No physical attraction to girlfriend

[Hives]

I'm 26 yrs old...my girlfriend is 29. we've been dating for almost two years now and have been living together for 3 months.
When we met, She approached me....I wasnt attracted to her at the time....Shes not un-attractive or anything like that, she can easily get a date, her personality is extremely outgouing and very positive. She is very intelligent, popular, kind, rational....I like her.

Well, I knew I wasn't physically attracted to her but we started to see each other alot. I found some things I did appreciate when it came to her looks, but recently I cant find anything.....I feel that I was originally with her because of her personalty which is a great thing....but something isn't right.

And now that we live together our dynamic has changed and even though she is still the same person, I find myself just not wanting to be with her.
Im also one of those hopeless people that dreams of being friends with her if we break up.....I know I'll see her.

I've never broken up with a girl before like this....She is so wonderful and it seems so shallow of me...but what am I supposed to do.....When we first started dating, I had to talk myself into it. I didnt want to miss out on a girl who is great just because of the way I viewed her looks.....plus I'll have to lie about why Im breaking up with her....well not neccessarily lie but I can't be totally forthcoming....but she will drag it out me....and it will hurt her feelings....

I have also found myself becomming infatuated with someone else which makes this suck even worse.....I love infatuation... to me that is the initial spark....something I never had with my girlfriend, just kind of a slow burn.
Plus the girl is one of my girlfriends good friends (of course!!!) So I cant do anything about this infatuation except let it go.....but this situation makes me think about how I want to be with someone that I am physically, emotionally, and metally stimulated by and right now I only have two out of three.

I just needed to get this out....I got hives the other night because I Got stressed out about this....I dont get stressed out.....and i sure as ************ dont get hives....

[judge45]

She is not the one, not the one for you.

She actually deserves someone else, not you.

You fell into this relationship because, well it was easy, but you know you want something else.

It's going to hurt to make the break, but staying is hurting right?

Be true to yourself, leave her now, if that doesn't work, you'll soon know, then you can come back here and we can talk about how to get her back

HTH

Jeff

[fourthdan]

but what about if you meet someone who you ARE physically attracted to, marry, have kids with, she lets go and then you're no longer physically attracted to her? would you leave her then?

millions of men have similar situations around the world (if not billions) where even if the woman looks pretty good, the men lose interest after a while - the marraige loses it's appeal, single life and new hot younger women look much more appealing. what do those guys do?

how are your communication channels with this girl? if she's as great as you say she is, my gut feel is that she'd be able to survive the hit of this little bit of info - and together you guys can move past it.

possible questions you might wanna consider:
does she need to lose weight / get more curvy?
does she need to put on makeup / dress sexier?
does she need to do something specific or behave in a specific way?

Also, you need to consider the possibilty that you need to readjust your view of her, but then attraction is rooted more in our animal instinct than logic - so i don't know the extent of which you can do that.

all i'm saying is - attraction is related to the external and superficial part. if you like this girl every other way, try and work it out with her. finding a girl you're attracted to / infatuated with is easy. finding a great girl to spend the rest of your life with isn't.

all the best.

[da1prophet]

Originally Posted by Hives

I'm 26 yrs old...my girlfriend is 29. we've been dating for almost two years now and have been living together for 3 months.
When we met, She approached me....I wasnt attracted to her at the time....Shes not un-attractive or anything like that, she can easily get a date, her personality is extremely outgouing and very positive. She is very intelligent, popular, kind, rational....I like her.

Well, I knew I wasn't physically attracted to her but we started to see each other alot. I found some things I did appreciate when it came to her looks, but recently I cant find anything.....I feel that I was originally with her because of her personalty which is a great thing....but something isn't right.

And now that we live together our dynamic has changed and even though she is still the same person, I find myself just not wanting to be with her.
Im also one of those hopeless people that dreams of being friends with her if we break up.....I know I'll see her.

I've never broken up with a girl before like this....She is so wonderful and it seems so shallow of me...but what am I supposed to do.....When we first started dating, I had to talk myself into it. I didnt want to miss out on a girl who is great just because of the way I viewed her looks.....plus I'll have to lie about why Im breaking up with her....well not neccessarily lie but I can't be totally forthcoming....but she will drag it out me....and it will hurt her feelings....

I have also found myself becomming infatuated with someone else which makes this suck even worse.....I love infatuation... to me that is the initial spark....something I never had with my girlfriend, just kind of a slow burn.
Plus the girl is one of my girlfriends good friends (of course!!!) So I cant do anything about this infatuation except let it go.....but this situation makes me think about how I want to be with someone that I am physically, emotionally, and metally stimulated by and right now I only have two out of three.

I just needed to get this out....I got hives the other night because I Got stressed out about this....I dont get stressed out.....and i sure as ************ dont get hives....

If there's no physical chemistry you can't pretend like there is....time to cut her loose...

[Lychee]

Originally Posted by fourthdan

all i'm saying is - attraction is related to the external and superficial part. if you like this girl every other way, try and work it out with her. finding a girl you're attracted to / infatuated with is easy. finding a great girl to spend the rest of your life with isn't.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[odietamo]

I agree with post #3.

[Pegasus]

The relationship was doomed from the beginning because YOU didn't pursue her. Let her go. She deserves a man who wants her physically, intellectually, and emotionally. If there's no physical chemistry, there's a word for that -- FRIEND.

Another thread in this forum discussed the book He's Just Not That Into You. It's intended for women and offers wise advice from both a man's and a woman's perspective.

-Pegasus

[Red Willow]

I have to really agree with FourthDan. Sexual attractiveness ebbs and flows. People lose their sex appeal, people gain sex appeal. The most important part of a relationship is how a person is inside, their character, their sense of humor. Will she be there for you when you need her? Will she be a good mother to children (if that's what you want)? Do you have a shared belief in each other's goals?

I know it sounds so cliche, but really it's true. Ultimately, you may indeed be happier with someone else, but make the decision carefully.

I'll tell you a story. When I met my current husband, I wasn't very sexually attracted to him. But I recognized his inner goodness and strength. We clicked on every other level, just not sexually. I left him, thinking that what I really needed in life was "passion."

Well, what I found were alot of sexy men, none of whom held a candle to my husband's amazingness. I realized that I needed to change myself to relate better to him on a sexual level. I needed to focus on the things that ARE sexy about him. Pretty soon, all the things that I really thought weren't sexy about him stopped being a big issue.

I realized I was falling into a trap, letting "society" dictate to me who is sexy and who is not by its relentless youth and beauty standards. I decided to choose my husband and it was the best decision I ever made.

Sometimes I run into ex-boyfriends who are physically great looking and very sexy by society's standards, and I am so thankful I'm not with them. I shudder to think what my life would look like if I let physical attractiveness set the course of my relationship.

Thank god my husband took me back after all that.

Ask yourself why your girlfriend IS sexy...it could be anything that comes to mind...like, she reads Dostoyevsky in the original, she has beautiful shoulders, etc... Then tell her. Make her feel sexy. If you keep thinking about the fact that she has, say, fat thighs or snores or whatever, all she will ever be to you is a fat chick who snores (just examples, I obviously don't know her).

That's my advice.

[rene_stpierre]

The longer you wait, the more it will hurt for both of you.

René

[Scorpio]

A couple of things:

-You may just need to break it off. It won't be fun, and you may regret your decision afterwards, but the relationship may have gone as far as it can go. These are the worst because it's always just good enough that you can drag it out another year, then another...

-Like other posters have said, is there anything she can do? Wear more make up? Dress less frumpily? Act more sexy? Or is it just that you're not into her basic appearance?

-Any guy in a long term relationship has to deal with that need for newness and variety and excitement versus the good, but same old same old. If you're serious about the relationship then you learn to deal with these feelings when they arise and disregard them. I mean imagine being married for 15 years? That's gotta be hard in places.

-With my relationship I notice my 'grass is greener' thinking goes up when my own life isn't going as great as it could. When you've got other problems and you're a little down, you start to romanticize the excitement of meeting someone new as the solution to all your problems. When I get my life together again I suddenly don't feel the need to recapture my single life. You may be stressing out about moving in with her and the adjustments that go along with all that and you're fantasizing about escaping.

-Don't hook up with her friend. Man, I know you know that's self-destructive and emotionally immature. Just let that particular infatuation pass. If you're going to go after another girl go after someone who's a total stranger.

-People lie about why they break up all the time, that's not a problem.

-Hey, why not just cheat on her?!!?!? You get to have your cake and eat it too!!! Nope, no problems with that idea. But seriously, life would be a lot better if guys were occasionally allowed to sleep with someone else to get it out of their system.

[da1prophet]

Originally Posted by rene_stpierre

The longer you wait, the more it will hurt for both of you.

René

Agreed....maintaining a relationship or a marriage is hard enough as it is, and if there's no "chemistry"--a large part of which is physical attraction--you're already starting behind the 8 ball. I'm not saying that you should make physical attractiveness your highest priority--especially if you're looking for a long term relationship. Still, to paraphrase the previous poster, there's a word for someone of the opposite sex whom you like as a person but aren't attracted to: friend.

If you're not attracted to your girlfriend you're not only lying to yourself and accepting a "compromise" in such an important area of your life is unfair to both you and her.

[RT Wolf]

You sound confused and unsure of what to do. I think the diversity of opinions in this thread isn't helping. I'm going to take a different tack and try to help you get more information about this. Essentially, there are two places where you can get an answer to your dilemma, inside yourself and outside yourself.

You recongize that inside yourself, you are having difficulty dealing with this, however there are other ways to try. Perhaps consulting your intuition (there was a pavlina podcast about it), or perhaps reframing the question. Ask yourself how other people would solve this. Or how this problem will look from different perspectives in time and space, such as a year from now, and so on. There was a blog post about this, too, somewhere.

Outside yourself, you can ask for other people such as you did here. Another way is to find someone or some people who have experience with relationships to find the answer. A counseller or something.

Yet another way is to hunt around for books on this subject. I think Pavlina once recommended Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay. I haven't read that book, so I dunno if it really would be applicable to you, but I'm sure others can also offer book recommendations. A few more books here:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/personal...ment-books.htm

The bottom line is this. This is a tough choice, and none of the options seem good to you. Many wonderful people have given their opinion on this issue in this thread, but the final decision is yours. Stay or leave. Let your imagination go for a minute and pretend what you think life would be like without her, or pretend-imagine what it'd be like a year form now if you stuck together. Try to get different perspectives on this.

I hope something here helps.

[Transcendent]

Move on. You've never been physically attracted to her. She should have been "just a friend."
If you were physically attracted to her in the beginning and just lost interest, I would be saying something different.
You made a big mistake by getting into a relationship with someone you weren't attracted to.

I can't stress this enough. This is not her fault. It is all on you. Keep in mind, it doesn't make you a bad person, you screwed up and you need to fix this sooner than later. And yes, she does deserve someone who wants all of her completely. I feel bad for her in this situation. Unfortunately she's getting the very short end of the stick. But you are doing her a disservice by continuing on in this relationship.
You screwed up, fix it, be a man.



For everyone saying that personality is the only thing that's important, here's a question.
If you a straight guy and say that personality is the only thing that matters, would you date a guy who had the most super personality? My best friend is awesome and I know I'm NEVER going to date him.

Being physically attracted to someone matters, period.
I understand in a long relationship that people become less physically attracted to their partner, but at that point, if you're not mature enough to grow older with another person and appreciate everything you've had together, then that's another issue.

[thethinkingboy]

wow buddy , when i read your original post it was as if you were reading my own life story. get out now and get out clean. i've been in your situation twice and the first time, i let it drag on and off for 7 years!! The longer you wait, the harder it gets. Sorry if I sound a little cocky, but I always believe any man can get any woman back if he tries hard enough. If you can't live without her, we'll help you get her back.

[JimOfferman]

Originally Posted by Scorpio

People lie about why they break up all the time, that's not a problem.

I have to disagree here. Just because other people have lied, doesn't make it alright for you to lie!

If you have any respect for the person you're breaking up with, you'll tell the truth. Grant your soon-to-be ex the information she needs to not fall into your particular kind of trap next time around. So, if you're breaking up because you're not physically attracted to her, just say so - don't say it was about the dishes or something stupid like that. Then at least she'll know to look for someone who is more physically attracted to her next time around, instead of working on her lack of dish washing discipline...

Jim.

[Livgivare]

Think about the lies in relationship today.

1) Sex need to be a huge part of a relationship: There is alot of people who are asexual and/or lack the feeling of need sex in their life. They find friendship and such more interesting and important in the relationship. Sex also varies arround the life, think about babies what they do to a relationship. The fact that after a few years you settle down to having sex a little less then when you started off. Sickness and handicaps also lead to people being in a place where sex becomes harder to perform, doesn't place them in a unloving relationship either.

2) The Falling in love feeling needs to be there all the time: Passion is just the jump-start and can be a spice in the relationship. What a relationship needs more is respect, understanding, friendship, time with and without the partner and many more stuff that adds up to a party meal. So many people meet, fall in love, get married, get two kids and after 7 or so years they separate just because the passion is dead and leaving children off with hard times. Renaming and reinvent the love and make it feel as it can whitstand the passion and last longer is even more important then just being passionate rabbits that can't be away from each other. This state of mind comes often from rom-coms and fariytales from early childhood where prince meet princess and they live happily ever after.

3) Love needs to fit an A4 paper feeling: Heterosexual, missionary, house-dog-car-two-kids, beautiful relationship with family members of your partner and all other myths that goes arround today of how a love-life shall be portraying. This is really devestating for love. Some might find love a bit better with high-heels no children and 20 pet rats in their 4 room appartment. You get what I mean. Never define love on what other think is love, you know what is love to you and just you.

4) Grass is greener on the other side: What if what you have is absolutely the best you could dream about and want? What if people put names on what is hugely big parts of good relationships and you find youself trying and trying to get that, and when you get it, it is not you? A top model look alike of Angelina Jolie or a big sholder plummer guy or something like that is not what you look for and all your friends tells you that they look for that, you start to try it out too. If you want lets say a thin mouthed, short, overweight blonde girl with very much intelligence or if you want the androgynous guy with blue eyes and no big sholders what so ever you go for that instead. Or what if the person you look for is a book-worm that can talk Russian fluently and are not that much of a sex-bomb?

I guess that there is more myths on how love is supposed to be, to become happy and merry-go-arround. Get to the bottom of the usual myths out there in the world and in your own heart and find what suits you and maybe this girl. Be happy with what you really want, need and love about a person and try to find your own way to happiness. That way, you will really really find your own kind of happiness and shut out others way to happiness in your life.

If you by now have cut out the myths of love and still need to move out and split the relationship with this girl, fine you have found out what you need and she is not that. But what if you really really need this girl to get old with? Think also about who you wanna spend the last 15 years with.

Love Leelene