Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow II

The Best of Dr. Laura is airing, since Dr. Laura, like a lot of other radio hosts, is on vacation for the holidays. On Monday, in the third hour, about 20 minutes into the podcast, a woman called in to say her husband had stopped initiating sex with her a few weeks back and when asked why, he told her that he was turned off because she had her hair redone.

Dr. Laura blamed the man and called him unloving, citing another husband who was caring for his wife as she was losing her hair due to chemotherapy.

But this is likely apples and oranges. Now, I think Dr. Laura gets it right so often, and all you have to do is check out other things I’ve written here about her to know I’m no Dr. Laura hater. But sometimes, I disagree.

Losing your hair because you are being medically treated to save your life is not the same thing as deciding to go against your husband's desires and intentionally, unnecessarily change one of the things that attracted him to you. In doing so, the wife was telling her husband she didn't care what he wants.

Maybe Dr. Laura knew more about the situation than made it to the air during the call (due to screening), but the information that went out over the air was not enough to definitively decide if this was a case of a husband who is a jerk or has a problematic fixation or need for too much control – or if it was a matter of a wife choosing to make herself less attractive to her husband.

I've known women who have kept their hair long all through dating, and then immediately after marrying, they chop it off and start to butch up. I know at least one who did it literally the next day after the wedding. My wife pointed it out to me. You know what message that sends to a husband and other men? "I care about getting a man to sign on the dotted line. After that, I’m not going to care." An attitude like that is what is the big turn-off, not necessarily the actual hair style.

This is not to deny that there are men who would welcome the new hairstyle or even requested it. There are also men who don't care either way. But most men do have a preference and for most men, it was part of what attracted him to his wife in the first place. If a husband has a preference, it should be honored (as should his wife's preferences about his facial hair). Dr. Laura has told women who've called in wanting to cut their hair short over the objection of a husband not to do it. But in this case, the damage was already done.

Ah ha! I suspected I had previously written something like this before. I searched and found a posting with the same title.