To wish my dh understood why I would like him to make an effort more with his clothes? Or explain it to me ?

[Boomboomi]

When I met dh many moons ago , he dressed very well , on a limited income.
Fast forward , he does not make an effort with his clothes .When I do - most of the time - he says I look pretty etc.

Being a very visual person … I love clothes, colours, shapes .

He says that it is simply not important to him .
ive asked him over the years to ger a few bits - it does not register in his priorities.. tho he does know how important it feels to me.
He could look good v easily on a minimal effort.

as he knows its important to me - i do wonder if its resistance - as he could do it if he wanted to on a small amount of money. He has spent 3k on a bike .

whilst i recognise we are people with different priorities- totally fine - i cant understand why he declines to invest just a small amount of his energy and money into something that he knows is important to me ?
like for eg our son in law wears lovely aftershave - as he likes to smell and look good for himself and others - wereas dh - feels no social pleasure in doing similar
it feels to me that he feels these socilatal norms - to me - dont apply - my family always liked to look smart and i dont get it . Help !

If your spouse is not prepared to dress up a bit on say three or four occasions a year when he knows it’s important to you, then you’ve married the wrong person!

Because unless you know they want them, clothes are a crap present because it’s for your benefit. See also men who buy their wives crappy lingerie because it makes the man horny even though the wife wouldn’t wear it.

Then when I suggested she leave if it’s a dealbreaker I apparently had an agenda

Except don’t buy him clothes as that isn’t loving him for who he is.

More importantly is he the same person as he was? Books and covers come to mind here.

My would walk around looking like a hobo if he was left to his own devices. But I buy him clothes him looking good it’s important to me. Nothing social, 501s, decent quality T-shirts and a casual shirt or two. Linen trousers for holiday. A decent summer and winter suit. A few nice pairs of trainers and shoes. But most of his wardrobe is well worn and faded comfort clothing. I buy him nice bits as He reflects on me when we are out ( as I do him) .He happily wears what I buy him but would never dream of buying new clothes until his favourite old joggers and T-shirt have more holes than fabric. But he has many more redeeming qualities than having very little interested in clothes.

I'm just waiting for the thread: "AIBU that my DH is hugely into fashion and is spending so much time and money on clothes - I'm not actually that bothered about clothes myself, but it takes up so much space to store them all and is a hefty part of our family disposable income?"

Ok, as I said the T shit thing was a bit extreme and I plead guilty to that. I do wonder about a relationship where you can’t talk to your partner about how revolting food stained clothes are. Or indeed, help them on their way to the wash.

Covert metrosexual

What my husband wears is totally up to him. As long as i have know him he has mostly worn trackie bums or shorts and tshirt/hoodie. He scrubs up really well and when he makes the effort in a suit or even jeans he can look amazing but i would rather he is comfortable than worrying about how he looks all the time.

I don't think its unreasonable. It's hard to be attracted to someone looking like Gollum. Men can be pretty lazy in this regard and women are STILL in 2024 expected to meet beauty standards. There's nothing wrong with wanting your partner to look better, but all you can do is ask. What's concerning is he doesn't care to look good for you. So frustrating that women are expected tp take what we can get and men expect us to be presentable.

I could be way off here, but this sounds a lot like men who complain that their wives have put on weight and they’re not attracted to them anymore. “I’ve told her how I feel. I’ve told her that if she loses X stone, I’ll buy her new clothes. It can’t be that hard, why doesn’t she DO something?”

I would NOT find that motivational, would you?

I married my husband knowing his sense of style was somewhat dated. He’s evolved some over the years. But he sometimes makes choices that make me cringe. I may make a remark about certain items once. He isn’t always appreciative of my style either. He comments, I consider what he’s said, and do what I want. For about 12 years he shaved his hair into a buzz cut. He did a terrible job of it and I HATED the way it LOOKED. But it’s his head and he liked it, so, whatever. He’s grown it out since. But not for me. I’d be very pleased if he dressed better, but he’s clean, tidy, unwrinkled, and doesn’t stand out as inappropriate. He looks like someone’s dad. Which he is. You have to choose your battles. I think OP might LIKE her husband to be more dapper, but would ultimately be happier if she focused on her husband’s good qualities while still enjoying fashion for herself.

It’s coercive. She knows he doesn’t want them.

Omg op if I was married to you I would hate it!

For me clothes are about function and comfort. I'm guessing your husband is happy in a tee-shirt & jeans or whatever & you'd him to be dressier & more fashionable. Boak.

He doesn't have to dress up for you or anyone. He's not a doll.

She would be told to leave, as usual the foible standard is alive and well

No he does not need to be controlled like that and yes it is not understandable when a woman does it biut controlling if its a man, it is controlling regardless

I find the term coercive a little extreme!

I also find today’s obsession with being “your authentic self” and never compromising for the sake of your other half to be a little sad.

Good marriages are built on compromise. Agreeing to eat fish on Fridays when you really want to eat pizza. Agreeing to watch a period drama when you would prefer to watch a thriller. Saying yes to going hiking when you wanted to stay at home for a picnic. And yes, making the effort to dress up on three or four occasions a year to take your wife out, allowing her the opportunity to dress up too, very much falls in to that category,

As long as both parties are compromising equally, then I don’t see why this is such a bad thing to do, and I say that as someone who has been married for over thirty years.

it’s not something that is going to do the husband bodily harm fhs; it just means he has to make a bit of effort! And unless he is a member of Hari Krishna or something, I doubt wearing decent trousers and a carefully chosen shirt occasionally is going to compromise any long held principle of his.

It’´s about forgetting what you want occasionally to make the other person feel happy, which in turn should make you feel happy! It’s about flexibility and selflessness in other words.

Unfortunately the message being continually broadcast today, on social media and elsewhere, and it starts very young in school, is that we should all be self-fulfilled, self-confident, self-aware, self-loving, with healthy boundaries, and of course all of those things are important, unfortunately it completely bypasses the fact that we are social animals who need to rub along with others in the playground and in the workplace, romantically, and when parenting children.

Also, there is such a thing as becoming too comfortable in a marriage or long-term relationship and falling in to a rut,

Honestly I know so many divorced couples who have lost weight, started going to the gym, started paying more attention to what they wear etc. And I meet both of them separately in the pub or the supermarket or wherever and compliment them and tell them they look great! And of course you never know what goes on between two people, but sometimes I wonder why they couldn’t have made that effort for each other when they were together.

I may have misinterpreted what OP has written, but I don't think she's really after him dressing up for her as an occasional treat/compromise. I read it that she wants him to change his style permanently to her choice rather than his own.

Going right to extremes, a bit like Kanye has apparently done with Bianca - but if he'd toned it down a lot from 'virtually naked' to insisting on a more mainstream sexy kind of style, albeit one that she herself might hate, we probably would never have realised what was going on. Yes, we don't know for a fact that she isn't the driving force behind it, but she always looks so glum and afraid when out in public with him and wearing effectively nothing.

I think that, because a great many women are very into fashion and style, and comparatively very few men are, it's often seen as the men being a blank canvas and really not caring at all, so their wives can just freely decide whatever she wants them to wear, as though they were toddlers... but dull and predictable can be a conscious, active choice as well, and is every bit as valid for an adult to choose for themselves.

I heartily agree with this post. What’s that saying about how common sense is far from common?

IMO the problem with being your ‘authentic self ‘ is that it overlooks the issue of , what if your authentic self isn’t really very nice?
One of the things about marriage is that it encourages you to address your weaker spots for the sake of your partner.
Like here, the husband is quite honestly lazy about his appearance ; it’s affecting his wife, and this should be causing him to reflect on his behaviour. The OP is about what to do when this doesn’t happen.
I also think the majority of posts claiming OP is being controlling must be written by people who have not been in a relationship for over 20 years and hence don’t actually understand the problem.

That is controlling!!!

Comparing him to what another family member does is not OK, how would you feel if it was the other way around? Doesn't really matter if you were extatic about it, it's not OK.

If my dh buys something that really doesn’t suit him I say nothing and just make it disappear when I do the washing. Then I help him look for it and pick up a better alternative that suits him more 😂

Thats horrible, borderline abusive and you should really have a think about how controlling that it…

I completely agree in cases where your authentic self isn’t really very nice - if you're selfish, greedy, abusive etc.... but just preferring to wear one kind of clothes instead of what somebody else prefers for you has nothing whatsoever to do with this.

There isn't actually any 'problem' to be solved. How would you react if a husband told his wife that she didn't look attractive enough for him without enough/his preference of makeup... so as she was too lazy to understand the problem and do anything about it, he saw no alternative but to go out and buy the items that he believed she needed - and maybe even throw out any wrong products that she had previously chosen?

Unlike some PPs I don’t think it’s controlling to wish your partner would wear clothes appropriate to the situation or occasion, or to wish they’d make more of an effort to look well dressed. The OP isn’t forcing him to wear things he doesn’t want to.

My DH doesn’t care much about clothes and wears the exact same casual, dull, plain outfits all the time in the same dark colours. He simply doesn’t want to spend money on clothes and isn’t interested in looking better. It’s his choice and I don’t try to change him. But if there was a strict dress code to an event we were going to I’d tell him, and hope he’d listen. We recently went to a big occasion which was important to the family, there were formal photos etc and everyone was dressed up. Except DH who was in his usual check shirt hanging over baggy cargo pants, old hoodie and trainers. There was no dress code as such, it was just an important occasion where people generally understood that you dress smartly. I can’t say I wasn’t a bit disappointed and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to feel like that.

Yes but OP hasn’t DONE any of that. She’s just saying that she finds his lack of interest in her FEELINGS hurtful and, according to go some posters, this is being controlling.🤔

Regarding your example :
Let’s say a woman is going out without any thought of her appearance, old, dirty clothes that don’t fit, clashing colours and genuinely looks a sight. DH finds out what size she is, thinks carefully about what colours suit her, what her taste was like when she bothered; then he trails round the shops, finds some clothes he thinks would look nice, buys a selection, and introduces them to her at a quiet moment, asking her whether she would like to pick out something to wear when they go to the cinema next week. She can then accept reject them.
Would this be controlling behaviour?
No, I don’t think so!
You are not comparing like with like.