How are we different?

"Our" name amplifies my need to make direct comparisons between the two of us.  I think it is impossible for the wife not to compare herself to "the other woman".  My husband made the choice again and again to spend his time and effort on his relationship with "her" instead of me.  I feel like I am a part of a "How are these pictures different?" activity on the last page of a magazine.  "How are these Erica's different?  Which one is better?" would be the name of mine.

How are we different? Is she smarter than me?  Is she funnier than me?  What does she look like? Is she skinnier than me?  How big are her boobs (he is a boob guy)? What did he call her?  Just "Erica"? Or did he have a special lovey dovey name that he called her so he wouldn't have to say our shared name. Was sex with her better? What did they talk about?  What did he say about me? About my children? 

Well she has long brown hair and brown eyes.  I cut my brown (a really lovely brown with golden streaks) hair last year and have green eyes.  She has little to no breasts and I have breasts that need architectural wonders to prop up.  (He has always said that he loved them.)  She isn't as smart as I am according to him. 

She is a little shorter than me, I am 5'3, (and he is 6'4) making her a dirty troll. She is skinnier than me.  Nice.  So now when I get out of the shower and stand in front of the mirror all I can think about is what he must see when he looks at me.  No matter that my body was stretched within an inch of it's life to birth his two children.  She doesn't have children. In all honesty, I think that I am cute but I could have taken better care of myself and paid more attention to my weight in particular.  I am not sloppy fat but definitely not the same as I was when he met me.  Though he met me in my senior year of high school.  By the same token, he played college football when I met him and let me tell you, his physique is not the same as the 21 year old college football player version of himself.  He hasn't let himself go and he is still really cute (mostly to women named "Erica"- no matter the nationality, breast size and marital status).  He has started getting gray hairs in his beard and now has to wear glasses all the time.

I don't know how to stop the comparative thoughts.  I have asked him and the answers he has given me are illuminating but not helpful.