I'd been doing so well lately, and then out of nowhere, one little thing set off a chain reaction toward the daughter I love so much and have been working so hard with lately. I have sincerely asked her forgiveness and she hugged me and is acting like nothing happened, but I know it upset her. I wonder how God can look at me sometimes after I pull stunts like this.

I loathe myself right now. This was not just a minor little argument. I wanted to hurt myself after it happened. (Not suicidal. Just wanted to punish me, but was sane enough not to do what came to mind.)

What set me off? My daughter had my bra on after being told not to take it from my room again. (yes, that’s right…something as stupid as that!)

I reacted by blowing my top, while her boyfriend was here no less. I used the Lord's name in vain along with several other choice words (and I call myself a Christian???? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" /> ) And I kept yelling. I got more and more angry. I knew I was digging a hole, but I couldn't stop. I vented at her about the job she's not tried to get yet to pay me back for the $250 cell bill that I just wrote the check for tonight. I yelled at her for not doing the dishes that I've been asking her to do all day. I was yelling and sarcastic and angry for a good 5 minutes. I knocked a glass of water sitting by her TV onto her floor. I slammed her door as I walked out. I slammed my door as I hid myself in here.

I then took the bra and was going to cut it into pieces to just prove a point. I still may—-just because it is obviously way too important to me and I deserve to have it gone.

She went downstairs to work on the dishes. She remained totally calm...just kept telling me she didn't care what I was trying to tell her. Didn't understand why it was such a big deal. Said I'm too materialistic. I told her she's just like her father--neither of them can ever take responsibility for anything (and I HATE myself for comparing her to him. Even if they are alike in some respects). She said she didn't see anything to take responsibility for--that it was just a bra!

That's the gist of it. I made a complete and utter jacka** of myself. <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" />

I remain all composed and think I'm doing great, and then something happens and I blow sky high. Why shouldn't she go back to misbehaving after this outburst? What kind of mother am I? I shouldn't even have her in my custody if I'm going to yell at her like that. Even though I didn’t say anything hateful directly about her except that she’s like her dad, it probably falls under the scope of verbal abuse just because of the tone, the volume level and the words used and the slamming of doors.

See why I will never, ever, ever, ever find anyone who will love me???

I've done better since XH moved out last Feb, but unless I NEVER do this again, it's not good enough for me, or for her, or for the Lord. (This is also how I acted many times in years past when my husband would come home late and drunk and obnoxious. I'd be so angry at him, I couldn't cool off until I'd completely vented, even though I knew as I was blowing up, I was just digging myself in deeper. I can’t put the breaks on once I start. Everything that’s been building just comes flowing out and I’m full of venom and hurtful words until I’m all empty. It's why we've been through so many cordless phones.)

And why did this all set me off so badly?

This is LL, baring her soul here. Any guys reading…beware. It could create a graphic mental picture that will haunt you.

Okay, the #1 reason I don’t have a shot with men is that I have abnormally small breasts for my body size. I'm 5'9", 130lb, and I wear barely a 34AA. My ribs have no fat on them. I've considered implants, but I don't have enough tissue to do them. They'd look even worse than what I have now. I’m not willing to take the surgery and post-surgery complication risks to have something that would make me look even more freakish, but this is an issue I obsess over and have for many years, though silently for the most part.

Say what you want ladies...guys want breasts. My XH was the supreme boob-man. They are his main focus in life, after booze. It was his mission to seek them out and then point them out to me. But he paid zero attention to mine most of the time. And our SF dwindled to nothing over the years, I'm pretty certain it was because he was fulfilling his needs with all his porn, and because of his resentment at losing his freedom and being stuck with me and seeing all these women he was more attracted to.

I have heard flat jokes and wise cracks and actually not from him until the latter years, but from well-meaning friends or coworkers (generally female) who think I'll think they're funny. I’ve had complete strangers yell things from their cars while I was walking. I want to look feminine and love sexy lingerie and would love to buy things from VS, but can wear none of their cute things because I'm too tall for some and too flat for all.

I mean FLAT, not just "Oh, I'm barely a B-cup" small that some women whine about. Does the term AA mean anything to any of you besides Alcoholics Anonymous? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> Nothing fits me. Swimsuit shopping nearly puts me in the nuthouse. Many years ago my husband told me if he ever left me, he'd make sure it was for someone who had big t*ts. His first affair was with a plump gal with 44DD's. He also told me once (still etched in my brain-word for word), "LL, you're a F-ing B*tch and you got no t*ts--you'll never find anyone else. You're living in a fantasy world!"

Some of you may say that's just him. And by the way, his new OW is young, slim, and "normal sized", and it is reported by my daughter that he plays with hers all the time, even in front of DD (which I think is in very poor taste). And he told me how wild and great the sex was with her back last spring--said that's why he couldn't leave her. I know a lot of it is because she's visually appealing where I'm totally out of proportion and thus visually repulsive to him.

And if that isn't enough, I found some quotes on a couple men's mag sites a few days ago. Was going to do a poll in another post, but here they are...to prove my point:

Women are not averse to bald men or at least pretend not to be, but men definitely don't run after flat-chested women.
-------------------
Most men, when asked to describe their perfect physical women (if not ideal in general), describe her as having large breasts. Therefore, men probably find women with larger breasts more physically attractive. This, in effect, will cause women with smaller breasts to feel less confident about their bodies because men may not see them as physically attractive as women with larger breasts. Because breasts are a major factor in defining a feminine figure, women with larger breasts may be visualized as having a more feminine body.
---------------------
While they like to fantasize about women with large breasts, 53% said they fancy women with medium-sized ones. But 74% agreed breast size was a deciding factor in a woman's attractiveness.

The advice on another site to folks such as myself was to do the on-line dating thing to improve my odds, because going out with normal-sized women friends would put me at a definite disadvantage.
------------------------------------------------
So back to why the blow-up...

When I bra-shop, I try on probably a dozen bras before I find one that doesn't collapse on my chest (I refuse to actually buy a AA because most of them are really cheesy-looking and they fit funny). It is a very stressful and disheartening experience. I feel like I'm telling a lie to wear the padded bras I wear because it's really not me. It's all fabric and fluff. I pay primo for the bras I do find that fit. And cleavage is unheard of--there just isn't enough to work with.

Being tall, I used to have nice legs and a nice rear-end, toned, with no cellulite when I was in my teens and early 20’s. But I had 2 kids. And then I got older. Gravity takes a toll. So does cellulite. I’m slim, and I could lift weights and buff up a bit, but it still isn’t going to bring back the 20-yr-old body. And I admit I’m fairly decent-looking in the face, and probably don’t look 39 unless you look close. But men don’t tend to focus on the face, at least not in my experience. It just looks nice in pictures.

I’d rather be overweight and have curves than be how I am. At least I’d look feminine. I see LOTS of guys with heavy, curvy women. I just don’t see women at all who are as thin and small from the waist up as I am. (Did I mention, I also have these skinny “weenie” arms??)

And then my daughter who is very attractive and has a beautiful figure refuses to let me buy her bras. She likes my small ones because they push her way up. So no matter how many times I've nailed her to the wall for taking them, she keeps doing it. She's ruined several (because she's gross and puts on a bra and wears it day and night for days and the elastic gets all stretched.) So one by one, she's inherited most of my good ones.

So I have this really nice one I bought around Christmastime at VS (I can't afford very many at the price I paid for it). It's this padded gel thing, but I actually look like I have something if I wear the right sweater. I'm VERY possessive of it. I try and keep it hidden and I wear it infrequently. But I do wear it, and then when I hang it to dry in the laundry room, it disappears.

(I know, it's my fault. I need to bring it to my room and hang it somewhere to dry, and then keep my door locked. She has never done well with the “this is mine; that is yours” concept. To her, everything is everyone’s. She’s happy to share. She doesn’t understand why I won’t. But her stuff is junk because she trashes it.)

So I'm doing bills today. I'd just written the $250 check for her ridiculous cell phone overages (along with a bunch of other checks so I'm feeling really broke and trying to figure out how to make ends meet until the end of the month when I get my paycheck). I was not in a happy mood already.

In between bills, I'm doing laundry. I go looking for the bra to wash it, and it's missing. So I go to her, hoping I’m wrong, and I ask where it is. Of course, it's on her body again. This time she's taken it from my dirty laundry. She takes it off and hands it to me.

This is when I flew into the rage: <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" />

She's really done SO much better these last couple weeks, been MUCH more considerate and loving and open with me. She's done better overall with curfews. It's really been fairly pleasant.

But then I go and absolutely freak out. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> It wasn't just the bra that set me off. It's the $250 cell bill (that should only be $40) and her not looking for a job to help pay for that boo-boo. It's the not doing things around the house that I ask. Heck, it's probably PMS (seems to be bothering me as I get older).

But for the most part, it's because of my obsession with my own lack of femininity and my anger that physical attractiveness of a women has to be such a high EN for men. And having a flat chest just doesn't work.

This is why I feel that it may well be God giving me this nagging feeling that I will forever be single. I feel I’m setting myself up for disappointment if I believe anything else. He promises to always be there for us. He doesn’t promise us happiness.

Granted, if there really is a man out there who is reasonably intelligent; under 50; employed; either never-married, widowed, or DV because of a spouse’s infidelity; willing to take on a flat-chested woman with a defiant teen; willing to accept someone who needs to relearn cooking for more than one person; willing to accept a women who is not the world’s most organized; and willing to accept someone who struggles with a temper on occasion---then hey, I’m all for that and I’ll be elated!!! It will take a miracle for that to occur though. And right now, I don’t see how God would want to do ANYTHING for me!!

I just want to wake up some morning and say “I don’t care if no one finds me attractive. I don’t need a man. I could care less what others think of me because I like me the way I am, and God made me this way for a reason, even if it was to remain single.” But I'm a LONG way from that point right now!!!

LL -- (aka psycho freak!)

Hi LL! Wow. A very disobedient daughter. I don't think (and this ONLY my opinion) that the issue of the bra is that important, what is important is that she willfully DISOBEYED you. If you had told her to not take a tissue from your room and she did it, it's still the same - plain and simple disobedience to you - her parent. I don't know what you do for punishment, whether it be spanking, grounding, taking away her teenage 'toys' etc. but she should be punished for it. Not by yelling, because all that does is accomplish little, other than making you regretful.
Kids are not stoopit - she knows how far she can push you, how you will react and pretty much know that she will just weather the 'verbal storm' of yelling until it's over. You must find another way to get thru to her and punishment is that way.
RE: small 'breasts' well, again, I see you going back to 'Statistics' - I was the one who said that the stats LIE. They take a canned 'average' and make it sound like if you have small breasts you are unattractive. WRONGO!
I for one happen to NOT CARE how big my woman's breasts are. I just don't. And I've read other places that small breasts are considered very sexy by a lot of men. I'm one of them. So this society thinks that 'overweight' women are a turn off - sure, for THEM, but not for me! Hell no! I love and adore my wife - she's got it all just right and I would not have it any other way. And she's not skinny either - hasn't been since high school. We're both in our late 40s, so you can draw your own conlusions what we look like heheheheee.
LL, you have got to stop reading these 'statistics say' crap and just.. be.. YOU. There is a man out there who will love you for who and what you are.
So. Your ex hubby says some crap about your small breasts. Well. He saw something in you so attractive that he married you, right? So I believe he probably said that crap to 'push your buttons' - and besides all that, since he's your EX now, what he says does not amount to anything now coz you are only responsible for YOU and you can take his OPINION and do whatever you want with it - you don't have to believe him.
Trust me, I've been with women with big breasts and small ones too - so what's my end result?
Gimme the SMALL ones anyday!!!
I don't care what society, playboy, or the stats say.
Again, JMHO.
SDLOM

Hi Sauron I liked your advice. I wish it were that easy though. I feel your pain LL. I also have a daughter (pre-teen 12yrs) that never listens to me and I am also a yeller. I have to admit I also feel bad for feeling the way I do, for saying the things I say in my rage. I can sooooo understand how once you get started you can't stop until your done. I too have said how she's like her dad. I couldn't have said it better myself. I wish I had some words of wisdom for you (you gave me some good advise) but unfortunatly I have nothing. I agree with Sauron & I have tried other things and nothings worked yet. We just have to keep trying. Someone told me that I should take her down to juvy and let her see how the kids live there. Explain this is what happens when kids refuse to listen to rules & laws. They think she needs a real drastic wake up call to get her attention (like XH) maybe they are right but I haven't had to nerve to do that yet. Now that ex and I are getting along he is better with supporting my disipline. This was always one of our major problems.
Anyway about the breast issue, listen you can't focus on that. I agree with Sauron again, your H found you attractive at one time (the alcohol and drugs are messing w/him now) and so will another man. At least you were not a thin , attractive woman when you met your H and after having 3 pregnacies and two children turned into a fat cow. Talk about messing with her head. When we were going thru our "D" I'll never forget him saying how he "sacrificed" because he had to deal with his wife getting fat. said he didn't change that much, same as when we met but me on the other hand, fat fat. Said he always loved me but it was still a sacrifice to be with me after getting fat. That hurt like hell, since I have no self esteem anyway and my getting fat bothered me soooo much. It wasn't like I did it on purpose. He says he said that because he was hurt and honestly couldn't think of anything else to B...h about at the time.
I'm sure you are a good person and just under alot of stress. It's not easy being a single mother, with low self esteem, a disobediant child, and lack of male companionship. I too wish I could wake up and say F... this. I am who I am and someone will love me for it and until then I don't care. Hang in there, Mr right is out there, I have to believe that and so should you. As for the on-line dating thing, I'm not a fan. I too tried that, people are nuts!! Be careful if you go thru with it. I suggest you try something else. Join a book club or bible study. Something you enjoy, this way at least you'll know you have one thing in common and it opens the conversation door a little. Even if you don't meet a man you could meet some nice woman and they may know someone. It can't hurt to get out there and meet people in general. This is what I'm trying to do. I think I focus to much on the being manless part of my life and I need to focus on just having a life. Maybe this goes for you too. I know it's easier said than done, after all most of the time I'm a raving lunatic myself. I guess I just keep saying this to myself over and over and maybe I'll eventually believe it. whatta ya think? give it a try. It helps get you thru the day anyway.

I know the pain you are going through. I will pray for you. Here is a website that will help you get to a new starting point.


http://www.restoreministries.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi?page=prayer_request_added

Anger surfaces when we least expect it. I blew up at one of my dogs the other day for getting into something of mine. I realized later he was doing it to get some much needed attention. BUT boundaries were an issue for me with my H, as he thought anything that was mine should be his as well. I might not have minded, but he would take my things and never return them - putting them into some "community space" where I couldn't find them. So, I think the dog reminded me of my long-suppressed anger about this stupid issue.

The point being, I can relate totally, as I'm having anger reactions out of the blue, and overreacting to things that go wrong. Something breaks in my new house? Guess what? It's my H's fault - if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be there in the first place.

Totally stupid. I like my house. I like being alone. I KNOW my life is better now, but I'm still mad. Mad about lots of things. I read things here on this board that make me realize my M was always about him. Never about me. He always thought and said he was totally focused on helping other people (especially me) but I now realize he was (I'm sure not on purpose) setting me up to depend on him for things, and then not following through. As recently as this weekend, he did it again. I am realizing how MANY times this has happened and it can't be a coincidence. Over and over again, promises not met, leaving me in the lurch. Our SF experiences were about him too - going back to our honeymoon when he had to look at other women, because you know, that's how men are! I now realize that's only one part of it - the other part being NO POJA and NO consideration for my feelings. I now realize I never felt safe with him - not for day-to-day things, and not for intimacy. So I'm FIGHTING mad. And I bet you're going through some of the same things. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/mad.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/mad.gif" />

BTW, a couple of days ago I thought I was totally numb and without feelings. Hah! That changed this weekend like a toggle switch. And I guess it had been beneath the surface before then or why else would I have been so angry with the dog?

I think anger is a complex thing. And I DO think those of us who are experiencing it will need to figure it out before we can have new relationships, or we'll do like I did (with the dog) and get set off my things that remind us of the past. How to do it though? I do not know. But I don't think it is a reflection on who we are inside. It is a reaction, not a reflection or ourselves. Rather than being undesireable people, we will be better people for having recognized it and overcome it. Yeah, I know that means figuring out how to overcome it, and I'm not there yet. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" /> But I'm a believer! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

LL,

We all vent to wrong the people sometimes. I do agree the DD should respect your wishes and not "borrow" thing without asking. I would have been mad about that as well. I tend to go off on stupid things to my kids as well. So does WH. His is out of guilt, I'm sure. Mine problem is that it all builds up and then one little thing just snaps me and I become a raving lunatic! I want to make myself stop, but I can't seem to do it. Anyway, try not to punish yourself so much. You're only human. Your DD must realize this or she'd be sulking around.

As to your unhappiness about your body...I'm sorry you feel so bad about this. You know everyone has something they don't like about their body. Would you dislike a man with a small you know what? Of course not. You like him for himself, not his...ahem...parts. So anyone who is that superficial is not worth it. I know it still hurts, but you must not focus on this. Love yourself and others will love you too.