Long-term relationships are all about accepting the other person as they are without wanting them to be a completely different person. But not everyone believes in keeping silent and maintaining the peace. Some people constantly to mold their spouse or partner into a perfect person.
This can be frustrating and difficult for the other partner to cope with and can make them feel like they aren’t good enough. A poster on Reddit began questioning his wife’s interest in him after she began picking at his flaws a little too often.
More info: Reddit
Wife suddenly starts badgering her husband to look better, lose weight, and change his style 4 years into their marriage, he wonders if she’s lost interest in him
Image credits: RDNE Stock project (not the actual photo)
Guy says that even though he isn’t attractive, his personality always seemed to be enough for his wife, and that she was satisfied with him doing basic hygiene
Image credits: Valeria Boltneva (not the actual photo)
Suddenly she stopped being intimate with him as often and instead started pushing him to glow up by getting contacts, losing weight, fixing his skin, and getting new clothes
Image credits: habersha
Even though she swore she loved him, her actions have made her seem looks-obsessed, especially when she burst into tears after he shaved off his facial hair
The poster shared in the comments that he and his wife are both 26 years old. They have been together for 4 years. All of a sudden, he found that his partner could not stop trying to change him. She has pushed him to get contacts because she said “glasses ruin [his] face.” The OP also agreed in the comments saying, “to be fair my lenses are very thick so my eyes/face gets very distorted with my glasses.”
Besides that, she keeps trying to get him to work out and lose weight because, by his own admission, he is quite fat. His wife has been making him take expensive health supplements and fix his skin conditions while she has been paying more attention to his hair care and clothing choices. All these things make him feel like he isn’t good enough for her anymore.
He also mentioned that when he questioned his spouse, she just said that he had a lot of potential and that he should do something about it. Although she kept assuring him that she loved him, she would add that there was no harm in looking better. OP drove the point home by sharing that his wife began crying when he shaved his facial hair because she felt like it “did [him] no favors.”
Commenters asked the poster whether he wanted to work on self-improvement. This is what he shared in the comments: “I like myself but I am objectively by all means a fat f**k. I’ll probably get downvoted for this, but men and women are different. Looks matter more for women, money/protection matters more for men. I’m paying almost all of our bills and make sure to keep her safe so I’m doing 70% of my part. I’m also not dirty or anything lol I shower daily. I’m just confused why I used to be enough but I’m not now is all.”
Image credits: Annushka Ahuja (not the actual photo)
According to therapists, when a woman loses interest in a man, it tends to lead to a loss in intimacy. This might happen in the bedroom or also in normal interactions such as spending quality time together. As the OP stated, his wife doesn’t want to be intimate nearly as often, which might signal that she is losing interest in him or not feeling the same level of attraction as before.
But her change in feelings towards him manifested in an unhealthy desire to make him better. Clinical social worker Allan Schwartz states that: “an unhealthy wish to fix others is to get into relationships where the partner is seen as someone who needs fixing. One problem with this is that the other person may not want fixing and may not even see a need to be fixed. The other problem is that any relationship based on one person trying to fix the other is doomed to failure.”
The wife’s constant nitpicking over her husband’s appearance made him feel like he was not good enough, and it affected his self-esteem. Even though he kept questioning her as to why she suddenly wanted him to change, she shared that it was only to get him to reach his full potential.
However, an interesting study by psychologist Gabriele Melli and colleagues found that there is a syndrome called relationship OCD (ROCD). One of the dimensions of this OCD includes perceiving one’s partner as having a wide variety of flaws. The researchers believe that in ROCD, when people need their partners to be flawless, they might want that due to a deep sense of being flawed themselves.
In this particular case, it’s possible that the man’s wife is projecting her insecurities onto him. Or, as netizens pointed out, she could be pushing him to live a healthier life because she cares for his well-being. The viral post received 9k upvotes and 8.2k comments with many people confronting the OP and pushing him to be better. Whose side are you on in this situation?
Commenters told the poster that his wife is probably doing all this because she cares for him and that he should also make an effort to improve his health
Image credits: Towfiqu barbhuiya (not the actual photo)
