It's possible that past trauma has subconsciously informed how you think about romantic relationships. While many people think of trauma as something violent like sexual assault or surviving an accident, Wright told me the cause of a person's trauma could also be less obvious.
For example, if your parents left you at home one night as a middle schooler and you felt frightened for those couple of hours, it's possible you carry that feeling into certain situations in your life to this day. Of course, the only way to unpack this possibility is to chat with a mental health professional like a therapist, and I urge you to do just that.
I know it can be hard to deal with these overwhelming and conflicting emotions you're feeling towards yourself and your partner. But the way you described your partner, as a person who is loving and shows up for you, tells me he'll be there for you as you learn more about yourself and your needs. Once you have the tools to better understand your relationship hang-ups, you'll be better equipped to decide whether to continue in your current relationship with a new approach, or to end things with your partner.
Either way, I'm confident you'll come out on the other side prepared to build a relationship that's both emotionally and physically fulfilling — because that's what you deserve.
As Insider's resident sex and relationships reporter, Julia Naftulin is here to answer all of your questions about dating, love, and doing it — no question is too weird or taboo. Julia regularly consults a panel of health experts including relationship therapists, gynecologists, and urologists to get science-backed answers to your burning questions, with a personal twist.
Have a question? Defensiveness hurts all three. Stonewalling is when you actively disengage from your partner. Tuning them out doesn't just remove you from the conversation, it removes them emotionally from the relationship.
These Four Horseman are what really show that a relationship is in trouble, as we know from the Love Lab's 96 percent accuracy. It's not the fact that you argue, yet again proving another societal narrative wrong. You've been fed some BS stories by Hollywood and Hallmark to sell movie tickets and cards. I want to reiterate that a relationship is a completely separate entity. You and your SO both need to work on it regularly to make it thrive. If you're not feeling particularly attracted to your partner in a given moment, just stop and think about what life would be like if they died tomorrow.
It might put things in perspective. By Robbie Kramer. Robert Zaleski. I felt guilty for not loving it and felt horrible that I had to endure it while not liking it. So after a total of 4 years together, I ended it. Shortly after the break up, I reconnected with an old love and had the best sex of my life. In comparison, face wise this guy was a few notches better looking but in all other areas of our relationship he sucked. A crossroads.
I miss the stability of being with the not so attractive guy. Now at 45, he has a pot belly and is getting bigger every day. He wants to eat healthy ever since I met him. When it comes down to it, like some of you say, looks fade. I hear you loud and clear. Bit older than you, hormones toasted my libido and am now wondering is it him or is it me?
I have read every coment on here so far and most people are saying pretty much the same thing. I tackle with this myself on both sides, 1 because Im a bigger guy, and Im at the age where most of the women in my age bracket has let themselves go.
I know that was long but yes your attraction to a person matters and you cant really force it. Ive met and dated a LOT of people in my life and there are a lot of people out there that need changing…wether it be personality, attitude, apearance…and ussually the ones that need changing the most feel the strongest about the myth I mentioned above…and will probably remain single or habitually divorced thier whole lives.
A few weeks later, I thought he was the most gorgeous, perfectly proportioned man I had ever met and even the hair on his back and shoulders which has always been a turn-off for me was somehow endearing. The man I am involved with now is very handsome and most people comment on that when they see him or his photo.
BTW, I am at least 60 lbs overweight and I feel so lucky that these 2 handsome guys found me attractive despite my flaws. My ex-husband lost all attraction to me after I had gained weight.
There is something to be said for someone who is loving, kind, treats me extremely well and seems to think the world of me and says so often. But I never thought of him as repulsive, just not the best looking guy and a bit older than me. So I definately think you should consider how important their positive traits are to you vs. I do believe you must have a physical attraction to someone to be with them long term, but sometimes the way someone makes you feel can boost the inital un-attractiveness and make them more attractive in the end.
It is true that looks fade away with time, but it is also important to have that initial attraction, a small reminder when remembering what made you take that big step with eachother. You have to feel confident in your mate.
You have to know what you want and not settle for less than that or you may end up hurting more than just yourself. I think he deserves a chance at trying if he makes you feel good, and is willing to make changes for you…. We met online. He was very hooked on me sexually in a way that I was NOT hooked on him.
He texted me all day and every day and told me how much he loved me. When we finally slept together it was cuddly and warm and sweet—I felt no passion. Sex was even a chore, and i saw him sulking. His ethnicity, his face, body etc…it made my heart sink, and he was clingy, needy and demanding. I did like his voice. I was attached to him in an odd way… Months of texting! He is young and in the closet and still confused. But the gay world even for people in the closet is a WILD WEST world, and with amazing speed he met someone else online and fell in love with someone else.
When I found out he had someone new, though, he was taking away his mail attraction: his devotion to me. He sobbed and I almost did, too. He heard the panic in his voice, but i left the conversation. I still believe it takes mucho chemistry and mucho attraction to be the big wonderful love that we all crave, but there are other relationships that are important and lasting.
Relationships built on trust and security and peace. I will always love someone else, but I am in a committed relationship with another. I also love myself more, because I am not giving all of my love to my partner. It beats loving someone else too much. How much you love the other person will be the determining factor in the success of the relationship.
If you love them too much it is a recipe for disaster. Gem, I had that experience in my first LTR. No matter how much I loved him I always had doubt in me about marrying him.
What if I met someone I fell head over heels in love with? There will always be something missing in your relationship. Leave now before it becomes so entangled and complicated emotionally. I feel the same way. I have been with my partner for three years. The beginning was fireworks and then I came to realize that when it came to life goals we were a little off.
My attraction for him lessened and it has affected out sex life ever since. He is a good egg, most definitely and three years later he has finally shown me that he does want the same future; however, it took him so long that possibly I resented him.
Sex is not as easy. This advice would be much better if Dan Savage gave his input. In any case, if you are not remotely attracted to a person, entering into a relationship with sexual expectations is utterly foolish.
This would be a complete non-starter for me. I have been in the exact same position. I met him online, we bonded deeply before we met. I was not attracted to him physically, not at all. To be truthful it was starting to gross me out how fat and lazy he was.
I being 12 years his junior. The lesson is attraction is important. It is fundamental and should be mutual. It was placed there by nature to release all those hormones and brain chemicals that lead to fierce love.
You are robbing yourself of true happiness. You CAN have it all. I was finally honest with myself about what I wanted and needed to be happy. I am shocked to see so many women in the same situation… but at the same time also understand women are only following their natural instinct of wanting protection. I think with the new found freedom women have encountered; being able to fend for themselves gave us a false sense of belief that we can have it all.
And once this realization sets in, so does reducing our desires in finding a good looking and successful man. We end up settling for the Nice Guy who can provide enough. If it were me and i found that you just in it for dependence on me i would kick you out faster than a hell fire missile. And you would probably be holding few kids in your hands. You really should talk to my ex for some advice before you take on such a dangerous mission.
Wow, it seems like lots of people are facing the dilemma I went through. I had a husband who was kind and loving and magazine handsome—tall and muscular etc etc. Unfortunately we just never managed to make it work between the sheets. I spent years trying because he was my best friend and we did everything together. I am still heartbroken that we split up, but in the end I felt there was a wall of ice between us and that I was getting more and more frozen and distant from myself and from him, the longer I stayed in that relationship.
I tried to work it out, we went to counselling, but I came to realise it was something of himself that he was always holding back. I honestly felt I was dying inside. By the end I would have sex with him almost crying because it felt so like prostitution, doing it against my will and because he wanted too.
Then later I met someone else. I can say that, though I miss the companionship and attention I had from my ex a lot, I also feel a closeness to my new man which is a source of bliss. There is definitely something on the sexual level which has to work for the relationship to work, long term. I wasted such a lot of my life trying to make a relationship work and I now wish that despite the pain I had split up earlier with my husband once I realised it was something over which I had no control and not hung in waiting for things to improve.
I think the most valid point to this whole ordeal is that if you do not want a wandering eye throughout the relationship and hurt the guys feelings it is a whole lot better to end the relationship.
Nature poses a lot of problems to us and most of the time we are attracted to the unavailable types. However the trick is to find the attractive available one or to seduce him so well he actually does become available Not talking about the married man here but of the promiscuous bachellor.
People say that men are hunters but women are too and nature programmed us to want the best possible mate to have the best possible children. Each time I visit this site, and read yet another heartbreaking letter, usually from a woman who could not get a boyfriend, a proposal, or a husband, I feel very sad.
I do hope she realizes that sexual feelings are often dormant in many women, until a man applies the proper stimuli. Unfortunately, many women are going to end up single and alone for the rest of their lives.
So if you assert that these men who are with these women are not applying proper sexual stimuli, are you saying they are sexually inept? Because you kind of make the leap from that to the feminist lies. John, Have to partially disagree. I have been extremely sexually attracted to some men that have yet to touch me. Masturbation does that job! Im even more confused now!
I was with him for a year before I leave and I still can not break up with him since I love his personality!! I shoudl add that he is not repulsive for me in any way, I have just never felt that hot in bed with him:.
Biology kind of supports this theory. I had forgotten about this before I read your comment! These values are manifested in various ways in all cultures….. My advice is run while you can. She couldnt even bring herself to kiss him. So she agreed to be with him and he talked her into having sex with him though she had to be practically drunk everytime they had sex. Anyway eventually the relationship didnt work out and although they havent spoken in months, to this day she is still haunted by his disgusting breath, his disgusting mannerisms and his repulsive demeanor and she cant get the thought of his slimy hands on her body out of her head.
Who knows what kind of therapy she needs now. Hes gone but what remains is the disgusting afterfeel of having slept with someone like that. Dont do it. A lot of women make the same decision and same trade off that your friend made. It is all a matter of decision and free adults have the right to make whatever decisions they want to make. Everyone is responsible not only for their decisions but also the consequences for your decisions. She is the one who made the decision to have a relationship with this guy and have sex with him.
Why is the guy suddenly the bad guy? It never ceases to amaze me, that highly intelligent, well educated, smart women would readily complain about true love, simply because it does not come in the right packaging, and choose a well packaged fake. Here is one that is willing and ready to do so, and what does he get in return? What nonsense. I hope this guy takes a step back, and becomes emotionally distant for a while so that this woman will realize what she is missing.
I think lack of physical attraction sometimes be an indicator of lack of attraction to personality traits. Once I start liking a person, I usually stop seeing the physical imperfections.
They even start looking good to me. If after getting close to the person, she is still unable to find beauty in him, there is a possibility that she is uncomfortable with something in his personality or behaviour to her that she is not able to pinpoint. Perhaps there is a lack of chemistry between them. We may see many examples of successful marriages where one partner is not as good looking as the other in the conventional sense. But the good looking partner may have been immensely attracted to the other, either due to personality traits or some physical attributes.
I read thru a lot of the responses and it did give me something to think about. Every bowl has a lid. I used to think that I was an alright looking person.
Some years back I was in a fire, people often tell me they cant see the scars on my face but they stand out to me.
My fiance always tell me how beautiful I am, every single day. He has a great sense of humor. He loves my kids and he takes care of me. He does whatever he can to make me happy. He loves me and I love him. Hi John! Rebecca I totally agree with you. I also feel pressure to be with someone who is nice but to whom i feel absolutely no attraction.
Yes, those men are super nice and they have all the qualities of a husband, faithful, hard working, can provide for family but somehow i feel that if i marry them without any physical attraction, i will lying to them and using them and i cannot do it. I am a guy that has had a relationship with a girl for more than a year. She has a pretty face, and dresses up very well. Her body does not match though. She is not fat, but she is chubby and saggy.
She liked me for my looks the first time she saw me, and she says she kept liking me more after she found out I play guitar and have a spanish accent. At first I didnt like her, and this gives me the liberty to say that her looks were not what attracted me to her. We have friends in common, so in the beggining we hanged around because of pure coinscidence.
After spending time with her, I noticed how responsible, mature, sweet and cute her personality was, and decided to give it a shot. It was just very easy to have fun with her. So I decided to give it a shot, and ask her out. Now, all our friends envy our relationship. Its so easy to communicate that when we have trouble, it is only for one time.
Never fight over an issue again because we get to the very root of it by talking. In the bed, it gets quite interesting. Sometimes I feel connected with her and I dont mind her body, and goes pretty well. Other times, it is very hard to get an orgasm. I guess what I am trying to say is that if someone is looking for perfection, they are never going to find it.
For my girlfriend, the imperfection is in her body. Also, whoever says physical attraction is always the first spark, is wrong. Physical attraction is just one of the more immediate ways to fish, but it is not the only way to fish.
Another relatively immediate way to fish is money right women? There is nothing wrong with a women liking the money of a guy as long as it is not the only thing she cares about, just as there is nothing wrong with a guy liking the sexynees of a girl as long as it is not the only thing he cares about. In the end, everyone will have to deal with some kind of imperfection in their romantic relationship, in my case it is in the physical apperance, for others may be some personality flaw, or even poverty.
Just be honest with yourselves, and decide which one you are willing to deal with. There is no right or wrong answer. Man, very interesting! You obviously are bothered by her physical imperfection. I truly hope that this thread debunks forever the myth that females are less visual, or selective in terms of culling prospective mates according to their relative physical attractiveness.
The truth is — sexual liberation has accorded females with the ruinous latitude to weight physical attractiveness in their mating choices, with disasterous effect to the evolutionary stability of developed world populations in terms of sub replacement fertility — which is the consequence of fertility losses incurred by female dominated outcomes in sexual conflict — where the female role as the rate limiting morph in reproductive success predicts systemic fertility losses, as well inbreeding depression effects from the smaller male breeding populations that invariably follow.
The indications are with rare exceptions , that they are unwilling to trade off a concern for sex in exchange for long term gains relationship security, and correlated benefits. It is clear, of the many female apologists that frequent this blog, that they either have no interest in LTRs, or are hopelessly maladapted to them.
Which, of course, begs the question of their investment in this blog except as a medium to ply their rank apologism.
So, i am gonna say in plain english what you just so laboriously tried to express in so many words. Now — not so more. There are seven billion people on earth, and there def. Wake up, and smell the roses my friend, or better go to the gym.
You need chemistry for this. Otherwise it will feel wrong, like a chore, and maybe even disgusting later in the future. When the OP finally denies the man physical intimacy, or ends up meeting a man she really wants to be with, the marriage will end up in divorce.
She needs therapy, and to mature a little more. No one should be used like that. He deserves someone who is inlove with him, we all do. In most cases things get more challenging, especially living together, raising children and all the stress that brings about. Let me say it again. You get it.
We need to you to tell us bluntly and directly how you feel and what the deal is. This is true for ALL men. Smart men, dumb men, men in between. Get it. One of my dear friends, who is a drop dead gorgeous model, did me a huge favor. She told me in clear and certain terms, but very kind terms, that she had no romantic interest in me whatsoever.
And for that I am grateful. This guy almost certainly has no idea that this women thinks of him as unattractive because not only has she not told him this, she has tried to convince him that she DOES find him attractive.
This is what is almost certainly going on. OP is pretending to be attracted to him. She is having regular sex with him and going through the motions of feeling the same way that he feels. He is head over heels in love and is extremely excited about his relationship with her. If OP goes on to marry this guy, the sex will stop shortly after the wedding and she will become distant.
Her now husband will try to figure out what is going on, he will take them to couples therapy, etc. Nothing will work. Finally OP will engage in a series of affairs and destroy their happy household. Adam Without being asked out? Or indeed any indication from you? Dude, seriously, you need to forget about all the pretending to be a badboy nonsense and just grow a set.
When you graduate from your PUA class you will be warning her not to develop feelings for you! Better to be upfront and honest then to attempt to manipulate and use me. She is a kind person and was just trying to prevent this from happening again.
If your such an expert, by all means you could do this. The PUA was in reference to some of your recent comments about learning game rather than myself. Not cool. I agree with Tom Regardless of how many men in her past hit on her. Thanks for this very genuine response and overall analysis.
I think everyone on this post admitting to having the same issue has thought about these points. I have yet to find anyone who has given this very direct and much needed advice so I thank you. There are insecurities on both sides of this dynamic that need to be dealt with directly instead of building a life on an unstable foundation. From her comment it sounds she is much more attractive than him.
Getting someone less attractive than you to get interested and attracted to you is one of the easiest, most instantaneous things to happen.
Just look at the older men out there usually wealthy with a woman younger and more attractive than them. But, every time someone points this out, the rank and file apologists both male and female , shout it down. Go, figure. I have relationships with men that I am not attracted to. I call them friendships…there is no intimacy and never will be. In my late 30s there are still a lot of years a lot of intimacy ahead I hope that can either be pleasurable with the right man or just downright insufferable with the wrong one.
I was genuinely unhappy although we got on well in other ways — I really saw him more as a friend. We are still friends and I am happy for him. I am not overjoyed by my single situation and there are many things that I regret and wish I had done differently.
He now is and I still have a chance. I think Evan is giving the OP the wrong advice, because ultimately, she will be unhappy with this person, if she has tried so far and given it a chance.
The mere fact that she is conflicted about her bf says a lot. Posters have said here that she knows her own answer, and needs to move on; I agree, unless of course, she is able to look past the attraction issue, which, it sounds to me, that she is not able to do that. I also believe for myself like many others here that sexual attraction is a very subjective thing, but also, sexual attraction is needed to be with someone romantically for myself personally. You give it a try with someone, and if you truly feel unfulfilled in the chemistry department, then in my opinion, it is not the right relationship.
Some individuals do not need attraction as an important component of their relationships, and they have absolute right to choose people based on those preferences.
But also, there are people who do need attraction or chemistry and they should be equally respected for those very personal choices and needs. When it starts that you do not like him touching your knee, or walking with his arm around you, it is time to say good-by. If you are really not sure what you should do, then continue the relationship. In time, you will know if you should continue it or not.
You will either start to like him more, or start to not want him to touch you, you will start to not want to touch him, and then you will want to end it. So, give it time……if you are not sure what to do….. Let me answer this honestly…the answer is NO. We dated for 6 months. I knew he was a good match for me every other way. While the intensity of the attraction lessens — and thank God for that — it never disappears entirely. It's there in the background of the day-to-day stresses and it doesn't take much prodding, the right moment or some precious time together, for the connection to feel new again.
A bedrock of sexual compatibility will get you through the tough times. It will provide you with intimacy and the necessary connection that cannot be replicated elsewhere. It's what makes you a couple, rather than just really, really good mates. I suspect that what people refer to as the waning of attraction is really just the withholding of sex due to unresolved tension and resentment in the relationship. After all, who wants to perform the most intimate of acts with someone when you're secretly seething inside?
This is not to suggest women should be more superficial and fixated on looks. Sexual chemistry is such an amorphous thing; it can be based on something as fundamental as the way someone smells or as simple as the sound of their voice. But it is to suggest that more women should prioritise sexual chemistry in a mate, to make it as important a quality as other laudable traits, such as reliability or kindness.
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