I posted this on r/relationship_advice and all the comments were calling me pervert or manipulator.
May be I am, that's why I'm here, to figure it out and improve.
I would like to have your opinion.
Excuse me if this is not the right place.
Peace

​

As spring approach, girls in the streets start to show their skin and attract my eyes. Same thing happen last summer, we had a discussion about it and we came to the conclusion that it is natural to be visually attracted to people nicely dressed.

I wasn't and I'm not staring at women. It's one second or two, kind of pulsional/instinctive, and I don't look again. Since last summer I tried to work on this because I noticed that I felt "trapped" or "primarly controlled" after letting my eyes being catched.

Today I can say I'm controlling myself more. I barely watch women, at least not in a volunter perpective. But sometimes it's inevitable. It pisses me off but, that's how we are made I guess.

So spring came back this year and I had to came back to this discipline I learnt last year.

And seeing how my girlfriend switched her clothes to the season, I realised I didn't like some of them: too old, not valorizing her amazing body (the opposite in my opinion)...

It wasn't the case last year. Or at least, last year it wasn't inevitable to tell her.

And here I have to say: my girlfriend is into ecologic lifestyle. I am too but less than her.
She doesn't like the "fast-fashion", girl being "too bitchy" - and I don't like either.

I was not asking her to dress like women I see on the streets (that in much of cases are too much sexy for me). But I felt the necessity of telling her some clothes I don't like, that I would love to see her with more sexy ones, without being "bitchy", clothes that fits her a bit more.

It was hard to hear for her and I totally understand it. I knew it could be a deal breaker but as I wrote, I could not not tell her.

She said I was trying to change her. That I didn't love her the way she was. She was attacked in her self-esteem.
But she made the move. For a week now, nothing drastical, but she wears clothes that fit her better.

We talked about it yesterday and she said that she could have reacted being "proud", ending the relation, that maybe that's what most women would have done.
But on another hand, she said my demand was "constructive" about our relation.
She also confessed that since my demand, she can't avoid looking at other women on streets, for their outfits but also thinking that this one or this other would be better for me. I remembered her that I love her, that our sex life still super flourished and that her body is amazing.

But afterall, I feel ashamed and lucky at the same time. Today more ashamed than lucky.
Am I a manipulator ? Was that demand legit ?

Does a man should learn how to be totally raincoat to other women's appareances on the streets ? Is it even possible?

Do you think a "strong woman" would have ended the relation after that demand?

I find myself excuses:
After two years relation, it's normal to refresh some things.
I'm more into visual apparence / aesthetics than her.
We have 7 years old difference: we don't consider clothes the same way in our 20's than in our 30's.

I'm certainly writting this in search of approval. But also, in search of other voices that may have experienced the same.

Thank you for your help and excuse my english.