Also, like some other posters have said, it’s important for you to realize that you aren’t necessarily the only or the best man she can find, nor is it even certain that marriage is the best thing that could happen to either of you. That’s something better left to God, I think.
Which also means one shouldn’t be focusing on it obsessively.
Next, in some sense I guess it could be said everybody deserves a loving spouse, but it certainly can’t be said that everybody deserves a spouse who will specifically find him or her to be perfect or excellent in the looks department or any other specific ‘department’ at all.
For example I very well know that I’m about to be balding in a couple of years, no longer have white teeth and have some twenty pounds to lose, urgently if possible. Do I deserve a wife who will find me absolutely the prettiest thing that ever walked the earth? Mercy! I can’t stop laughing (benevolently) at the idea. I know I’m still quite handsome, still more so than the average perhaps, and I’m content with it staying at that. There is no need to pretend I’m handsomer than Brad Pitt. (Though I probably was in my college years, which is a fine story for a rainy night and nothing more.). It’s perfectly fine to not be in denial about the balance of pros and cons or the exact nature of the pros and cons.
I don’t want to say true love isn’t predicated in, because who am I to judge what true love is? There certain are those people who remain happily in denial ever after, until they die (within 5 days of each other) thinking they married the prettiest, wisest, strongest, funniest, hottest/coolest person ever, and all the power to them.
But really there is nothing disqualifying in seeing things in an objective light, either.
(Such as you, Jason, should probably be prepared that your wife isn’t going to see you as the most confident sharp and tough go-getter on the planet, which you probably don’t expect at all. And, for the record, 99% men are not that and probably 60% don’t even expect the poor wife to pretend.)
In any case, don’t marry and don’t even get engage, in fact don’t start a relationship at all, if you would see it as some form of an act of charity, or settling*, or whatever.
(* Unless you’re a trained psychologist or one of those ultra-sober people who realize that almost all of us do in fact settle, i.e. give up the uncertain chase or wait for a more attractive offer than what we are presented with. Nor does this sort of realization actually prevent people from being happy in their marriages — as long as they have truly accepted their choice.)
One more thing, not necessarily directed at Jason, more because of other thoughts shared in this thread: it would be a markedly poor idea to marry someone as an exercise in getting over the importance of looks in mate selection. That’s just not something to do to one’s significant other, nor to oneself.
This means if you can think something to the tune of: ‘oh, she’s quite on the ugly side actually, but she’s so fun to be with I’m totally into it and wouldn’t swap her for anyone in the world,’ as a lot of men probably feel, then well, that’s not exactly something you want to tell the poor woman, but it’s not something that means you shouldn’t marry her either. On the other hand, if you think more along the lines of: ‘well, she’s not ugly, she’s even somewhat pretty but not really pretty enough for me, so it would be a sacrifice for me to make’ then that’s more of a problem.
Some people
are expected to make a sacrifice of their marriage (it has happened to certain saints, e.g. in ‘missionary dating’ in the antiquity and middle ages), but don’t presume you are and don’t presume that what you’re doing really is that kind of sacrifice.
It would be a serious mistake to marry someone that you are not physically abstracted to. This woman deserves a husband that doesn’t regret that he didn’t marry a so called ‘hottie’. 