Hi There

I am almost 3 years out, and I never made it to goal. I still am about 25 lbs from goal, about 50 lbs overweight. (Never meant to be a skinny minnie anyway). Wondering why I stopped, and I know that it's me that stopped. Why do I still want to be fat, overweight anyway? To keep that shield up, the armor? I've been away from my abusive father for over 25 years (I'm 48), but he is still alive. The abuse was physical, mental, emotional, but not sexual--like another poster, he was a "purist", the world's greatest Christian, and so humble, too. I and my sisters have come to an understanding of the man over these past few years, we fully understand the meaning of the word "misogynist", and how it fully defines him. He treated all the women in his life the same way, wife, daughters, sister, mother, second wife. Only the wives and daughters of his brothers were left alone, every other woman in this man's life has suffered for BEING female. I've seen him treat female clerks, nurses, waitresses, like dirt. But males in those same jobs--he would never question their job performance. It took us all many, many years to learn that it wasn't US, the no good, ugly, lazy, b@@tches he fathered, but it was HIM all along. His hatred of all women, no matter what!!! We were never good enough (all of us were straight A students), never pretty enough (of course not, three of us were overweight kids, one sister was a skinny rail--later we learned that she achieved that by vomiting for decades), never was anything good enough. As far as I can tell, and I sure don't claim to know everything, I stopped craving his approval in my teenage years. I really didn't care what he thought about me. One thing we learned, fairly recently, was that his ideal in females is pale, blue-eyed, blondes. We, of course, all have dark hair, dark eyes, only I have "pale skin". How did we learn of this strange thing? My niece, who has dark hair and dark eyes, and his brother's granddaughter, who is blue eyed and blonde. At family gatherings, he would fawn over that child, while his own granddaughter, was completely ignored by him. My sister blew up, demanded an explanation, and he, totally innocently, explained that the other child is his ideal of female beauty (she was like, five)--blue eyed and blonde, while his own granddaughter, by his standards, was ugly, dark. "Well, you understand, don't you?" He really didn't see what was wrong with his idealized female. My sisters, particularly the eldest, still suffer from his lack of approval and love. I may be the only one who will be rejoicing at his funeral. Men--I have a boyfriend, I've been in this relationship for, gee, I just realized it, 20 years, but not married. He drinks too much, and I just don't want to be married, not to him, or to anyone. (Do you think my parent's marriage may have influenced me on this one, huh???). I sure never wanted kids, after my upbringing. Well, that's my intro to this forum, I hope activity and talk picks up a bit. Talking, journaling, writing, really help to get things into focus. c