What If Your Mate Makes a Comment About Your Appearance?

What usually comes up is when a person is gaining weight. But this isn’t the only thing your partner can be telling you. You can be slipping on something else – when you guys met you had a nice tight body and now you’ve been letting yourself go. Or guys too, if you were serious about working out, kept your hair cut and lined up, whatever it may be – and now you aren’t taking the same care and consideration with your appearance. Should your significant other let you know it’s time to get it together (take better care of yourself)? I think they should. And I think you should listen! Too often people take little comments that are said like they aren’t that serious. Maybe your boyfriend or girlfriend said something too nicely, or sounded like it wasn’t a big deal so you ignored it. REWIND! They’re not just saying it for their health, you need to pay more attention.

I was talking to one of my really good male friends and he was telling me about how his girlfriend had mentioned something to him about shaving his pubic hair and he was wondering if he should really do it. My advice was a very strong HELL YEAH. I don’t really care too much about it in my own dating life, but she’s the only person’s opinion he should be worried about.

I told him to think about times he’s said something to her about her appearance, like maybe if her hair was looking rough and she needed a perm. Maybe he said it in a nice way, or tried to say it with humor – but his feelings remained the same: she needed to get it together. I asked him how much did he wish she would just go ahead and take care of it, instead of arguing back or saying “Oh, whatever” and making a joke about it. [I’m not quite sure what example he thought of, but it must have been serious because he responded really quickly with “Oh yeah, you right” & got my point!]

When I was young I used to get so mad at my mom when she would say stuff to me like, “Ooh, you are musty” or “Take that off, it’s tacky.” I swear, I would be so mad! But she told me things like that should be heard at home because at home it’s somebody who loves you telling you. Outside the house, there are people who will be a lot worse. And most of them aren’t going to tell you to your face, which is worse.

One thing you should consider is that by the time your partner says something to you about your weight, your appearance, how your feet stink – it’s probably been a while. There’s no telling how long they have been thinking it, and they probably gave you the sugarcoated version. No matter how bad it is, it probably wasn’t close to what they were actually thinking.

Maybe it’s just me, but I absolutely HATE relationships where your partner lets you get out of control & you are just looking crazy. I had a boyfriend for my last three years of college, and towards graduation I started realizing that I had been gaining weight & generally not giving a damn how I looked when I walked out of the house. It’s good to be comfortable and all that, but where was the line?! It took me to look at some pictures from my freshman year & compare them to the ones I was all willy-nilly posting on facebook at the time for me to really see I had took a wrong turn somewhere.

Anyway, my point is – don’t take it lightly when your partner does say something to you. And try to think about it in reverse, would you want them to take heed to a suggestion you had for them?

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