Super Rigid Ideas about Personal Appearance

[Call Me Cordelia]

I'm wondering if this sounds familiar to anybody else here. My DH is SUPER rigid about personal appearance, and I'm pretty sure it's some kind of flea from his uPD parents. It manifests in strange ways, such as in the past he has absolutely refused to buy new clothes until his parents came to visit and shamed him for his things falling apart and took him shopping and presumably picked things for him. This weekend I suggested he could buy a regular pair of sunglasses instead of using the scratched up free ones from when he had eye surgery a few years ago, or his enormous goggle ones meant for skiing, and he went off on me on what a waste of money that would be and he doesn't care what he looks like. He will only wear dull neutral colors. For the longest time he refused jeans in favor of corduroys that had the ribbing completely rubbed off, because "comfort." Until his mother worked on him and now he will wear jeans. (Actually his mother referred to this as a "positive" thing in her narc missive from a few months ago. She remembers the two of us teaming up to change this about DH. And we won! Yay us!  ) This is all seems off because his parents always look just so, never seen his mother without a fresh manicure.

The weirdest thing though, is his thing with hair. He has had the same haircut since the fifth grade. Which his mother picked for him. He's gotten it a bit shorter as an adult, but it's the same style. I've never liked it, and I have suggested it's not very professional for his line of work, but he absolutely refuses to consider changing it. He says he "doesn't have the mental energy to think about it."  I mean, it's a haircut. How much mental energy does that take? There's a reason it's such a big deal. One of our biggest fights ever was over me getting my hair cut short. He said at the time, and I quote, "You repulse me," and then could barely look at me for weeks afterwards. The in-laws also expressed their disapproval of my haircut, but, after all, Cordelia can do what she wants and it's not our place to have an opinion. After they already stated their opinion.  DH admits that he behaved horribly and genuinely apologized for hurting me, but still maintains he can't help how he feels about these things.

Yesterday I took the kids to get haircuts. I let our younger son choose what he wanted, and he picked a style that is super short on the sides. Part of me wondered if it were going to be an issue, but I let him go ahead with it. Sure enough, DH is making the same disgusted faces that he made when I had my pixie cut. Needless to say, I'm triggered. I called him out on it and he denied having a problem, made all the same excuses he made then, accused me of trying to dictate his opinions... I refused to accept his BS this time. There's something wrong here. None of us deserve to be passive-aggressively shamed for going against DH's weird ideas about how we all should look. 

[StayWithMe]

My parents also have a narrow idea as to what is acceptable for me.  They made their opinion clear and very public.  My father would make jokes about my hair in public.  My mother would comb my hair in public even in my '50s.  It was for me a sad irony to see the approval that they would give other women my age when I found nothing attractive about their hair.

in any case, enough about me.  Perhaps one strategy would be to ignore your husband at the same time that you support the self-esteem of your children.  What I found to be interesting, back when I used to "discuss" things with my parents, I would tell them that no one cares about my hair.  They would always come back with "they're just being nice (ie tolerating) you.

But what I could see from the teen age years and beyond was that looks weren't everything.  The popular kids in any group weren't always the most attractive.  And this is what your children need to understand in spite of your husband's rants.

[D.Dan]

I've only come across a few weird things connected with appearance from my pwPDs.

My ex's mother and cousin were mimicking my hairstyles which I found weird because I thought, "no... way... I gotta be imagining this!" (The only reason I noticed was because I changed from long hair down to the middle of my back to a short inverted bob, which I do about every 5 years, and they also changed their haircuts for the first time ever, one week later)

It was also pointed out to me by one of my kids support workers that my ex's mother also started dyeing her hair to look similar to mine, and was tanning herself to have the same darker skin tone as me, a few years after marrying her son. That she made herself look, A LOT, like me!

My uPD ex however did something weird with clothes. He couldn't throw away any of his unused clothing but had to buy at least 3 new outfits every time he needed a new job (every couple of years). He used 4/5ths of our closet space along with ALL the shelves in the closet, his own 6 drawer dresser and doubled the over-the-door coat racks for 3 doors (6 altogether) for his clothes (and it still wasn't enough space for him).

He also had to buy a copy of whatever I was buying (so we would match!  ). I would buy shoes and then my uPD ex would HAVE TO go and buy 2 new pairs to "keep up with me" or "match me" despite still having 2 perfectly good pairs! 

I had one windbreaker jacket for the last 5 years of our marriage while he had 1 windbreaker, 3 fall/spring coats and 2 thick winter coats! I had to borrow one of his fall coats for winter (which seemed to bug him). When I finally got myself a new fall jacket, he immediately started looking for a copy for himself!

Outside of personal appearance, my uPD ex and his family had HUGE issues with change. They seemed to be unable to handle change of any kind. Especially when it had nothing to do with them, when it didn't benefit them personally. I basically bulldozed over their opinions because the changes they had issues with and tried to sabotage were beneficial to my autistic kids. I'd nod my head to the PDs then do what I had to anyways  . After a few years, they did learn that objections against changes the kids needed meant nothing to me, and would stop nothing, so it decreased to once instead of nonstop.

[11JB68]

One of the final things that caused me to research pd and land on ocpd was a huge fight between uPDh and me over my cutting my hair short. When I read a book about coercive control and that was one of the examples that clinched it for me. He also controls ds21s hair, won't let him grow it long...he has many other control issues including a lot about clothing, etc, But lots of stuff that's not appearance related too

[Associate of Daniel]

My ds's uNPD smum is always immaculate in her appearance.  She doesn't do a lot of makeup or manicures but she has the "perfect" body and immaculate clothes. She is extremely conscious about her fitness and there's not an ounce of fat on her. Her hair is always immaculate, although not styled.

UNPD exH used to have what I called an obscene amount of clothes. There was very little room for my meagre pile.  He wouldn't throw any out.

His appearance since he left is also immaculate and he's looking after his health a lot more.  It's actually a good thing - I should learn from his example.

AOD

[StayWithMe]

My ds's uNPD smum is always immaculate in her appearance.  She doesn't do a lot of makeup or manicures but she has the "perfect" body and immaculate clothes. She is extremely conscious about her fitness and there's not an ounce of fat on her. Her hair is always immaculate, although not styled.

UNPD exH used to have what I called an obscene amount of clothes. There was very little room for my meagre pile.  He wouldn't throw any out.

His appearance since he left is also immaculate and he's looking after his health a lot more.  It's actually a good thing - I should learn from his example.

AOD

Do you think any of the above has affected your son?

[Thru the Rain]

I have a life-long friend who I see about once a year.

She came visit a few weeks ago and actually complained about my DH's clothes. He wears black shirts and khakis every day. His side of the closet has about 10 duplicate pants and shirts.

So friend (who I suspect has some PD aspects) was REALLY bothered by this, and told me I HAD to get him to wear other clothes.

I found the whole thing so funny I just laughed at her. I told her he's an adult and can wear or not wear whatever he wants.

Looking back, I'm just amazed that 1) she would even notice or care and 2) imagine it would be OK to make demands about what DH wears.

[countrygirl]

All of these posts are very interesting and enraging:  None of us should have to endure criticism about our personal appearance.

As I read, I thought about how my former PD friend used to criticize me constantly, but when we moved to our current place--and after she started spending a lot of time here--I noticed that she started dressing like me!  I wear black a lot, and she started wearing black, (when she had been the pastel queen before) including buying shoes and a purse like mine.  Prior to this, she had always worn gold jewelry, and I had always worn silver---then she started wearing silver.  She never mentioned any of these changes to me.  It was weird when we suddenly became twins...
 
My mother was also very critical of my appearance.  (But she didn't start dressing like me!)