Fascinating read! It is interesting to hear all the differing levels of input/interest/savvy-ness. I do ask my husband his opinions on nearly all purchases, but ultimately go with my gut. He has very strong opinions, and pretty good taste, but unfortunately has extremely narrow style filters (growing ever so slowly) that don't coincide with my personal style. He's also brutally honest so when he doesn't like something I get answers that range from "I don't like it" to "I think that looks horrible" (he phrases it as the item, not me <3). However, he is also incredibly supportive of my interest in fashion and is happy if I'm happy. I think his likes-to-dislikes ratio for items in my closet is at about 30% likes to 70% dislikes, hehe. (He has always been very good at knowing what hair cuts look flattering on me so I do take that opinion very seriously.)
After I'd spent a lot of time learning the "rules" and trends for my clothes, he spent some time learning about what's flattering/in-style for men (mainly within this past year). I think his own style would be excellent... if he didn't hate to shop. As a result, what he actually wears is OK but not as great as it should be considering his actual style tastes; and now that he's learned he also needs to get nearly everything tailored it's that much harder to get him to go buy new clothes. There's always something more worthy to spend that money on
So after all that, his role in my actual journey! At first, I tried to wear things that we both liked but because his filters are so narrow, and so different from my style, I ended up with items that neither of us liked and I was quite unhappy with my progress. This brought me to YLF last year. From there I decided to ignore his tastes and just focus on what I like. This has really allowed me to experiment and understand my own personal style preferences. I think I now know enough about both myself and hubby's preferences to determine when his opinions are being filtered or if something genuinely isn't flattering, so I've been starting to take his opinions into consideration once again with much happier results (after all, he wants me to look good just as much as I do). I'm aiming for a 40-60 likes-to-dislikes ratio increase
EDIT: He's also very very supportive of my participation here on YLF; happy that I have somewhere to discuss and grow, but I'm sure also happy to have some pressure away from him