Are you absolutely SURE that what you feel for him is romantic love? You can admire him immensely, and love him dearly as your best friend in the world and think he has beautiful eyes and a wonderful accent and be wowed by his ambitions, and yet still not love him as a wife (to be) should love a husband (to be).
I saw in your profile that he is your only real friend, right now, where you are.
I can see where even the thought of losing him would be very upsetting to you, just on that score.
What if you could keep and have the friendship that you do now, exactly as it is, but not have the romantic side of things with him, but could, with others? Would you still feel as devastated?
Usually, if you're madly in love with someone, in a romantic way, that love and the accompanying desire eclipses the physical attributes that we don't find so appealing.
I don't think it's superficial of you to be attracted to the type of men who are your ideal!! That's perfectly natural and true of everyone!!!
And I agree, your guy sounds like a real sweetheart!! And even if I didn't trust your opinion on that, your mom has given him her seal of approval!!! Now, that's proof positive!!!!
It just looked to me like maybe you love him to death as a best friend and that it's the fear of losing that, that's causing your current struggle.
If you do love him as a lover, but just can't get past the tummy and the hair, then it's best (though difficult) to be honest with him and tell him that you wish to God it wasn't like this, but that you would really have a much better time, sexually, if he would take better care of himself and try to make himself more attractive to you!!
Tell him that even the effort to do so would be a big turn on!!! That it would show that he cares about what you like and that he appreciates the efforts you make, too!!!
Good luck!!! I hope you guys can work it out!!! It's so lovely, having a really good sexual relationship!!!!

i have a hard time defineing what i find as attractive =/ i just don't know anymore. i know what i don't.... skinny guys and guys with too much muscle.

have you tried a position where you can look right at your partner's and your area?

i think that if your this in attracted to him though it is something valid that you should look at. Don't feel bad about it, everyone is different. Maybe this just isn't right. The fact that you brought up your mothers marraige seems pretty important. Maybe it has had an effect on you....and that's what you percieve as normal.

i'm starting to think it's not a bad way to go myself!

I have a completely straight friend have an interest in watching male on male porn. She didn't have to deal with seeing plastic women portrayed at all, and there was a high value placed on the attractiveness of the men in the film.

that was the first thing that came to mind. Otherwise, are you sure you want to be monogamously married to a guy that doesn't drive you wild?

Thank you all for your advice. I am having such a hard time with it. I feel I keep ignoring my instinct that is telling me this is not "the one." It seems for the past week I've been constantly thinking of other men. Not even anyone in particular.
I am now moving back in with my boyfriend because I decided to leave my job where I was not happy and therefore I will be fully dependent on him until I find a new job and stabilize my stress levels which is partially why I decided to stop working.
I feel disloyal to him. And actually at one point I was. I had a very attractive supervisor at work who confessed he had fallen in love with me. For a short time his obsession with me was flattering, but he is married. We both knew it would be disrespectful and destructive to even consider an affair. We kissed. A lot. Then I gradually lost all attraction to him. His personality doesn't suit me. And I cannot be doing this to my boyfriend and the man's wife. I never want to be the other woman.
The men I fall into relationships with are average men physically but are very kind to me. I think I myself am disgustingly hideous. I never knew an attractive person would ever consider me approachable, let alone beautiful. But in the past year alone, it seems that more attractive men are interested in me. One being my early art history professor from college. I had the most intense infatuation with him when I was about 20. He went through a marriage and divorce, we've been in contact for 5 years now, and he recently told me that he would love to date me and take me in as his girlfriend, not just a one time offense. He is one of the most drop dead gorgeous and successful artists I have ever met in my life. I just don't ever see that man next to me. I would be too nervous, and I wouldn't be able to be myself.
The truth is, I do not believe in the honesty of these men. I think they are 100% bullshitting me. I think it is about sex and that he is a womanizer. I know this idea comes from my past. I had one night stands that depleted me emotionally. There was one man in particular that may as well have chewed up my heart, spit it back out, stomped on it, and smeared it into the pavement, after a one night stand. I was so heartbroken I wouldn't get out of bed for weeks. I missed classes. I was pathetic, at his mercy.
My current boyfriend and previous partner literally came knocking on my door, drunk, after midnight, making insinuations that they wanted sex. I take the men that come to me. I have no confidence.
I am pouring my life into this message now because I am bottling this up for so long. When I was a teen my mother and younger sister destroyed potential opportunities to date handsome men. They were outrageously jealous of me. I never understood this until a few years ago. Remember, I thought I was a troll back then. My younger sister and mother would flirt with my boyfriends and other male friends that came around the house. My younger sister told me my physical features made men dislike me. I knew she had to be right. Then my mother joked in front of my entire family that I date ugly men. I dated nice men. They were respectful to me. I also was not having sex, I was phobic of stds and remained abstinent. The women in my family called me a nun, and a prude. When I lost my virginity at 18 to a complete stranger in a very uncomfortable and awkward (and manic depressive lowest point in my life) I suspected I was date raped. I tried to tell my mother and she told me nothing more than I was a disrespect to my family. How was I the disrespect, when she was the one who had been cheating on our father in our home? She told me I was not date raped and that I was making excuses to justify my negligent behavior. I believed her. I hated and continue to hate myself for this.
The most horrible part of it all is that my self respect has been so low for so long that not only did I eventually sleep with people I never found even remotely attractive, but I let them talk me out of condoms for the sake of their enhanced pleasure. I never got an orgasm from those men but I did get two viruses that will be with me the rest of my life. I now feel I am not only ugly but I am dirty. I feel no man will want to be near me when I have to admit this. It is very painful for me. I cannot get a grip on my sexual state of mind. I want to be a sexual person. I want to have both the good man and the good sex. It's been a nightmare. I wish I could just stop caring. I suppress the idea of desiring better and yet it keeps creeping back up to the surface.

In light of your last post, I think you should get yourself into therapy. It will help you to sort out and organize all this stuff, and help you to get a more realistic handle on what you think of yourself -- and what you should think of yourself -- and what is motivating you to do the things you do.
Having said that, I can think of two practical things you should probably do.
One is, listen to your instincts!!! If this guy is not 'the one', and yet you don't feel that you can let him go at this point in time, at least don't marry him and/or have kids by him and try not to get yourself anymore tied to him than you already are.
The second thing is to not have anymore one night stands.
Put more value on yourself, even if you don't feel it. If you have no respect for yourself, you will keep drawing in the kind of men who will be more than happy to use your sense of worthlessness to use you for their own pleasure and then drop you.
I don't know if this is true of you, but I used to feel that way about myself and I kept ending up with 'ugly' men, men who would use me; men who were just plain losers.
For me, it was because I didn't think I was good enough for really quality men and so felt very uncomfortable with them. Even if they seemed to like me, I was sure that once they got to know the 'real' me, they would be disgusted and drop me anyway.
I felt so much more comfortable with men who were 'beneath' me. I felt better about myself, because at least I was 'superior' to them. And I was more secure that they, at least, wouldn't just use me (although, even amongst that group, most of them did!)
Perhaps it would be wise to just not be with any man/men right now, until you feel less in turmoil about all this.
This is your life!!! Try to get yourself to a better place!! It's horrible ending up with the wrong man!! I know! I did it, all the way up to and including my now exhusband, to whom I was married for 29 years. He eventually dumped me, too.
Now, I'm very much in love with a really high quality guy whom I love very much and who loves me. It's quite wonderful.
Don't settle. It is almost sure to lead to great unhappiness and disappointment.
Good luck!!!!! I hope your life leads you to a place where you will be happy with yourself and will be with just the right man for you!!!!!
It's so worth it!!!!!

i'm so sorry that you had to grow up that way =[
i'm sort of doing something similar... i just date who ever....but i also have a very hard time resisting the temptation or not activly seeking sex. I'm scared shitless of STDS so i just hurry up to get into the next relationship as fast as possible.
right now i've been on a vow of celebacy [no joke] till dec. 15th

being single for 8 months [my longest so far] has really cleared my head about what i want and need for myself. lol an lemme jus say it's by choice here peeps!

i know i heard that alot when i was bouncing around, but i convinced myself i was in love with ppl...it wasn't about sex....and it wasn't cuz i was afraid to stand on my own.

i don't know why your having this problem, and i really feel for you. i have no idea what i'm gonna do about my similar prob. [cuz my head is soooo gonna come right off after dec.15th]
but i do know that you could look like a cross between wookie and a sumo wrestler and you'd STILL deserve to love and be loved. I dunno if that means staying with your b/f or dating hottie art history, that's something only you can know. There are no garuntee's... even with the "nice safe" guys...
heh....i found that lesson to be particularly painful for me...but i need to fuck up to learn...hearing it never helps me =/

so i guess the advise i mean to give is... try to understand your self more b4 you decide anything.
the good peeps in different communities here at DS really help me there...
and keep up the long posts if it helps ya!
maybe you might find somethings helpful in the physical & emotional abuse community? regarding your parents