“If I go out with a person how she dresses is relevant to me. This has nothing to do with vanity. It has to do with presentation and being comfortable with your partner. Her dress impacts on me. To say that tomorrow she will control my life is wrong. If she is correcting a shabbiness or unacceptable behavior by me what is wrong in that?”

If you want an over-functioning mother, aunt, or a fairy godmother to serve you and keep you well dressed and well behaved, then simply make it clear at the outset. This stated, the woman can decide if she wants to play parent-child in her most intimate relationship. Believe me, there are many people who’d love to “love” you in this manner and would equate interpersonal monitoring – being each others “prefects” or hall monitors- as signs of love. Healthy adults, on the other hand, correct their own “shabbiness or unacceptable behavior”.

Of course there is nothing amiss when healthy people who love each other suggest items of clothing for each other and to suggest otherwise would be absurd. I will remind you that readers frequently write about “partners” who want to orchestrate every move of the person whom they say they love – and it always, always begins with a focus on clothing! Here’s a better idea: Love each other enough to leave each other alone! Live in your own skin, tend to your own behavior and your own clothing. Require LESS, not MORE maintenance. This is love: that you love enough to mind your own business – and trust that your adult partner is adult enough (and wise enough and kind enough) to mind his or her own business.

Posted on October 5, 2009 at 8:19 pm in Attraction, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Voice   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL