To think my H is being an asshole for saying...

Yeah, this marriage is clearly dead. Have a face to face conversation about divorce.

Doesn’t sound great, what are his redeeming qualities - if any?

I would guess it's his mid life crises that he's realised that he's now 15 years older.

I hate the ageism of "old lady style". Just like I had the phrase "acting like lovestruck teenagers" to describe the very normal first stage of falling in love in a relationship that happens across the ages. Age is nothing to do with it. Wear what you like at all ages as an adult!

But unfortunately as MN shows us lots of people not just men perpetuate this misogynistic crap.

You clearly don’t like each other. What is keeping you together?

He sounds just like my ex who married me when I was 25 and then seemed disappointed 3 kids later, when I become 40. It's bizzare.

So you can what, back him up?!

She’s not asking a bunch of internet randos to judge her dress sense, she’s asking whether it’s reasonable for her husband to say what he did. It doesn’t just ‘sound nasty’, it’s obviously calculated to be nasty and deeply hurtful.

What he actually sounds like is a wanker.

As women, we all know how important appearance is. We know the effect certain outfits will have when we walk into a room - be it in the workplace or socially. It also affects how we are perceived by sexual partners.

Is the point of this thread to vent and have your husband spoken about badly as you felt slighted by his comment? Or for help to fix the issues of communication and attraction in your marriage?

As we have no context, we can only do the former.

Yes, his wording was poor but conducting this exercise over text would lead to these context-free misunderstandings. Try having this conversation in person.

You know misandry isn't a thing.

You've buggered yourself by using that term.

You just don't get it. You keep talking about 'projection', I'd ask you to actually quote some 'Projection'.

As @Missionimprobable said, You've used some really objectionable terms here.

I have to ask why you are here?

There are plenty of men on MN, so you're not outlier you possibly believe yourself to be. And men are quite welcome in 'these parts' as long as they're here to learn, not tell. You seem desperate to tell.

You know that no-one wants your opinion. Your opinion is bad, you're not cool or helpful.

You're just a terribly boring bloke, of which there are many.

Did you have an Internet epiphany where you thought that the women of the world would just be much better if they heard your childish and reductive views?

Is that what happened? Or did you always feel that your outdated views were important simply because you are a man?

I'm interested because you came here on the attack. I don't rock up to tyre sub-reddits to give them the benefit of my knowledge because I can drive a car.

Men are welcom-ish here. If you came here to learn. Good.

If you come here to 'teach' bad.

Well firstly, yes I probably would use polite terms like ‘I prefer’ and not tell him he was unattractive to the entire female population.

Secondly, I appreciate the bald thing wasn’t a great example but my point was that everyone’s appearance is going to change over the years no matter how much effort we put in to stop it. Technically wrinkles are preventable but would you still have the same opinion if the DH was berating his wife for not using Botox and face lifts? The OPs sense of style is part of her personality and in some ways she can’t help that either.

I do think it’s important to make an effort and if the DH was just using a bit of gentle encouragement to get his wife out of joggers 24/7 I’d have no issue with it. Or if it was one particular dress that he didn’t like. But it sounds to me like he’s just trying to hurt and belittle her.

And you are exactly right. I wonder how he thinks 41 year olds should dress? I've got a nasty feeling that it involves a lot of discomfort. How does he dress?

I was literally thinking this. If my husband started dressing as you say, I’d be having a conversation. This doesn’t mean he has to dress for the female gaze. I also think it is important in a relationship to be able to articulate if you find something unattractive. However it should be done kindly.

only the op knows how she presents herself and if there is an element of truth in this, or if he’s jush being an arsehole.

I think it’s perfectly normal for spouses to dress in ways that makes them feel good and also makes them attractive to their spouse? We all want to feel attractive to our spouses, surely.

But it sounds from OP that this marriage is long dead in the water and there is massive and unhappy history to this comment, which was not kindly meant. The ‘even dress younger than your age’ bit was telling.

Well, this thread went off on a bit of a tangent didn't it? 😬

Anyway, back to the original question - while I do agree in principle that everyone should be able to dress however they choose, I also think that part of being in an adult relationship is being honest and being able to speak up when you don't like something.

OP - have you always dressed a certain way and he's just deciding to be a dick, or, being honest, have you changed your style and he's just trying to say he doesn't like it? The former is one thing but I don't think the latter is as bad as people are making it out to be.

I'll be honest, if my DH started going around in tracksuits or decided he wanted a mullet, I wouldn't find him anywhere near as attractive - just as I wouldn't find it too appealing if he stopped showering or he decided to grow a beard. As much as MN may try and deny it, appearance matters and I do think part of being in a long term relationship is considering your partner - that doesn't mean never wearing what you like, of course, but if you're making a drastic change to your appearance or dress sense, they're not necessarily always going to like it.

Like someone said upthread, loving someone doesn't necessarily mean finding them attractive. There are lots of threads on here from women whose husbands have put on loads of weight and they're struggling to find them attractive - I'm not sure a change in personal style is much different, really.

I mean, if there weren' such people, our lives would be so much poorer, n'est pas?
How else would we know that other people aren't bitchy if we didn't have such benchmarks?
Hope you have a great day! You've made me smile!

Hmmm, well you could tell him that you’d like him to stop dressing like a grandad and I’m sure that’ll get his back up as his personal sense of style no doubt is second to none! 😂
More seriously though, if he wants to ‘fix your marriage’ he needs to stop being so superficial and start looking inwards. His comments sound to me to be deliberately trying to undermine you and make you feel like you are the problem rather than be any genuine and mature attempt to think about your marriage and the future.
All the best.

I do see what you are saying but at what point does it become more about dressing to save your marriage, rather than dressing to feel sexy or for your partner to get their kicks? I think there is much more going on behind the scenes.

I understand what you're saying, but at the same time it isn't really an applicable example. You're pointing to something outside of his control. If he was choosing to shave his head and you didn't like it, would you consider yourself an arsehole for telling him you prefer him when he grows his hair out? Or of you prefer him clean shaven and he is choosing not to shave, surely you would tell him this?

It sounds like there are really deep rooted problems in your marriage and you know it’s over.

Time to focus on the next steps you know you have to take.

He isn’t just giving his opinion though is he, he said that ‘NO MAN’ could find her attractive. I mean, how offensive can you get?!!

It sounds to me like it’s her inherent style that he doesn’t like, but even if it’s about making an effort, there are ways of addressing that diplomatically that were certainly not employed here!

You're saying words you don't seem to grasp the meaning of 😂 You're calling me a misogynist when nothing i have said indicates a hatred or discrimination of women, simply disagreement and distaste for specific unhealthy behaviour regardless of gender. It seems many of the commenters who want to defend bad behaviour are doing so in the vein of misandry though... weird amount of projection going on in these comments. Thankyou for helping me stay awake though. It's been very entertaining.

But in this case the OP is just stating a simple fact isn’t she? He IS an asshole. If he’d shared his opinions on a chat forum first I don’t think it would have made him any more of less of an asshole. As long as the chat forum is anonymous what difference does it make 🤷🏻‍♀️

The fact that they have ‘a closer relationship that anyone else in the world’ will, I hope for the OP’s sake, not be the case for much longer. Their marriage is clearly not healthy and the OP will probably need to work through some stuff to realise this. Whether she posts on mumsnet, talks to a therapist or calls the Samaritans… who cares!

In fact, I would say discussing it anonymously with strangers is probably the safest way to do this because you know it won’t go any further.

I’m sorry but I’m going against the grain here and say if he was dressing like an old man, in old drab clothes would you still find him attractive? It really depends what you’re wearing but you’re only 41 not 81. I wear comfortable clothes around the house and dress up more when we go out as I like to feel good for myself but also attractive for my DP as you have to keep making an effort otherwise things can easily go stale. And then women complain that their DH has been looking elsewhere when they’ve let themselves go! I know it’s controversial but it’s true! I’m probably going to get hammered for saying it but I’ve seen it happen time and time again

So, this behavior isn't new and he's ramping it up?

Time for a divorce. Life is too short to spend it with people who try make you miserable.

I think your DH is perfectly entitled to tell you his feelings about how you dress.
I can understand, however that you found the way he did it hurtful.
Presumably, you’re hurt because you don’t want to think he finds your style unattractive…..which means you do care what he thinks.

I don’t know how you dress. Whether it’s just your style he doesn’t like or whether you make no effort and slob around in comfy clothes the whole time. This makes a difference.

It also makes a difference if you’ve changed how much care you take of yourself over the years. It’s often not how we actually look that is meaningful, but how much effort we put into ensuring that our partners know we care what they think about us.

I think you just need to have a mature conversation about it. Tell him what he said upset you. Explain why. Let him explain exactly what he meant too. If it turns out he just wants you to be soneone you’re not, yep, he’s an arsehole. But if it turns out he’s worried that you’ve let yourself go and you just don’t care about what he thinks, perhaps you could both agree to make more of an efffort with each other.