thank GOODNESS for Photoshop because man, this woman naturally has the biggest waist EVER. Phew.
Cameron Diaz is obviously such a troll without Photoshop. Psh.
Faith Hill? HA! More like Faith MOUNTAIN! She's so huge without Photoshop.
(I really hope everyone on the Interwebs knows I’m joking in these captions. If you’re unaware, though, rest assured. I am being all kinds of sarcastic here.)
When used properly, Photoshop can be quite useful to photographers. It can actually enhance pictures by brightening shadows, bringing out brilliant colors, adding accents in soft focus effects, etc. And in that vein, I am perfectly okay with the use of Photoshop. As a matter of fact, if that was the extent of it, I’d be all about Photoshop being used on 100% of photos in magazines.
It’s when editors use Photoshop to distort people that Photoshop becomes an enemy.
Most of the time, Photoshopped images aren’t perceived as fake. That’s why they are so dangerous. Photo editors are so bloody good at making real people look perfect. And I can’t speak for most young girls (the target audience for a huge chunk of magazines chock full of Photoshopped models) but at least for me, I didn’t know what Photoshop was when I was younger, and I certainly didn’t know how much it was used and to what extent the photos were modified .
When Teenage Lindsay gawked at a flawless starlets in magazine spreads and did not find a single pimple, scar, or even PORE on anyone in the magazine, and compared them to her broken out, porous, normal face, she became so very aware at how far away from perfection she was. And, just two pages later, Teen Lindsay would find a picture of a stick-thin model in a bikini, with not a single dimple, roll, discoloration, or crease in all the places Teen Lindsay had them (not even in the crook of the model’s arm! How is that possible?) And then, a couple pages later, Teen Lindsay would stumble across an article entitled something along the lines of, “How to Drop 10 Pounds and Get Your Best Bikini Body THIS WEEK!” or “Easy Ways to Get Rid of Nasty Zits and Unsightly Pores” or “You Really Look Like Shit. You Should Feel Like Shit, Too.”
Teenage Lindsay did some semblance of research by buying more and more and MORE magazines, until she finally realized the harsh truth (“truth” being the only logical conclusion that can be made without the knowledge that Photoshop exists): every person in a magazine is perfect. You can’t be photographed in a magazine if you’ve ever had a zit. If you’ve ever had a scar. If you’ve ever had body fat. I concluded that not only is perfection the accepted norm but perfection is clearly attainable, because if it weren’t there wouldn’t be such stark evidence of it in stacks of magazines on newsstands the world over.
After coming to the conclusion that you must be perfect to be in a magazine, I asserted that there must be something wrong with those of us who aren’t perfect.
It’s crushing, really, to believe that you are not the normal one in this scenario. Rather, you are the oddity, you are the unnatural, you are the wrong.
So many years later, as a twentysomething self-love warrior fully aware of Photoshop’s presence, I still find myself falling victim to photographs in magazines. Even though I know in my head that the pictures I’m seeing are 100% fake, I still sometimes find myself believing that if I could only look like that, life would be better. If I would just work out a little harder, if I just let my ED relapse, if I lost 50 pounds, if I got microdermabrasion, if I got a tan, If I changed…
I could look like that. I could look like her. I could stop looking like me.
Lindsay, au naturel baby!
But the truth is, I could diet/exercise/cake on make up/flat iron my hair/make myself miserable all day everyday and I still wouldn’t be perfect. I’d still have stretch marks on my boobs (I got C cups for Christmas my freshman year of high school) and pale skin and all the zits in the world and body hair in places I can’t reach with a razor and soccer-player thigh muscles and…
a waist that isn’t smaller than my head:
Same model. Left = Reality. Right = WTF?!
Nope. Photoshop is the only thing that can make your dreams of perfection (and freakishly disfigured abominations) come true.
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