This summer, I visited a wellness retreat in the English countryside to detox and rejuvenate. One sunny afternoon, I wandered over to the garden and settled on a deckchair. Nearby, a stunning young woman with unmistakable model looks was lounging in the sun.
We soon struck up a conversation, swapping stories about our reasons for fasting.
“I need to drop 14 ounces,” she said quite earnestly. I burst out laughing, convinced she was joking, but her face stayed utterly serious.
“I’ve been this size for a year now, and I feel huge. My boyfriend threatened to leave me if I dont lose weight… Look,” she said, pinching a tiny fold of skin on her stomach, “I’m ashamed to even sit down…”
The encounter stuck with me for days. In my mind, I nicknamed her Lizzie Fourteen Ounces. It made me wonder: in her boyfriends ideal world, perhaps only the slim survive, and anyone carrying a bit of softness is fit for the chopping block.
Recently, I ended up at a lively dinner party in London with a group of strangers, celebrating someones birthday. Among the guests was a sophisticated woman, elegantly perched in her chair, one leg crossed over the other, her sheer stockings catching the firelight. One shoe dangled carelessly from her toe as she sipped water from a wine glass, drawing admiring glances from the men around.
Then her husband arrived. He made his way around the table, shaking hands with every man. When he reached her, his voice turned cold, and he muttered under his breath, “Cover up! Stop showing off those legs.”
She straightened up nervously, blushed crimson, and asked the waiter for a shawleven though she was sat right by the fire. For the rest of the evening, she huddled like a sparrow in winter.
There was a period when I tried reading biographies of the great English writers and poets, hoping to discover the secret to their genius in the details of their daily lives. I soon gave up; it was impossible to marry their flawed humanity with the brilliance of their works.
My interest ended, oddly enough, with Charles Dickens. I adored Oliver Twist, but some facts about his private life were too much to bear. Not only did he have a morbid fascination with death… after their fifth child, when his wife Catherine became weak and ill, the doctor advised she shouldnt have more children. Dickens remarked, “Well, what use is she to me then?”
Catherine bore him ten children…
Now, I scroll through Instagram, a land inhabited by perfect English rose barbies. Their days are filled with Pilates, tanning salons, thick body wraps, and spa sessions.
They work hard creating these flawless bodies, and the beauty industry is always keen to lend a hand. To be a professional beauty is incredibly hard work, and not at all inexpensive.
I respect all hard work, but somewhere along the way, things got muddled. Young women want to be beautiful so that someone will love them, so the boys will notice them and choose them.
They are told that beauty looks like this: skinny, arched brows, plumped lips, and impossibly perky bottoms. They nod in agreement and do their best to fit the mould. Meanwhile, its no wonder the boys find it hard to choose from among a line of identical dolls.
One afternoon, my husband and I were at the local garden centre. He was looking for something for our allotment, and I wandered off, idly poking around.
I stumbled into a display of garden ornaments: lanterns, wind chimes, watering cans, bunnies, and foxes. Near the big garden gnomes, in bright red hats making them look like toadstools, stood two fellows trying to pick out the handsomest gnome.
One was tapping and lifting the gnomes, inspecting them from every angle, when his mate burst out laughing and said,
“Come on, mate, make up your mind… Yesterday, you looked at the ladies the same way!”
It made me laugh out loud.
Lizzie Fourteen Ounces, Debbie Cover Your Legs, Catherine Ten Children… How did it come to this? How can anyone not love themselves, not value or respect themselves?
How did being treated like a defective product come to be confused with love? Who convinced you that a perfect body and pretty face are requirements for a happy relationship?
I could give you a hundred examples proving that looks and love arent connected.
One friend of mine met her husband in hospital, in the nephrology ward, looking her absolute worst in hospital gown, pale as a ghost, a bedraggled patient with a catheter bag peeking from under her nightie. And he fell head over heels.
Take Frida Kahlo, for example. Yes, I know she wasnt English, but go onhave you seen her? The eyebrows? Yet the most remarkable men of her era competed for her affection.
Years ago, I had a terribly botched wisdom tooth extraction. My mouth was torn, my cheek swelled up like a marshmallow, and I looked horrific. Lying on the sofa at home, weak and feverish, drooling blood, my only sustenance was sips of yoghurt my husband coaxed into me. I ended up with a milky moustache, saw myself in the mirror and gasped, “Dear God…” before breaking into tears.
Suddenly, he declared, “Youre the most beautiful woman in the world! Hear me? The most! Even now! Will you marry me?”
Later, when I recovered, he proposed again in a proper restaurant: with a ring, on one knee, applause from the staff and guests, balloons above us, and flowers everywhere. And I said yes.
But its the first proposal, the real one, which stands vivid in my memorybecause thats when I truly believed him. Beauty, after all, is not about appearance, and love is not about perfection.
Its our imperfections that make us alive, unique. They are the very things others love us forwhat makes us, us.
Perfection doesnt exist, except perhaps in our own minds.
Recently, I decided to get bracesmy teeth are objectively crooked. My husband smiled and said,
“I adore your smile. I dont see why youd go through the hassle unless you really want to. If it were down to me, Id leave everything just as it is.”
After my first son was born, I weighed 18 stone, but my husband kept showering me with compliments that killed all desire to diet. I only lost weight when I wanted to, for myself.
We were looking at some old pictures the other dayme sprawled on the sofa, plump and happy with our tiny son. I asked him,
“Why didnt you tell me to lose weight? I was massive…”
He shrugged and said, “You were my sweet pudding. Lose weight if you want. I liked you just the way you were.”
And a few years ago, during a bad flare of eczema, my skin broke out in red patches, but we still went on holiday. I refused to wear a swimsuit on the beach. My husband simply asked, “Whats the problem?” and looking at him, I realised he genuinely had no idea what I was fussing about. He saw me as beautiful, spots and all.
This isnt an advert for my husbandits about relationships. If your man expects you to meet his personal standards of beauty, thats not love, thats control.
You are lovely just as you are. If he only sees flaws and not the juicy apple, he doesnt want the applehe wants power.
Of course, men like to feel important. But he should earn his authority not through your fear, but through your admiration and respect.
Obedience shouldnt be unconditional; it should be a choice. Choose to follow a man who is confident, caring, strong, and gentlea man youre proud to trust, who makes you want to go wherever life leads. But remember: he must earn the right to lead you by loving you, not changing you.
And if theres a lesson here, its this: Value yourself as you are, and let those around you see the real, unfiltered you. True love recognises what makes you unique, not perfect.
