That’s what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you’re not so lovable.
You’ve got to have someone who loves your body. Who doesn’t define you, but sees you. Who loves what he sees. Who you don’t have to struggle to be good enough for.
You can forget that other people carry pieces of your own story around in their heads. I’ve always thought–put together all those random pieces form everyone who’s ever known you from your parents to the guy who once sat next to you on a bus, and you’d probably see a fuller version of your life than you even did while living it.
I’ve heard that people stand in bad situations because a relationship like that gets turned up by degrees. It is said that a frog will jump out of a pot of boiling water. Place him in a pot and turn it up a little at a time, and he will stay until he is boiled to death. Us frogs understand this.