Dear A&E, 

I hate my body. I’m not a 15 year-old girl, I’m a 43 year-old woman with two children and a happy marriage but my husband hasn’t seen me naked ( I make sure the lights are off when we have sex) for 10 years, even though he says I’m beautiful. I went to buy new bras the other day and found myself crying in the changing room. I am not obese and I exercise. I am just a normal woman with a happy life apart from the way I feel about my breasts and tummy and thighs. Why does it make me feel so sad? 

— Self-Loathing

Dear Self-Loathing,

First of all, just to state the bleeding obvious, never make decisions about yourself in a shop changing room. They are designed to make us cry – smear test lighting, mirrors at every awkward angle… tiny cells of self-hatred. We are endlessly puzzled as to why retailers don’t make them less punishing.

Anyway, sadistic strip-lighting aside, you are not alone. In fact you, sadly, are more towards the norm than the extreme. But we often don’t talk about the grief we feel around our bodies. Because we are ashamed.

Listen S-L, the landscape is a little healthier out there now, but we were all brought up with a narrative of shame. Less than perfect. Less than skinny. Less than young. Less than sexy-but-not-slutty. It doesn’t matter what size or shape you are, you will never feel good enough if you buy into the idea that there is an ideal. Also, remember the ideal changes… so we can never win at that game.

So we wallow in body negativity and then, suddenly, body positivity strides in and demands that we all celebrate our rolls. What about body neutrality? Your body works. It is healthy. Let’s celebrate that.

And remember that it has literally been lived in. You grew two people. Motherhood can turn the most goddess-like of us into carthorses as skin is stretched, time runs thin and the peachiness of youth fades. It’s not for the faint-hearted, this ageing business. Recently, we were talking to a woman who felt incredibly sad because she had stumbled across a picture of herself from 15 years ago. She looked gorgeous in the photograph but our friend remembers feeling desolate, making herself sick, feeling hideous. This is less about the way you look than how you feel and how you frame it.

You are wiser than you were. Maybe funnier. Possibly sexier. Your husband tells you that you are beautiful. Believe him S-L. Dim lighting, a baggy jumper or a flattering frock may blur the edges but he knows what he’s looking at and feeling, and he still desires and admires you. Have a couple of cocktails (two, not five), leave the lights on and allow him to worship you.

Every time you catch yourself muttering “You are disgusting” in the mirror, be disciplined and find something you like about yourself: pretty eyes, elegant hands, a long neck… anything. And ask a trusted friend to come to your house and go through your wardrobe so that you are left with an edit of things that you feel lovely in.

Out with the too-small jeans and the defeat-sacks. There is no place for either of them here.

Diversify your social media feed. This stuff is in our eyes and brains all day, every day. Swap the skinny women with perfect houses for women who are good (and clever and funny) around how we feel about our bodies. @stylemesunday, @emclarkson and @celestebarber to name but a very few.

And beyond that S-L, take action and allow your body to prove to you that it is amazing. We know a few women who have found great personal satisfaction from weight-lifting. Not to bulk up and compete, but just to feel strong and empowered. Join a women’s fitness group, be it wild swimming or Zumba or whatever, and marvel at the magnificence of all the shapes and sizes that we come in.

Finally, we are setting you a task. It’s an affirmation. It’s a bit woo-woo but it will help carve out new neural pathways to lead you towards new emotional territories. Every morning and evening you will say to yourself something along the lines of “I honour all that I am and all that I will become.” Create your own version. Write it down.

And if that’s too much for you, get a spray tan. Done well, they are weirdly amazing. Just saying.

More from the Midults: 

What readers advised in response to last week’s problem: I dread Sunday lunches with my husband and his father. Is it my job to be peacemaker?

David Singer: Cancel all lunches involving these two

Hilz Wilz: Can’t be much fun over Sunday lunch discussing what you did when you were seven. Sounds like hell. Try focusing on the now or the future. Plenty of people much worse off than your husband eg people in Ukraine

Alex Neil: Next Sunday, slip the Domino’s pizza menu into his inside pocket.