So Your Wife Wants You To Shave Off Your Beard?

“Honey I love you, but you really gotta shave.”

These are words that no man on a quest to grow out his beard wants to hear. It is the sound of opposition and doubt. We all have our awkward stages in growing out our beard, and our loved ones tend to freely share their questioning thoughts. My goal is to help you garner support from your partner during your strive to achieve bearded awesomeness.

In my opinion, women are more hierarchical than men. By “hierarchical” I mean that they find status, the ability to provide for the family, and power more attractive than physical beauty. When they see you growing out your beautiful facial locks, they may start to question how your beard will affect your social status. These are generalizations about women, as I don’t have the ability to describe every individual woman specifically; results may vary.

When you realize that your partner’s needs are different, you’ll need to adjust your techniques for convincing them to keep your beard. Here are 5 tips to help you improve your chances of persuading your partner to let you keep your beard.

1. Become a “con-man”

Before you get on me about telling you to pull a fast one over on your loved ones, recognize the root of the name “con-man.” It’s short for confidence man. Essentially, an individual with enough confidence can convince others to do illicit things. The thing is, you aren’t doing anything wrong, but using the strategies con-men employ will be beneficial to your overall cause. To start, you’ll need to replace questions like, “Do you like my beard?” with statements like “I got so many compliments on my beard today.”

2. Boost your status

It’s time to be more observant with your life. Take note of the times you have achieved something extraordinary. Perhaps it’s being trusted with more responsibilities at work, or a promotion. Maybe it’s how other people move to the side while you walk on the street. It could be a simple nod from another beardsman with an epic beard. Keep these little gems in your back pocket and share them with your loved ones. Another easy way to instantly boost your status is to upgrade your wardrobe. Invest a few hundred dollars into some nicer, modern clothes that really make you look fly.

3. Play into their security needs

Evolutionarily speaking, many women want to settle down, raise a family, and have a man provide for them. Use this to your advantage. When growing your beard, try these words, “Honey, our past X years together have been a dream come true. I love spending every minute with you and can’t imagine a life without you. I am looking forward to spending many more years together in the future and I’m just asking if you can support me as I grow my beard out for X months.” This tugs at women in a lot of different ways – their desire to support you and the comfort of knowing you will be there to provide for the children. Strategic and heartfelt, a winning combination to gain support for your beard!

4. Throw out logic, play on emotions

If you go into this battle with only logic on your side, you’ll find yourself standing in front of a mirror as a broken man with a sink full of whiskers and a razor in hand. Your best bet when negotiating to keep your beard is to play into your partner’s emotional side. That means you are going to want to incorporate your beard into positive situations. Think about this strategy: You have a family event with your nieces and nephews. They are climbing all over you and tugging on your beard. Months later you remember fondly with your lady what it was like when they were grabbing on your beard. Now compare that to this statement, “It’s my beard and I can do what I want.” When you have more positive experiences as your bearded self, it’s going to be hard to dispose of those memories when you shave. Create positive emotional ties to your facial hair.

5. Show her beards are the norm

Generally speaking, one doesn’t want to be coupled with a bizarre or overly eccentric partner. We all want someone we can depend on, someone who can lead us into battle. The truth is, wearing a beard is more commonplace than it used to be and it’s something that is marvelous. Slowly, and subtly drop articles related to beards. Share cool beard-related social media accounts (like Beardbrand’s Instagram page), or show how George Clooney is rocking some facial hair. Take the risk out of being with an urban beardsman, and the sky is the limit!

Good luck and beard on!