I typically don’t care about things like hairstyle, makeup or clothes. But my wife has started giving herself a buzz cut and I simply hate it. I told her and she grew it out for a while, but she said longer hair was making her depressed and it needed to be a buzz cut. She said it just looks like her when she sees it. Part of me thinks that’s gender euphoria and she’s just around the corner from realising that she’s trans. I would not be comfortable continuing the relationship in that case. (She has said she feels a-gender but not male).
I’ve tried to tolerate it, but I dislike looking at her now and it’s contributing to me being depressed now. I don’t want these feelings every time I look at my wife.
We’ve generally had a good relationship over about one and a half decades, with two young children. We’re also codependent and own a house together.
It would make things difficult if we separate. I really don’t want to separate just because of a haircut, but I’ve definitely been thinking about it. I just don’t know what to do.
Get a fucking grip maybe?
It’s hair.
It’s not just hair, it attraction in a marriage.
We’re talking about a major voluntary change to a person’s appearance made repeatedly despite their spouse’s objections. While the wife is absolutely free to do whatever, the lack of consideration speaks volumes.
Imagine if he shaved off his eyebrows off and his wife said he looked weird like that. He likes it, she hates it and finds it ugly. He absolutely, undeniably has the right to keep his eyebrows bare as a baby’s bottom.
In our hypothetical, him not trying to make a compromise (like trimming his eyebrows halfway or tweezing them) means that he’s totally OK with his spouse finding him repulsive and is not willing to budge an inch for her sake. He’s going to do what he wants, her feelings of attraction towards her spouse are simply unimportant to him.
Hearing it like that hits me pretty hard. I’ve been struggling with the idea that she seems to feel the haircut is more important than the relationship… But then I feel hypocritical because I guess I’m doing a similar thing on the other side.
I obviously don’t have any entitlement to control her hair, but I am surprised she hasn’t been willing to compromise at all. I feel like most people are happy to adjust their look to suit their partners preferences, including myself.
I don’t know the ins and outs of your marriage or how you two communicate, so take what I’m saying with a grain of salt and tailor it to fit your needs.
When you approach the issue at face value (“I really hate the haircut”) it’s easy and even reasonable for her to sort of short circuit the discussion and default to saying that it’s just hair or that her appearance is her decision. While that’s all true enough, it overlooks the core issues and the feelings that motivated you to put up a stink about it in the first place. Basically, she handily addressed the “symptom” of the argument without tackling the “disease”.
It’s impossible for me to know, but there’s a pretty high probability that this boils down to a miscommunication, albeit a very serious one. There’s one side of the spectrum where you completely failed to identify and communicate your feelings, and another side of the spectrum where she was completely unable to look beyond the surface of the issue and consider your feelings. I’m not a gambling man, but I’d bet just about anything that the truth is somewhere in the middle and not at either extreme.
Based on what you’ve said in your post and comments it seems like you’re already reflecting and trying to understand your own feelings and motivations which is the absolute best thing you can do. Once you feel like you’ve got a handle on that, try to look at your relationship and this disagreement in particular through an objective lens. Look at it like a dispassionate outside observer. Analyze it to see where both of you made mistakes in your communication.
Once you’ve done all that, start discussing things as neutrally as possible. Avoid accusation or anything that could be interpreted that way. Make it clear that the problems are with attraction, compromise, and consideration in the marriage.
A woman’s right to make decisions about her own appearance can be a thorny topic, and can lead to the “short circuiting” that drove you to make this post in the first place. Keep the discussion pointed decidedly away from her haircut and focused on feelings and needs in a marriage. Use examples like her preferences for your facial hair or rip off my eyebrows example wholesale.
Recognize and validate her feelings and her right to control over her own body, but also defend your feelings and a right to love and consideration in your marriage. Let her know how much you care about her and about your relationship together, and that the reason you want to feel attracted to her is because you love her and know that feeling that way will help keep you two close.
She was willing to compromise, she grew her hair out a bit. But then decided that after all she wants the buzz cut. Which could be for a variety of reasons, one of the major ones could be “my husband still doesn’t find me attractive with slightly grown out hair, so why bother, back to buzzcut”.
Well I actually told her her hair was looking good when she told me it was making her depressed and she was going to cut it again. It was probably around a long pixie cut. So, I don’t really see that as a compromise.
Why don’t you see it as a compromise? She grew out her hair a little bit for you. That’s the definition of a compromise.
Alright, I guess I said she wasn’t willing to at all, but there was a temporary compromise. I guess what I really mean is she is no longer willing to compromise at all.
Believe me, I’ve tried. I’m sure there’s plenty of people who would be fine with it or even like it, but I’m just not one of them. I’m also sure I’m not the only one who dislikes the look of a buzz cut on a woman. I’m having trouble maintaining a relationship with someone who has a look that I hate.
I would be fine if this was temporary but she’s made it clear she never wants to grow it out at all. Not even a pixie cut.
I’d be happy to hear advice that would help me ‘get a fucking grip’.
It’s pretty obviously not the haircut itself that’s the problem…if she went back to having long hair, would you think, “Great! I suddenly no longer have any concerns about my wife’s gender identity!” There’s something more going on there, whether it’s real or just in your head. Go to therapy. Ideally as a couple, but individually if you have to, to get to the bottom of that.
If I’m honest with myself it’s hard to pin-point the real source of my feelings. I guess it’s a mix of things. But, at the moment I do think the largest issue is that I don’t like the look. My concern about gender identity is one that comes up every now and again, mostly because she made a comment about how good that hairstyle made her feel which sounded like gender euphoria to me. She assures me that’s not it, so I think I would be OK if she was happy to grow her hair out.
I guess you’re still right about couple’s therapy. I did try to organise it at one point, but it got difficult. I’ll take it more seriously now.
A different short haircut isn’t gender euphoria. I think you are reaching since that scares you.
I don’t think it’s gender euphoria just because of the haircut. It’s that she’s thinking she doesn’t identify as female anymore, she does seem to have changed. And, seeing herself with a buzz cut evoked strong feelings of it being right. I’ve definitely heard other people having that kind of gender euphoria from having a male haircut, and I’ve seen someone else go though a similar transition.
Having said that I’m not trying to say I know better than she does, it is just a fear of what could happen and would ruin the relationship. I don’t have any problem with people being trans but I’m simply not attracted to men, trans or otherwise. So there probably is these feelings mixed in when I see such a male haircut on my wife (a look that I also find very unattractive).
Please remember that not identifying as a woman anymore doesn’t always mean that they identify as a man, can just as well be anywhere in between or neither. So that wouldn’t necessarily change your relationship, they are still the same person.
If she’s sure it’s not a gender thing, what about a nice wig for dates and that sort of thing?
What Volkditty said is the best answer here. I think it’s time to get professional help. The worst case it will help you with separating, but the outcomes could only improve from there.
Assuming he gets a good therapist… good luck with the search, OP!
Maybe but it seems to represent a bunch of buried concerns or insecurity.