What to Say When Your Wife Asks, “Does This Make Me Look Fat?”

Hint: The answer is not, “Well, you are fat.”

Photo by Eye for Ebony on Unsplash

“Honey, does this dress make me look fat?”

Doesn’t it feel like we’re setting you up sometimes? Just daring you to say the wrong thing? I promise that’s really not the case. For the most part, we really do want an honest answer.

But we want it delivered with tact.

We don’t want to wear something out of the house and find out later that we look hideous in it. It would be so much better to skip the embarrassment and find something else to wear. And if we are asking this question in the store before we have made the purchase, it is even more important: You could save us from wasting money on something we look awful in.

That’s why we ask.

So how do you answer without hurting her feelings?

1) Don’t just say yes. It needs to be qualified. If you know nothing about women’s fashion and can’t explain what might be wrong, just say something like, “Honey, I can’t put my finger on why you don’t look your best in that outfit, but you have other clothes you look better in.” Maybe offer a specific suggestion: “I love how you look in that red dress with the straps.”