Frustration - Wife sabotages herself - women listen up

I have been married for 3 years now. I am 27 (190lbs) and my wife is 22 (122lbs). She is a really wonderful, beautiful, sexy woman that I am happy I married. We have our problems like most couples do, but I think we are very lucky to have each other.

My wife has a problem that I think many women have - self confidence. I wanted to write a little about how a woman's lack in confidence is not just destructive to herself, but to those she is closest with. I hope that in some ways I can reach out and inspire women to change for the better. I also want to preface that I am in no way a master of the ways of women, and much of what I say is simply my opinion. All that said, I believe most of you will agree that loving, respecting, and appreciating one's self are unavoidably essential to happiness.

I would rather my wife be 10 lbs heavier and feel sexy, than 10lbs lighter and feel pathetic. She is so much more attractive when she acts like she is worth something, than almost anything else she can do. Thats not to say I want her to gain 50lbs, because I dont, but I do want her to feel good about herself.

I dont know if all women are like this, but for my wife, getting ready and looking presentable is important to her because that means she cares enough about herself to actually invest time in to herself. The times when she hides her hair, and puts on baggy clothes just drives me nuts, not because I dont like the up-do or baggy clothes, but because she is figuratively saying to herself "I am not pretty enough to get ready" We have gotten into arguments about her hair, and I have thrown her hair-bands away (that was wrong) so she wouldn't hide her hair. She has beautiful hair by the way.

It has gotten to the point where I can't even give her a heart felt compliment anymore, like "oh you look really pretty" or "your really good at science" or "your hair looks so nice and shiny" because she thinks I am lying. I still do because I think everyone needs positive reinforcement, and part of me just feels like saying nice things anyway.

One of the biggest places in my opinion, and most men can probably agree with me on this, that is affected by the self image problems is intimacy settings. Having your wife being hung up some self image problem while your trying to be intimate is extremely annoying and frustrating, might I add even selfish on her part. I am trying to express my love in the most sincere and sacred of ways that I have vowed not to share with anyone else, and she is worried about being fat, or not pretty enough.

This leads me directly into my next point, that is, if you self sabotage by thinking you're of no worth, it will inevitably happen. For example, my wife is worried about not being pretty enough for me. On the one hand I am flattered that she cares enough about "my opinion" (ill discuss this in the next paragraph), but after a while of her constant self belittlement, she actually starts to become less attractive to me, hence becoming what she so badly did not want to become.

Is it my opinion she is seeking approval from?. At first, I really thought she was just trying to look good for me. What can I say, I was flattered. Now I can tell you that though she does care somewhat of what I think about her,but an overwhelming majority of her feelings are concerned with the way she feels and thinks about her self. A lot of this is just transposed on to me in such a way that she is asking me what I think. I realized about a year ago that to a degree, it really didn't matter what I thought at all.

So how can this be fixed? Well, I am happy to say that this is open discussion thus helpful hints would be appreciated. What I can say is that things are getting better as far as my wife's self confidence. She's making an increased effort to get ready, workout, and maintain a healthy lifestyle. I think in doing these things, she has learned that she is worth a great deal more than she thought. Thanks for reading, feel free to respond.