Do you and your spouse shop together for clothes? Or do you simply go and buy your spouse’s clothes? Or do they go on their own and buy clothes?
I’ve heard of women who want to buy all the clothes for their man without any input from him. Their attitude seems to be ‘what he would know about what looks good on him. I’ll tell him what looks good.’ Such an attitude undermines him and refuses to allow him to think for himself. The reverse would also be true if the husband went shopping for the wife and chose all her clothes, but I suspect that doesn’t happen as often.
If you know your spouse well it might work but more often it doesn’t. The man doesn’t like what is bought and either feels pressured to wear it because his wife bought it for him. Or he refuses to wear it and she gets her feelings hurt.
We need to feel comfortable in what we wear and feel it fits our personality and is appropriate for the place where it is intended to be worn. You’re not going to feel like that if someone, no matter how well intentioned, has done all the choosing.
I know many women whose husband would never come shopping with them. That’s not the case with us. Mick and I shop together. He is really good at finding things that will suit me, things that I might have overlooked. It happens the other way around too. I’m good at picking out things he will like and that will suit him. I prefer to have his opinion on something I’m buying because he’s always honest. If something doesn’t suit, he tells me. I do the same with him. And the reality is if he didn’t like it, I would never wear it, so it makes sense to get his opinion beforehand.
Mick and I shop for everything together, clothes, home wares,gifts for others,groceries etc, not just since he retired. We did when he was working too. We just like to do things together. The only exception is when one of us is buying a gift for the other.
So, do you shop for clothes with your spouse? Or would they run a mile at the suggestion of such an idea?
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