Feeling beautiful and sexy

My hubby and I had a disagreement last night. Well, not so much a disagreement as general dissatisfaction from me. He never tells me that I am beautiful or sexy or pretty even. I might get the occasional "You look good." My general response to that is that cupcakes and pieces of pie look good. Do not get me wrong. I was up at 4:45am today for myself. Not for him. I want to be clear on that. Not only do I love the way I feel about myself now that I am in better shape, but I also love the feeling of getting to work and knowing that my workout is done for the day and I feel really good about that. It just puts me in a better mood. (Not to mention the fact that I am now the thin sister...." Anyways, it is not that I need to hear those things from my hubby to keep me going to the gym at 5a or walk/run outside on the weekends. I do not. I motivate myself enough in that. I guess that it would just be nice if he acknowledged my looks once in a while. In his defense, he did tell me this weekend that I look athletic which is a huge compliment in my opinion because that is exactly how I want to appear to others, but I never get pretty, sexy, beautiful. Looking "nice" to me implies that I clean up well which is not pretty or sexy or beautiful, and you know now how I feel about "good." I am left to wonder is my face ugly? Maybe I should go ahead and color my hair. I do not think that I am that unattractive. I see men looking at me. I see my co-workers notice me. I see the way some of my neighbors look at me. I am not bragging, but men notice me. On a scale of one to ten, I would give myself an 8 maybe when I am in full make-up and dressed well. Doesn't that qualify me as beautiful? Or is that title for nines and tens only?
I think about John Gray. (I may have misspelled his name so I apologize.) You know the guy who wrote Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. I remember watching a show about his book where he talked about his wife coming down the stairs and how to make her feel better when they were going out, he just started saying, "Wow, you look gorgeous." He did it as a reflex to make her feel appreciated and good about herself. He then said that one day he looked at her as she was walking down those stairs and thought, "Wow, she really is gorgeous," and told her so and meant it this time. All of the people on the show were so impressed, but I thought, "What a dick." What is wrong with you that you did not think that before??? You married a woman you thought was ok? Seriously...by the way, they have since divorced....
I do not know what the resolution is if there is any. I guess I just have to keep working at myself for me and continue to build that within and make sure that I tell my daughter every day how beautiful she is because she is, and I truly mean that. I want her to feel it and to know it and have it be part of her so she does not have to ever feel the need to hear it from some man because she might never...and if he does say it he might not actually mean it.