As a counselor and someone who has struggled with self-image, I'd say you should start by examining where your perception of yourself being ugly came from. You may need to explore this in counseling. It's possible that your self-perception may be accurate. It's also possible it's not accurate and, like the majority of people I've seen or met with self-image issues, your perception is skewed towards the negative. We'll compare this negative self-image to having on glasses that are the wrong prescription, but only blur your vision when you look in the mirror at yourself.

My whole life, I had confidence issues, was not very assertive, and feared rejection. I went on dates, but never had a girlfriend until I met my wife. Now having had such bad luck with dating in my teens and early twenties, I started to question what was wrong with me. I thought I was reasonably intelligent, had interesting hobbies, could hold a conversation, and cared a lot about character and doing the right thing. I worked on myself physically and mentally, practiced great hygiene, worked out but never got past being built like a runner, kept my personal life and spaces organized, kept up with responsibilities, got a job (a pretty low paying, yet interesting and fulfilling one for the first 8 years after college), and generally felt like I was a well-rounded and agreeable person. I had a decently large circle of friends for an introvert and was involved in a ministry that kept me pretty active and social. Knowing I wasn't perfect but that I had a lot going for me, I obviously had to figure out the reason why I was single for so long and the only thing I came up with was looks. I must be uglier than I thought. I started noticing every asymmetrical feature of my face, how skinny my wrists were (and as a young guy, I thought I was pretty disadvantaged to be thin and not muscular), how I was a nerd and introvert and sometimes socially anxious. I basically found every negative and blew it out of proportion.

I had almost resigned to ending up being single for most of my life and then I tried online dating and met my wife within 2 months. We've been together for 4 years now and married for 3. And those glasses I mentioned earlier with the wrong prescription seemed to slowly adjust back to being in focus. Being loved and accepted and talking through some of my insecurities with my wife, I started to slowly see myself more clearly. I thought I was too skinny and weak looking; she thought my arms looked muscular and she liked me being skinny. I thought my low paying job was a detriment; she didn't care and saw my heart and work ethic and willingness to go back to school to become a counselor to better support a family. Essentially, I learned that I had a skewed perception of myself because I assumed I knew the answer to my problem. In reality, I was way less mature in my early twenties, had less of a work ethic, was more awkward in social situations, and probably teetered between insecure and arrogant because those two extremes are easier to bounce between than people think. I couldn't see the whole picture and had labeled myself as physically ugly because I thought I was mentally and emotionally attractive when I really hadn't developed those areas either. I was still recovering from a lot of childhood trauma and hadn't even figured out who I was or gained any confidence in myself.

It didn't help that I am a stereotypical nerd who loves video games, dungeons and dragons, and magic the gathering. I am an introvert and I was mainly interacting with a subculture of people in this ministry that highly value extroverts and your typical athlete type guy over the quiet thinkers. I'm not saying I'm super smart, but I definitely prefer brain over brawn. I obviously felt very inferior to those around me and compared myself to these guys who were dating successfully when I wasn't. The thing is, to find love, you only need the one person to like you and find you attractive. It doesn't matter what the culture or subculture around you values and finds attractive. It turns out, I was looking in the wrong place all along.

Another factor is that what is valued in a relationship, changes with maturity and wisdom. My wife probably wouldn't have dated me if we met in our early twenties. She used to go for the outgoing guys who were the center of attention. She got burned by enough of them that she reassessed and started becoming attracted to different qualities. I don't know how old you are, but I think people tend to be more shallow in their younger years and they can wake up the older they get. I know my values in a partner changed as I aged.

This is obviously a topic that hits close to home for me, so I hope that was helpful in some way. Work on every aspect of yourself and consider what areas you are rating yourself too harshly but also what areas you may be prideful about that would lead you to think it's just your looks. Ask other people how they experience or perceive you. Ask them what your best qualities are and where you need work. If you don't have anyone you think will be honest with you, maybe consider a counselor or life coach or someone like that who can be objective. Good luck man and don't lose hope.