Accepting A Compliment

I couldn't even begin to count the number of times Patrick has complimented me. Whether it's about superficial things like my looks or my body or about things that matter like my personality or my accomplishments. I know that my husband finds me attractive and I know that my husband is proud of me because he is constantly telling me.

But out of these hundreds of thousands of times he's told me I can count on one hand the number of times I have accepted and believed the compliment. 

More often than not I dismiss his compliments as lies. If he tells me I'm pretty or beautiful I automatically think he's lying to me because I don't find myself to be pretty or beautiful. Other times I will simply say thank you while in my mind I argue as to why it's not a true statement and I end up insulting myself multiple times in the process.

I realized a few weeks ago that I accept compliments from strangers better than I accept them from loved ones. In my mind my family compliments me because they have to, whereas a stranger has nothing to gain. It makes very little sense to think this way, and in all honesty there are times where I dismiss the compliment as mockery.

I started to really think about my thought process on this subject a couple weeks ago when Patrick started a conversation about his coworker. They recently became friends on Facebook and she was looking through his pictures. He rarely posts, but there were pictures on there from our wedding. She talked to him at work, asking if that was his wife. She told him that she thought I was beautiful and that I could be a model.

I've never met this person before, and yet her compliment (minus the model part because I just don't see it) made my day. It put a smile on my face and a bounce in my step. I walked around that day with my head held a little higher. 

So why is it that my reaction is so strong to a compliment from someone I don't know compared to the same compliment from my husband?  

I truly wish I knew the answer so that I can work on my reaction. I'm fairly sure that working on my negative body obsession will help improve the way I accept a compliment. I have to believe not only that I am pretty, but also that my family is being honest with me when they compliment me. It's not fair to me to not accept it, and it's not fair to them when they are just being nice.