A Haircut or Shave Can Tug at a Relationship’s Roots

A couple of weeks ago, my husband shaved off his mustache, a mustache that had been as much a part of his appearance as his nose for our 14 years together. He first presented himself to our 8-year-old. “You look weird,” our son said flatly.

A few minutes later, I came upon my husband. “Oh, wow,” I gasped. “You shaved off your mustache?”

“Yes,” he said, beaming.

“Oh,” I said, in shock and speechless that my mustache, I mean his mustache, was gone.

He said he wanted to see what his upper lip looked like. Mission accomplished.

Radically changing one’s looks can be a romantic gamble of sorts.

The novelty may invigorate and arouse, or it could backfire. Famous cases of haircuts gone bad include that of newscaster Diane Sawyer who cut off her shoulder-length hair in 1991. Sawyer’s husband, director Mike Nichols, reportedly said that he went to bed with a sex symbol and “woke up with Peter Pan.”

When actress Keri Russell, who plays the lead character on “Felicity,” a contemporary TV show about a young undergraduate making her way in the world, cut her cascading curls nearly two years ago, The WB network executives reported that they were bombarded with overwhelmingly negative e-mails.

Hair sends powerful sexual messages. History, drama and literature are full of references to the symbolic nature of hair, such as strength in the story of Samson and Delilah, sexuality in the fairy tale about Rapunzel, fetishistic magic in American Indian lore and talismanic power among knights who kept a braid of their ladies’ hair, Diane Ackerman writes in “A Natural History of Love,” (Vintage Books, 1995).

“Hair is sexually totemic because it is connected to how people think of a lover in their imagination,” said Pepper Schwartz, a University of Washington sociologist and executive editor of sexhealth.com, a Web site dedicated to medical and psychological aspects of human sexuality. “For some people, hair is part of their quintessential arousal mechanism. Hair has both tactile and visual keys for arousal ... whether it is hair around the mouth or running one’s hands through long hair.”

In other words, what is sexy has a lot to with hair.

About seven years ago, Linda Shaich, a mother of two who works in sales and marketing and whose tresses of black curls frame a flawless complexion, decided she needed a change.

Shaich, who was out with girlfriends, called her husband to tell him she was thinking of cutting her hair.

Barry Shaich, who was grappling with his father’s long illness and death, asked her not to.

“I came home and said ‘I did it!”’ recounted Linda, 36, who adds that she now realizes the haircut was an attempt to pull herself out of the sadness that comes with the finality of a loved one’s death. “He was asleep on the couch. I said ‘Let me turn on the lights.’ He said, ‘No.’ He wouldn’t even look at me.”

She was devastated. He was in shock.

“When she cut it off it was like, bam , all of a sudden another loss for me,” said Barry, a marketing executive for an outdoor sports company in Santa Monica. “The third time I ever saw her I was just completely sucked in by this beauty with long, black curly hair, that olive complexion and those eyes. Then it was gone .... It turned into one of our biggest fights ever, though it was short-lived. I slept on the couch the night she came home with it.”

Within a couple of days, Barry came around because, as he put it, his wife is “a stunning beauty” no matter what her hair length.

Linda kept her hair short for more than four years. Then she grew it out.

“Change in a partner’s looks--whether it is getting a haircut, shaving off facial hair, breast augmentation or reduction--can be welcomed or perceived as a betrayal,” said Pat Rubinstein, an Encino marriage and family therapist.

Rubinstein had been seeing a couple for therapy when the wife suddenly cut off her long, beautiful hair, sending her husband, who viewed her as the embodiment of a sexual dream, into a tailspin. Another woman’s husband shaved off his beard after 10 years of marriage, said Rubinstein, prompting the wife to say, “I married you with a beard and that is how I find you sexy.” Even the children were shocked, Rubinstein added, saying “We want our daddy back.”

It may only be hair. But the feeling, said Rubinstein, is one of betrayal. “Very bright people feel that way,” he said. “What it often comes down to is expectations of trust: ‘When I tell you something that is really important to me, I expect you to honor that and when you don’t, I feel like you don’t care about me.”’

So as I ponder my husband, all fresh-faced and youthful, I am thinking a compromise can be forged. A goatee, perhaps?

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Birds and Bees, a weekly column about sexuality and relationships, runs Monday. Kathleen Kelleher can be reached at kathykelleher@home.com.