I [26/m] am not proud of my bf [25/m] and want him to be a bit more... presentable?
I've asked this a while ago elsewhere but would be interested to hear your thoughts nevertheless. Also, hopefully this will get the tribe going!
I've been together with my bf for two years and it's been almost a year since we live together. In many ways it has been great - he's caring and nice, living with him is easy, we seem to fit together quite well. However, there is this one thing that bugs me and I am not sure what to do about it.
What is important for me is that he takes care of himself. For example, it's important for me that he tries to exercise, eats well, makes an appointment with a doctor is something's wrong and so on. I am not obsessed with looks and, quite possibly, I hate shopping as much as he does, but I want him to dress appropriately and new shoes before the old pair falls apart completely after having had holes in it for weeks.
And, as you can probably guess, he's very laid back about these things. And I don't feel that I have a right to change him, nor do I want to be nagging him about it all the time. He knows how I feel, every now and then I remind him or try to encourage him (wanna join me for a jog? type of questions etc.), but nothing seems to really change.
At first I just tried not to care about it. I mean looks are not everything, right? But now it's become something that stands between us. When we go out, I don't feel like, you know, wanting the world to see that we are together and that he's such a great guy and that I am proud of him. And that makes me feel guilty and sad.
So I don't know what to do - am I being somewhat reasonable in my wish for my bf to be a bit more... presentable? What should I do about this? Or should I just learn to not care and "love him the way he is"?
TL;DR: my bf is very relaxed about taking good care of himself and that has started to annoy me.
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I don't think you're unreasonable. You clearly love him. While I think you could learn to get past his laid back attitude about his appearance now, I would be concerned about what it would translate into as a partner for life, a father (if you're into that) a housemate etc. will he be an equitable contributor to a clean presentable functioning house or will that fall on your shoulders? Will he take care of his health so that he can be with you for a long time as a healthy partner or will you constantly have to be in charge of his medical care as his health deteriorates due to lack of attention to good habits? Will he be an ally when disciplining and caring for your children or will that be on you as well? Maybe that stuff is unrelated and he just likes to be comfortable and casual. But often when people don't care for their appearance, it extends to their environments and their lives. I think you can try to be a good influence on him and make your case about the importance of taking care of yourself and see if that works but if you don't see any Change now, you have to accept that this is who he is, and try to imagine what it will mean for you are his partner and how your life with him will play out for the foreseeable an unforeseeable future and decide if that is what you want forever. Good luck!
That is exactly what concerns me too. If he doesn't take good care of himself in his twenties, what will happen in his thirties/forties/fifties? Is it going to be all downhill from now? I mean, as we get older, health and looks deteriorate.. Especially if you don't take good care of yourself. He does contribute to household chores, but I do notice that there's many things that I take care of just because 'I know how to do it' or 'I do it better' or frankly I just think it should be done.
We're both in gradschool and I think that things may change once it's over. So I guess I will do as you say - try to be a positive influence, see how things play out once we're both finished and, sooner or later, I will have to decide if I want this forever.
Thanks for your reply, it's good to see your perspective on this.