Reader el writes:
Imho, paying *some* attention to one’s looks after finding a partner is necessary. I don’t mean surgeries. I mean may be the same hair creams to strengthen and make hair shinier one used before, watching one’s weight (not extreme, not working crash diets, but healthy food and some exercise), etc. Marriage is a sexual relationship too and trying to look attractive to one’s sexual partner should be a no-brainer. Especially in a marriage, where, unlike in one-night stand, you want the other side to be attracted tomorrow too.
I think we all know by now that I’m very much into makeup, pretty dresses, beautiful shoes, and cosmetics. However, my partner in life is the only person in the world who never even notices what I wear or how I look. He stares at me with the same adoring gaze whether I wear my best clothes and perfect makeup or lie in bed sneezing and coffing with my eye infected and gunk pouring out of it.
I remember how once we spent the entire day at the beach. I usually feel very content whenever I look at myself in the mirror. On that day, though, I saw my reflection and recoiled in horror. My hair was filled with sand and looked like a hornet’s nest. My face had acquired an unappealing red color. My eyes were piggishly small. Freckles had appeared out of nowhere and were covering my entire face. Even I had to recognize that I was no ornament to humanity on that day.
And then I saw N. staring at me. “God, you are beautiful!” he gasped. “You have this Biblical beauty that makes my heart stop.”
If you look at my photo on this blog, you will see that only a completely besotted individual would see anything Biblical in my appearance. This was when I knew that N. really loved me.
Since then, we have nursed each other through flus, stomach bugs, pericarditis, depression, very significant weight gain, etc. And in the midst of all that, each of us was always the most beautiful and desirable person the other had ever met. It is a great comfort in life to have somebody by your side with whom you are unafraid to be not pretty. We all have beautiful moments and ugly moments, both in terms of our appearance and our actions. The only partner in life worthy of the title is, in my opinion, a person who wants to be there by your side, and nowhere else, through beauty and ugliness alike.
Clarissa's Blog 
Yeah my partner and I are good as married and have seen each other at our grossest. To one another we are the most beautiful human beings on earth. We still wear makeup and (occasionally) shave our legs, because we like to do so for ourselves, but it’s not for each other. I’ve never found her anything less than perfect in every way.
LikeLike
That’s exactly how I feel. I shave my legs when I feel like it or remember to do it but it isn’t for my partner. If you can’t show the most objectively unappealing parts of yourself to your partner, then who needs such a partner at all?
LikeLike
To me, what it most attractive in another is mental health. Conversely, what makes somebody the least attractive to me is when they show a deficit in mental health. We conventionally assume that most people, except for those who have been diagnosed with something obvious, are mentally sound. I disagree with this view. Those who conform to the status quo, when the status quo demands weird plastic surgery from them, or weird not sweating at the gym, or weird concern about what others (whom one hasn’t even met yet) might be thinking, are not sound of mind and body. In fact, following what society deems normal is generally a recipe for personal disaster. Good luck to those who want to embrace it.
LikeLike
Hear, hear!
LikeLike
There are days I specifically shave for my partner. Some days its nice to “date” again. 🙂
LikeLike
Not all guys like makeup. I, for one, prefer the natural look.
LikeLike
LikeLike
I, for one, prefer the skinless look.
LikeLike
Personally, I like getting compliments from other people about what a beautiful couple Jaime and I are. She and I are peacocks with a very wild and somewhat unique sense of fashion (our friends call it ‘dark romantic beatnik’) so we like dressing up for each other so we can enjoy the beauty of one another and complement each other.
We’ve also seen each other at our worst though, and I am preparing for many more, since hormones and surgery aren’t pretty, but she’ll always be lovely to me, even when recovering from surgery and dealing with the side effects of oestrogen.
LikeLike
I guess loving and being loved by the partner in whichever condition, and trying to look attractive for one’s partner are not mutually exclusive things. Everything just has to be in balance. Of course it is not healthy if one is attracted to one’s partner only if the partner has particular makeup, or hairstyle, or physical attributes. But there is nothing wrong in doing things to one’s appearance which appeal to a particular quirk of the partner, as long as it is not expected. Consider it a part of a flirting game… In my opinion being able to play that game (as a game, not as an obligation) is one of the manifestations of healthy sexuality and healthy personality in general.
And I also do not feel that there is necessarily a clear demarcation line between things done “for oneself” (which is supposedly good and healthy) and “for the partner” (which is somehow suspect). If I, for example, wear something I know my wife likes, it is not just for her, it is for me as well, as it shows my caring for her preferences and creates opportunities for that flirting game and for increased connection. Which are important to me.
LikeLike
As usual, you are very profound. 🙂 I don’t think that doing things for your partner is suspect, of course. But I think it’s important to point out that if you are afraid of your partner seeing you sick, tired, or looking like crap, then something is deeply wrong here.
LikeLike
Well, I agree, but this topic of your’s and the previous one imply that doing things to one’s appearance for one’s partner is suspect, and that having appearance preferences is somehow at best immature or at worst manifestation of unhealthy and broken sexual partner selection mechanism.
And you are correct in extreme cases. But most of the people are not inside those extreme scenarios. For example, when most people are speaking of finding dresses, or suits or certain hairstyle or whatever attractive, they do not mean it as a requirement to their partners, present or future/imaginary. It is just a non-obligatory aesthetic preference. From personal experience, for me there is no conflict whatsoever between finding my wife attractive without X Y or Z and finding, for example, short dresses attractive… including on her. 🙂
LikeLike
Oh, I know what you mean. I’d really like N. to dress more in the Montreal style of male clothing. I’m sure you can imagine what I’m talking about. 🙂 I tried showing such clothes to him but he gets this deer-in-the-headlights look, so I just lave him in peace. I still love those clothes but if they don’t make him happy, I don’t want him to suffer to please me aesthetically.
LikeLike
Heh-heh…
I am subscribing to a viewpoint that trying something new is always at least to certain extent anxiety-provoking and therefore to some extent uncomfortable and causing pain and suffering. Thus, avoiding this kind of pain and suffering at all costs is synonymous to avoiding growth.
NB: I am not implying that I know what growth is or that Montreal-style clothes necessarily signify growth. 🙂 Everyone is free to choose his or her own battles. I am just speaking in general…
LikeLike
OK, I’ll try this argument on him. Let’s see if it works! 🙂 I’m going to memorize this phrase of yours and deliver it to him like it’s my own, if you don’t mind. 🙂
LikeLike
You may try that. Or you may try examining your own beliefs in this respect. I may be wrong, or I may be projecting something, but my impression is that it was your position that a good relationship is a place of unconditional acceptance and there is no room in it for burdening one’s partner with one’s preferences…
And I have only circumstantial evidence that he agrees wit that… He is married to you. But maybe he has secret wishes he is afraid to admit. Evil smile.
LikeLike
We were just discussing this yesterday, believe it or not. (Not the clothes, but the ideas you expressed in the last comment.)
I’m very unbending and uncompromising in what concerns important serious issues. In the general pattern of the relationship, it’s my way or the highway, and I was always very honest and explicit about it. Of course, I accept discussions and am always willing to explain at length why I insist on this pattern and not any other.
So in smaller things, I compensate for this rigidity by being very laid back and open to any sort of compromise.
LikeLike