Nothing but the truth

photo by David Andrews

One of the best things about my husband, Alan, is that he is the most truthful person I know. And this has proven to be quite an asset in our marriage…most of the time. That’s because as much as I love an honest man, any honest woman will tell you that she doesn’t always want to hear the truth. Especially when it comes to that age-old question, “Honey, how do I look?”

Let me state the obvious here: When a woman asks a man how she looks, it’s a total setup. We both know that. And when she asks it, the man has three basic options. He can a) tell her what she wants to hear, that she looks gorgeous and skinny; b) tell her what he really thinks and then suffer the consequences; or c) pretend to be on his Blackberry and avoid the question altogether.

Alas, my husband has often chosen to respond with what he believes to be the no-fail, safe option—that is, d) tell her she looks “cute.” For the record, telling a woman she looks cute is the kiss of death. I would rather my husband tell me I look like a fat, drowned rat than tell me I look cute. Well, not really, but you get the point.

For a while, my husband and I had an understood “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. That’s because besides being brutally honest, he also happens to be a terrible liar. So, I didn’t ask him how I looked, and he didn’t tell me what he thought. This policy was actually the direct result of what we now refer to as “The Comment of 2000.” One day, when I was about seven months pregnant with our first son and getting more pregnant by the hour, I turned to my husband and asked, “Does my butt look bigger?” To which he immediately replied, “Nope, not at all.” To which I tearfully responded, “You mean my butt is ALWAYS this big?” Like I said before—total setup.

But after a few years of relying on my own judgment and on department store mirrors, which are totally rigged to make you look skinnier, I made a critical decision: I really did want to know what my husband thought. So a few years ago, I started to ask. And he was actually a pretty reliable source. “I like the first dress better than the second,” he would offer. “I wouldn’t wear that jacket; it’s too dressy,” or, “Those earrings are too big. Wear the dangly ones.”

Lately, however, his truthful tendencies have gone a little too far. These days he doesn’t even wait for me to ask before he offers his opinion. The last straw happened recently, when I bought a series of dresses that all got the thumbs down. I finally found a simple black dress that I knew was just perfect, but when I tried it on, Alan immediately gave me that “look.” My delight immediately dissolved into disappointment. “What, you don’t like it?” I asked. “No, I don’t. It looks terrible on you,” he began. “It drapes too much, and it’s not at all flattering. Who told you it looked good, anyway?”

And that’s when I realized that even though I do care what my husband thinks, I don’t always care to hear it.

But just as I was about to stomp off, hurt and insulted, he added, “Honey, it’s like telling you that you have spinach in your teeth. I’m doing you a favor.” And in a funny way, he was. So I decided to pull a George Castanza—or at least what George did in the 86^th episode of Seinfeld. If all of my instincts had been so wrong, then I would start doing the opposite of what I would normally do. Instead of getting defensive, I thanked him. And instead of keeping the dress in spite of him, I returned it the very next day. Then I bought a sexy black number that was a little shorter and more form-fitting than I would typically wear.

The next night I came into the room for the big reveal, holding in my breath (and my stomach), and somewhat anxious about what he might say. I finally asked, “So—what do you think?” He looked up and said, “Wow, you look hot!”

At last, an honest answer that was also exactly what I wanted to hear.