He said he loves me deeply but struggles to find me attractive…
Dear Ruby,
I’m a mother in my early forties. As my children grow more independent, I’m trying to rekindle intimacy with my husband of twenty years. The other day he said he loves me deeply but struggles to find me attractive… he sees me more as a caregiver. My role as mother seems to have overtaken his estimation of me. I love this idea of reclaiming my beauty, especially after hearing that.
How do I feel beautiful again?
More Than a Caregiver
Dear More Than A Caregiver:
First, I want to honor your courage in naming what so many successful, well-resourced women hold quietly: the ache of being seen only in service, the slow erasure that happens as “mother” and “wife” eclipse “woman.”
You are not alone. This is based on a cultural script, centuries old, that asks women to give everything and call it love.
When your husband says he loves you but struggles to see you as more than caregiver, it stings. But your beauty and your vitality, has not vanished because he doesn’t see it, they’re simply buried under layers of habit, expectation, and old scripts.
Let’s begin, gently, with resonance, not the gaze.
Let’s gently begin the work of reclamation, not by waiting for someone else to see you, but by returning to yourself. Beauty is not awarded from the outside. It begins as a felt sense… a hum beneath your skin, a breath that fills you fully, a spark of pleasure in your own company.
This isn’t just poetic; it’s science. Studies in interoception (the awareness of inner body sensations) show that mindful movement, touch, and breath fuel self-acceptance and soften self-judgment. When you move, touch, and breathe with presence, your nervous system remembers safety and possibility.
A 2022 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that women practicing mindful body awareness through movement, touch, or breath reported more self-acceptance and a gentler relationship with their own appearance.
Ask yourself:
When do I feel most myself… not just useful, but luminous?
What textures, colors, rituals, or places awaken my senses?
Where does beauty settle in me? Belly, skin, breath, heart?
We’ve inherited a script that treats women’s bodies as resources, always giving, always a little emptied out. But depletion is not destiny. Research shows that simple sensory (somatic) rituals like movement, self-touch, can lower stress, boost resilience, and restore agency.
Somatic rituals remind your body how to feel safe
A somatic ritual is a small, intentional act that brings you home to your body, out of your head, beyond the gaze, and into sensation and care. The focus is not on performance or self-improvement. Instead, we practice of presence: a way of listening, tending, and reclaiming what is yours.
Even tiny rituals like massaging oil into your skin or pausing for three nourishing breaths can shift you from numbness to feeling, from duty to desire, from self-surveillance to self-communion. This is how you remind your nervous system that you are safe, worthy, and whole right now, as you are.
Try this:
Move without a goal. Sway in your kitchen, stretch as you wake. Five minutes of unstructured movement can lower cortisol and lift your mood. Let your body be a source of rhythm and pleasure, not just a vehicle for getting things done.
Massage your skin with oil, not to fix, but to remember it’s yours. Gentle self-touch boosts oxytocin (the hormone of safety and connection) reminding your body it is a home, not a resource. Let each stroke be a quiet reclamation of territory once colonized by critique.
Let your breath feed you first. Slow, nourishing breaths calm the nervous system and root you in the present. Allow your body’s needs to rise to the top of your list, just for these few moments. This is the first radical act: meeting yourself with enoughness, right here.
Rewrite the mirror. Meet yourself in the mirror not to critique, but to witness. See the woman who has lived, carried, loved, and endured. Offer her recognition. Beauty blooms fully in the moments you stop trying to earn it.
Reclaiming beauty is a sacred act
Remember, you are more than any role you play. More than mother, wife, caretaker of everyone else’s needs. You are woman who is resonant, magnetic, and holy in her body.
This reclamation is not self-indulgence. It’s a a repair of what culture tried to fracture. In choosing yourself, you offer an inheritance of wholeness to everyone who watches you live.
The door isn’t closed. It’s opening, in a new way! One that leads you home to yourself.
Your path from sting to worth
What your husband said is painful because it touches an old wound, one reinforced by culture, that your value comes only from what you give. These somatic practices gently challenge this by guiding you to experience your own beauty and worth from the inside, regardless of who does or doesn’t see it.
It breaks the spell of invisibility: Instead of waiting for him to affirm your fullness, you create a new relationship with yourself, where you are the witness, the lover, and the honored guest.
It interrupts depletion: These somatic rituals shift your focus from service and exhaustion to sensation and self-care, helping your body remember pleasure and enoughness.
It restores agency: Reclaiming beauty as a sacred, internal act returns power to you. You become the author of your experience, not just the recipient of others’ perceptions.
It soothes the nervous system: Science shows that mindful touch, movement, and breath literally change your brain and body, moving you from anxiety and resentment to calm, connection, and self-acceptance.
It models wholeness: By tending to yourself, you quietly invite others, including your husband, to witness you in your wholeness, not just in your roles.
In short, these practices are a way to stop outsourcing your beauty and worth, and to begin living from a place of embodied self-regard, regardless of whether or not he ever fully sees it. They don’t erase the sting of his words, but they help you anchor in something deeper and more lasting: the truth of who you are, felt and claimed from within.
You begin to experience your own beauty not as something waiting for permission or recognition, but as a living truth in your body. This doesn’t erase the hurt of being unseen, but it gives you a place to stand that is yours alone, a wellspring of worth and loveliness that no one can take or give.
Over time, as you reclaim yourself in this way, you may even find that others begin to see you differently, not because you asked, but because you have changed the way you see yourself.
And as you reconnect with your own beauty and wholeness, you might choose to invite your husband into this journey. This invitation is to share your evolving self, not to seek his validation. This could look like naming what you’re discovering about your body, your pleasure, or your needs, or even inviting him to witness a ritual without commentary or correction.
You can gently express that you wish to be seen in your fullness: not just as a caregiver, but as a woman with her own desires, rhythms, and vitality. In this way, your relationship becomes a place of new possibility… where both of you can practice seeing and being seen with more honesty, tenderness, and depth.
A Ritual for Coming Home to Yourself
And now, when you’re ready, let this be the threshold… a way to return to yourself, body and soul. Let this simple ritual be your quiet act of reclamation, a moment where beauty is no longer something you wait for, but something you practice, feel, and remember as your own.
Somatic Beauty Ritual: The Return
Tonight, after the house settles, find a mirror and a small bowl of warm oil or lotion.
Light a candle. Let the room soften. Take three slow breaths. Place one hand on your heart, one on your belly.
Whisper aloud:
“I am more than what I give.
I am beauty remembering itself.”
Gently massage your collarbones, your throat, the tops of your shoulders, not to fix, but to feel.
Notice warmth returning to places that forgot it was allowed. Stay until your body sighs.
That’s beauty. Not in the mirror, but in the marrow.
With warmth, solidarity, and breath,
Ruby
ps: There is no perfect way to begin. Even the smallest act of turning toward yourself is enough. If doubt or grief arises, let it be part of the ritual, too.
Ask Ruby Your Question
If there’s a question alive in your body.. about beauty, power, rest, pleasure, or reclamation, write to me below. Examples of questions that Ruby answers:
“Ruby, I don’t feel beautiful anymore. What can I do?”
“Why do I still collapse around men?”
“How do I rest when my body feels unsafe?”
Your story may become the next Letter to Ruby, offered anonymously, with reverence. We move from performance to resonance. First with ourselves and then radiating out to others. Here, women remember that their bodies hold the blueprint for liberation.
You’ll also receive the first five letters in the Reclaim Your Beauty series, written for the woman awakening from overwork, overgiving, and over-polishing, and a 19-minute walking meditation called She Walks In Beauty.
We will only use your first name and last initial. If you would like to remain completely anonymous, please let us know in the question.