Revealed! The Grooming Habits Women Hide From Their Partners

I’m going to be honest here: During my first marriage nothing was off the table as far as things I did to groom myself. I pooped with the door open and used the bidet, and he saw me in all different positions shaving various parts of my body. He helped me retrieve a glob of wax from my ear once after I went to the doctor, who told me I had a lot of buildup and that was the reason I felt pain and pressure in my ears.

I’ve always been an open person when it comes to stuff like this. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a house with other girls, and we were raised by a single mother. We were very open about all things. I should mention we scared off a few boyfriends with our openness, but we always figured that if they couldn’t handle it, our parting was for the best.

I never thought women should hide the things they have to do to keep themselves feeling and looking their best (let’s be honest, we have to do a lot). However, now that I’m in a serious relationship post-divorce, I find myself wanting to keep more things to myself.

I don’t want him taking a dump with the door open, and I don’t feel the need to tell him about the epic ingrown hair I pulled out of my knee. For me, it’s really helping keep the romance alive — so I’ll go with it for now. After talking with a group of girlfriends I realized a lot of them keep their grooming habits away from their partners. It doesn’t matter whether they’ve been married for 20 years or they are dating. And the reasons vary from not wanting to argue about cost, to feeling embarrassed, to desiring to keep the magic alive.

One of my friends says she shaves her upper lip and will never let her boyfriend know. She has two grown kids, and she and her man are newly dating. I figured the freshness of the relationship was why, but she said she got her bikini line waxed for 20 years during her first marriage and her husband never knew. “He always thought I had a nice landing strip. Plus, he was really cheap and would have told me it was a waste of money.”

Another woman told me she has her nipples pierced and there’s something she has to do alone, ahem. “When you have piercings there, you can get buildup and it has to be taken care of or else it gets expressed when my husband is, um, fondling or kissing my breasts.” So, she decided to take matters into her own hands and expresses her nipple piercings every other morning in the shower.

Waxing or plucking long, black chin hairs is another popular one. They literally grow overnight, and my friend from high school told me: “My husband is just someone who would tease me about something like this — in a loving way — and I don’t want to deal with it, so he has no idea how much time I spend in front of the mirror.”