What to do when no longer attracted to wife?

[DZoolander]

You're talking about two different people. Sure, one person may really need to make a change. That doesn't mean the other person can't change his tastes. But those are two different issues.

I'm specifically addressing the issue of, "I can't help what I like."

Now, I'll get down and gritty here as to why I fight that attitude:

Several months ago, I'm sitting in our youth service (I'm a youth leader) in a predominantly black congregation. I hear a young male voice behind me, "I just don't like dark-skinned girls. That's just the way I am."

I knew the kid, and I knew his mother--he's dark-skinned and his mother is dark-skinned."

So I turned on him and wasn't cuddly about it.

The only taste a human being is born with is a taste for sugar. Everything else is learned and taught...and can be changed at will.

Agreed. In MOST cases I think you're totally right.

 

[GUANO]

Get boozed up buddy!

 

[tall73]

At the same time, however, I do take some issue with @RDKirk 's assertion that you can train yourself to be attracted to anything...that it's merely a matter of will and the desire to do so.

One thing I look at is that it is important to distinguish between initial selection of a spouse, and living with the changes life brings.

To a degree attraction is biologically driven. People on the whole find indicators of health and fertility attractive. As you have said before, there is a generally acceptable range for most guys. And you have to go pretty far along to the skinny or overweight side for a lot of guys to get worked up over it.

For when you are choosing a spouse, I think people should obviously marry someone they find attractive. Now in this case the poster indicated he did not think this through in that way because the intention was not marriage. They were not believers at the time, they had sex and she was pregnant so they married.

And he has rightly assessed that once you are married you should stay married. And he has desired to find his wife attractive.

Many things can happen in life that change the appearance or physical ability of a spouse, so it is good to try to adapt one's thinking out of love for your spouse.

I did mention earlier in the thread that there are issues with extreme obesity that do make it hard to deal with. Some of these deal with safety as well. But even within that framework, one should try to work with their spouse because they love them.

And as to how to encourage a spouse to lose weight, that is a tough question.

I agree with all so far that in this case his wife is trying to lose weight, is not extremely over weight, has legitimate health issues that have contributed, etc.

And the poster has acknowledged that as well. I think the big question for the OP is whether appearance is actually the only factor.

If it is, then

a. turn out the lights
b. find a part you like and look at that
c. wear a blindfold

More likely there are factors just beyond the appearance. And some may be more about him than her.

 

[Corbco]

Ok....I tried to read every post but I think I missed some so if I'm being repetitive forgive me.

I can understand increasing weight decreasing attractiveness but I agree also with the poster who mentioned being in tune spiritually peaking a married couples sex life. So I'd suggest a few things.
One, Christian counseling would help cover anything and everything. I wouldn't directly tell her "you're really just not attractive to me". That seems like one of those things that a woman will never forget and if the problem is resolved she won't forget it. So....if you can't sexually perform....is she satisfied with "favors". There's plenty of ways to satisfy that hunger. If you love her and she's satisfied with it then why not?

Another thing I'd question is when was the last time you dated her? One of the biggest bummers in our marriage was when we stopped dating. We've had to learn to not stop. Even if "dating" looks like a couple random flowers you picked up somewhere to make her happy...if you love her let her know. Take her out. Do things together. In my (limited) experience women can substitute affection for sexual attention better than men can...it'd be worth the effort if you love her. I also agree with not offering yourself any sexual stimulation elsewhere...but I'd wonder if you can pull up memories from a time she turned you on big time and play that in your head....dwell on it. See what happens.

 

[CodySmith]

So if you’re not attracted to her visually, you’re not willing to attempt being attracted any other way (emotionally, spiritially, through physical stimulation, etc etc), you married for obligation and not love particularly, you won’t get checked for depression, you won’t try Viagra, and she’s working to meet you halfway on this by taking on a burden of attempting to lose weight and get you stimulated... Are you just looking for a spiritual consensus or peers to tell you that your best choice is divorce?

Spiritual consensus

If you want to divorce her, go for it, but you aren’t solving the issue. The issue isn’t her, it’s you. When your next wife has medical issues.... And her satisfaction can almost certainly be achieved by other means regardless of your physical response if you were attempted to meet her halfway and at least attempt fixing this.

Um no... and she isn't satisfied because there are obvious things beyond my control.... I can look down and yell all I want but it will not solve the problem. I'm not sure what you want me to do. I sense disdain. I feel like I'm talking to her.

.... But based on the attitude here, it feels more like you’re looking for a way out, not a solution, to which I’d say she deserves somebody who appreciates her and wants to be invested in her and marriage to her. That’s not you and you aren’t attempting to make it you at this point. If you won’t try, there is no point to wasting her time....

Um.... divorce is a sin so.... another somebody is not a solution in God's eyes.

The only taste a human being is born with is a taste for sugar. Everything else is learned and taught...and can be changed at will.

Easier said than done.

 

[CodySmith]

.... So....if you can't sexually perform....is she satisfied with "favors". There's plenty of ways to satisfy that hunger. If you love her and she's satisfied with it then why not?
....
In my (limited) experience women can substitute affection for sexual attention better than men can...it'd be worth the effort if you love her. I also agree with not offering yourself any sexual stimulation elsewhere...but I'd wonder if you can pull up memories from a time she turned you on big time and play that in your head....dwell on it. See what happens.

Good suggestion. I have tried such... she is not satisfied... as stated before. She wants the real deal.

 

[CodySmith]

... And the poster has acknowledged that as well. I think the big question for the OP is whether appearance is actually the only factor.

If it is, then

a. turn out the lights
b. find a part you like and look at that
c. wear a blindfold

More likely there are factors just beyond the appearance. And some may be more about him than her.

Pretty much solely appearance. Maybe it is a curse I have. Maybe a thorn in my side. Would not be a problem if only affected me alone... but it doesn't. Great suggestion though. This is what I have been doing so far. Sometimes it works... sometimes not.

 

[Endeavourer]

Cody, do you go on dates with your wife?

Dr. Harley at Marriagebuilders.com has researched thousands of couples to find common threads among those that stay in love, and one commonality is that they spent at least 15 hours per week of undivided attention on each other. When he personally counsels people, he will not spend his time seeing a couple unless they are willing to make this commitment because he finds it is the glue that helps make the rest of his counseling work.

Here is a link that describes this concept:

The Policy of Unidivided Attention

My husband and I do spend 15 hours of focused time on each other during the week and it's an important component of a wonderful relationship.

Dr. Harley has seen this technique create love within a marriage even when none previously existed. You aren't the first couple that married without being in love with each other. He has helped a lot of people in your exact situation with his research about what patterns in love couples have and how to install those patterns in your own marriage.

Here's a description of methods he uses for a couple who was not in love when they were married. This example is set 16 years after their marriage and after 3 children. By this time they despised each other:

Dating after marriage 12

 

[DZoolander]

I've got a solution.

As stated, your ED is solely as a result of lack of interest due to the visual. It just doesn't "work" due to that reason. But, seems like if it did work, you'd be up for the task. Seems to me that the solution then is to just make it work regardless.

There are medical places out there that sell a drug that you can inject into "youself" (if you get what I mean) that force it to work. Apparently depending on the dosage, you can control the length of time that it works, etc... So, the visual is taken completely out of the scenario. You do the injection, it comes to attention, you do your business, you wait for the drug to wear off. Heck, if you're really worried about pleasing her, you can just inject a little more and give her the time of her life.

It's apparently not THAT expensive - about the price of viagra or so.

So there ya go Problem solved!

 

[RDKirk]

May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth...may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love. -- Proverbs 5

Another thing you do: You flood the LORD's altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, "Why?" It is because the LORD is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Malachi 2

At the time and place those verses were written, "the wife of your youth" referred to the bride arranged by a young man's parents to be his first wife. If he became prosperous enough, he might later arrange for himself a younger wife of his own choosing.

But God insisted that the man's first wife--a woman he had not even chosen--deserved his life-long love and faithfulness.

I've been married to my wife now for 35 years. I'm a portrait photographer, and I took photographs of her when we first met that showed her the beauty I saw in her then.

It's been 35 years. I took some candid shots of her as we ate in Cracker Barrel and hurried to post them on Facebook.

As I said, I'm a portrait photographer, so I know how to see what people will look like in the cold, mechanical way that a camera lens sees them. My wife is not the nubile young thing she was back then. But over the years, I've continually changed my own perception of what is lovely to me.

That doesn't mean I can't look at anyone else--male or female--and see what is or could be lovely about them and photograph them in a way that shows their beauty. That's my job, and I'm not bad at it. But that means I can look at a Caucasian woman and see what is lovely for a Caucasion, or I can look at a black woman and see what is lovely for a black woman, or look at a man and see what is handsome for a man.

But my wife is lovely for me, and I still love her killer cheekbones, and the curve of her chin, the color of her skin (there's more of it now).

Everyone ages. I lost sight of my abs a couple of decades ago...am I fool enough to think my wife hasn't noticed? If people let their flesh control them and never re-adjusted what they found attractive to keep up with aging, how could a marriage ever last over a decade?

This is something we can control. We determine for ourselves what we like.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

Spiritual consensus

You will not the spiritual consensus that tells you that divorcing your wife because you’re not aroused by her is the way to go.

Um no... and she isn't satisfied because there are obvious things beyond my control.... I can look down and yell all I want but it will not solve the problem. I'm not sure what you want me to do. I sense disdain. I feel like I'm talking to her.

There are ways of satisfying her that don’t require your arousal. A multitude of them.

There’s no disdain on my part. This is your problem, not mine, so if you put any effort into what’s going or not doesn’t affect me at all. If she’s frustrated at you, I don’t blame her. You don’t want to be checked for depression. You don’t want to take pills. You don’t want to attempt fulfilling her other ways sexually to attempt to rebuild an attraction. You went to a counselor but are fixating in the impression you got that the only solution was divorce. You say here you want to find a spiritual consensus that allows you to divorce. You say “sorry, I’m only visual, not attracted,” do nothing to help yourself, and then leave the mess of fixing that on her lap with the vague goal/directive of “appeal to me visually.” What is she, or any person, supposed to do to fix that?

“You aren’t pretty or attractive enough to arouse me sexually so get pretty” is not a solution to the problem, but the only solutions you seem to want to pursue is that one, orb magically waking up and feeling attracted again, or splitting up. This problem you’re having is 100% with you and your unwillingness to do anything to fix the issue. That should really irk her and that being irked shouldn’t be met with “woe is me” victim response.

I mean, you have to see you’ve put her in an impossible situation, right? And even if she wakes up tomorrow the bombshell you’ve always wanted to get your motor running, the problem isn’t fixed. She will always know your love is highly conditional and, since looks go for all of us, it’s only a matter of time before this comes up again.

Um.... divorce is a sin so.... another somebody is not a solution in God's eyes.

You totally missed the point.

Easier said than done.

Get checked for depression. It is painfully obvious this is a huge factor.

 

[DZoolander]

I'm going to play devil's advocate on one thing here.

In these types of discussions I always hear a lot of stuff about "how expectations ought to change - because nobody is going to be young forever."

Doesn't that just kind of naturally happen anyhow?

I mean, when I was in the 5th grade, my first crush was on a 5th grade girl. When I was 15, I would have crushes on girls that were 14-16. When I was 20, I was interested in girls that were 18-23. When I was 30, I was interested in girls that were 24-34. I'm now 48 and my wife is 42, and that's what I'm attracted to.

When I was 15, I never would have looked at a 42 year old woman.

I imagine when I'm 60, I'll be attracted to a 54 year old.

Isn't that just the natural progression of life? Are there really any people out there that at 60, look at their 60 year old spouse and go "Well hell, she doesn't look like a 20 year old any more!" ? I think most people understand the aging process and go along with it gracefully.

Does that mean when I was 20, I should have looked at someone in the condition of a 60 year old and said "Well, heck, it's coming anyhow. Might as well accept it now." I'd hope not. That's not the natural course of things. People expect there to be change. People accept the natural processes of life. What they don't expect is to have it come prematurely or as a consequence of bad choices.

Now that doesn't appear to be the case here. But - I do hear it so much that it always kinda makes me wince...lol

 

[CodySmith]

I've got a solution.

As stated, your ED is solely as a result of lack of interest due to the visual. It just doesn't "work" due to that reason. But, seems like if it did work, you'd be up for the task. Seems to me that the solution then is to just make it work regardless.

There are medical places out there that sell a drug that you can inject into "youself" (if you get what I mean) that force it to work. Apparently depending on the dosage, you can control the length of time that it works, etc... So, the visual is taken completely out of the scenario. You do the injection, it comes to attention, you do your business, you wait for the drug to wear off. Heck, if you're really worried about pleasing her, you can just inject a little more and give her the time of her life.

It's apparently not THAT expensive - about the price of viagra or so.

So there ya go Problem solved!

This is most likely the route to be taken. I don't know what God thinks about it but... sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

 

[RDKirk]

Isn't that just the natural progression of life? Are there really any people out there that at 60, look at their 60 year old spouse and go "Well hell, she doesn't look like a 20 year old any more!"

Of course there are. You hear about middle aged men dumping their wives for younger women all the time, and that's been happening (with men who had the money to do so) since Noah was a bachelor.

And women have been killing themselves to stay young looking because of it.

Although that's changing now, and women with money are killing themselves to get younger men.

Here is a story of what you're talking about, btw.

When I was in the 7th grade, i loved English and got along very well with my English teacher, who was kind of a mousy, plain-Jane, middle-aged woman.

Years later, when I was senior, discovered that she was still teaching. I decided to go back to that old school at lunchtime and pay her a visit.

So the office assistant showed me to her room. As I went through the door, I saw that she instantly recognized me.

But I barely recognized her. Man, she was freaking hot! "Daaaaaanng!"

We had a nice chat, but, boy, my brain was doing cognitive dissonance like crazy. As we chatted, I learned for the first time that my 7th grade was actually her first year teaching--so I was 13 and she was 22. And as we sat there at that moment, I was 18 and she was 27.

I don't know to this day if she changed or if my perception of women changed.

 

[DZoolander]

That's just bizarre to me (not the teacher part - but the rest of it). I've always found that my tastes hover roughly around the age I'm at.

Let's for argument's sake say that I was single (just so it doesn't seem weird for me to talk about "my tastes...lol).

Like I said before, when I was a kid I was attracted to kids. When I was a teen I was attracted to teens. In my 20's, women roughly in their 20's, etc etc. That same tendency would apply now if I was single.

Now, I do notice that the women I'd find attractive fall in a larger margin than they did when I was younger. Like when I was in my 20's there was likely a 4-5 year age span (+/-). If I was single now and looking, that span would likely have increased up to maybe 10-12 years lower, a few years older (yeah, it does work that way) But - for the life of me I can't imagine dating someone in their early to mid 20's.

What would I possibly have in common with them? I mean you've gotta do something after you're done sinning, right? Someone 25 years old was born in 1993. That means they likely aren't old enough to remember Clinton. They likely don't remember 9/11 - or if they do it's a hazy memory.

I couldn't talk to them about history (at least not shared history), I would always feel like I was a teacher when it came to history - explaining Reagan to them the way that my folks explained FDR to me. They're not even old enough to remember grunge - let alone the music I grew up with, so music is out. My music to them would be like Del Shannon/50's Do Wop to me (and I was a New Wave generation kid). So no shared history there.

It would be downright depressing...lol

 

[RDKirk]

That's just bizarre to me (not the teacher part - but the rest of it). I've always found that my tastes hover roughly around the age I'm at.

Let's for argument's sake say that I was single (just so it doesn't seem weird for me to talk about "my tastes...lol).

Like I said before, when I was a kid I was attracted to kids. When I was a teen I was attracted to teens. In my 20's, women roughly in their 20's, etc etc. That same tendency would apply now if I was single.

Now, I do notice that the women I'd find attractive fall in a larger margin than they did when I was younger. Like when I was in my 20's there was likely a 4-5 year age span (+/-). If I was single now and looking, that span would likely have increased up to maybe 10-12 years lower, a few years older (yeah, it does work that way) But - for the life of me I can't imagine dating someone in their early to mid 20's.

What would I possibly have in common with them? I mean you've gotta do something after you're done sinning, right? Someone 25 years old was born in 1993. That means they likely aren't old enough to remember Clinton. They likely don't remember 9/11 - or if they do it's a hazy memory.

I couldn't talk to them about history (at least not shared history), I would always feel like I was a teacher when it came to history - explaining Reagan to them the way that my folks explained FDR to me. They're not even old enough to remember grunge - let alone the music I grew up with, so music is out. My music to them would be like Del Shannon/50's Do Wop to me (and I was a New Wave generation kid). So no shared history there.

It would be downright depressing...lol

For me, I would go to the Steely Dan song: "She don't remember Aretha Franklin. She don't remember the Queen of Soul. We can't dance together. We can't dance at all."

Apparently, young folk today don't slow dance. The horror! My wife and I still like to slow dance.

How can kids not like to slow dance? They are so confused.

 

[JRichard68]

For me, I would go to the Steely Dan song: "She don't remember Aretha Franklin. She don't remember the Queen of Soul. We can't dance together. We can't dance at all."

Apparently, young folk today don't slow dance. The horror! My wife and I still like to slow dance.

How can kids not like to slow dance? They are so confused.

That was a song, wasn't it? "Slow Dancin'"?
Slow dancin'
Swayin' to the music
Slow dancin'
Jus' me n' my girl...

 

[mama2one]

Cody, do you go on dates with your wife?]

that is a good idea ^

also, do NEW things with your spouse

Put More Fun in Your Marriage

 

[CodySmith]

that is a good idea ^

also, do NEW things with your spouse

Put More Fun in Your Marriage

... Yes. And I really dont understand how that will make her more physically attractive.

 

[mama2one]

... Yes. And I really dont understand how that will make her more physically attractive.

because when people do NEW things and have fun together, there is bonding that occurs
not above article but another I once read said that doing new things with your spouse creates connection/ bonding

will try to find the article read before as it explained better