Same Issues, Different Day

We had our talk today, which is why I was holding back tears as Pittsburgh punted the first time. We've come full circle.

She hates that I have shaved legs, but to her credit, she has tried to live with it for a couple months. She has held her tongue, though I could read her mind a few times. She tells me that she hates the pricklyness of my upper legs (smooth just isn't going to happen for me, I fear). And the rest of my legs are "freaking" her out. She says that it's getting in the way of her desire to be intimate with me. Her therapist thought that maybe this is because she feels disrespected by me and my unilateral choice to go bare. I told her how happy it had made me, how I had left my arms and eyebrows untouched since my last meeting. I told her what a difference it had made in my outlook.

I hate to get caught up in self-pity, but that's where I find myself. I am really trying not to spin downward. I told her that I perceive my choice as: 1) being comfortable in my own skin, or 2) wearing the bear suit so she can be comfortable with me. Whereupon, she began to cry. She's not doing it to elicit sympathy. She just lets these feelings build to the breaking point before discussing things, much like I do. But I still resent it, and I harbor doubts about our future. If, God forbid, she lost a breast, I'd like to believe it would make no difference in my attraction to her. Doesn't this seem minor in comparison? Why does this have to be a 600-pound gorilla in our marriage? Can't she just let it go till my self-imposed early March deadline, let me wring the last bits of joy out of it? I've made every effort not to be in her face with this, but she can't seem to shake her distaste for it, and the underlying truths it represents to her.