Trouble in Paradise
ReturnOfKuus
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
HOW does this happen?
I'm looking down at the Happypills post below, but it's not the first time I've seen a woman come on here and say she was never sexually attracted to her husband. If this isn't revisionist history, how in the hell does this happen? How does someone choose to date, get engaged to, and then marry someone they don't even want to f*ck?!
Re: HOW does this happen?
I think when you are depressed and down on yourself - you'll accept anyone who comes along and shows interest. At least, that's why I clung to my first boyfriend who was very overweight and unattractive to me. I was literally repulsed by him, but managed to "trick" myself into believing I was attracted to him for many years.
Only looking back do I shutter now and realize, I had zero self confidence and thought no one wanted me so I had to accept this guy because he was there. Poor young doglove - she made lots o mistakes.
Desperation? Lonliness? Low self esteem?
I dated guys I wasn't even really attracted to because of all of the above. Thankfully I didn't marry any of them.
I wasn't attracted to my XH when I married him. I thought it'd come back. I also thought that I had already made it this far in our commitment, so I might as well keep going.
My former beebeeness has been well-established though.
I would guess growing up in a sexually repressive family/social environment causes women to substantially discount the importance of sexual desire and satisfaction in... well, anything.
I never took to the brainwashing, myself.
Looks =/= sexual attraction in my book. You can be sexually attracted to an awesome guy who is never going to make the cover of GQ just as much as you can be repulsed by a male model because he's an assbag.
So, that said, I can't imagine being with someone who didn't hold sexual attraction for ME. I just see no point in it. Physical affection is way up there in terms of importance on my priority list and if I'm not attracted to the person, why bother with all the hassle of a romantic relationship with them? why not just stay friends?
There can be lots of reasons.
None of them good, obviously.
Click me, click me!
Low self esteem.
Gold digging.
Repression.
Ding ding ding. That was mine and I'm not sexually attracted to my H. I still have sex with him and all that but I don't have the attraction to him.
ETA: I should mention that I was so desperate to move away from home that I would've taken ANYTHING pushed at me to get out.
This is going to be really long, but I think it answers your question.
I was not attracted to my XH but I was not repulsed by him until closer to the end, and that repulsion had more to do with his behavior that his looks at that point.
I never thought my XH was physically attractive, but he was nice and he treated me really well and we got along well and had a lot of fun. Except for one person, before I met my current bf, I never though anyone I dated was as attractive as me, so it really wasn't anything new to date someone that I didn't find super attractive. (I know that sounds conceited, but I'm trying to be honest here.)
I wasn't initially sexually attracted to my XH either and we didn't actually become intimate until we were drunk one night after we'd been sort of dating for about 6 months. I can see a pattern now that the only time I was able to really get into being intimate with him was if I was tipsy. Otherwise, I just wouldn't be that into it. I know now that needing to drink to have sex with your partner is a huge red flag, but at the time, I thought that it was something I could live with because everything else was great.
After we got married he gained even more weight and generally let himself go. Since I already wasn't sexually or physically attracted to him, it was a problem for me. Plus, I wasn't really into drinking that much anymore so that was gone too.
Then he started having ED problems, and in the beginning that was sort of a relief because the pressure was off me to be intimate with him and we could just focus on all the fun stuff in our relationship. After a while, I wanted more, and since I knew I wasn't ever really attracted to him, and I was resentful about some other things, it just wasn't worth working on for me. The worst part about the whole thing was losing a really great friend. I think we could have been great friends for life if we had never introduced the pressure of sexual intimacy in our relationship.
The good thing about the whole experience is that I won't ever make the mistake of devaluing the importance of sexual attractiveness and intimacy in a relationship again.
I guess I should chime in here...
Yes, low self esteem definitely. Fear of being alone, yes. Settling, probably. And honestly, it's not like at the time I actually realized it. I know...how is that possible? I don't know. I really don't. It's only recently that I've actually had the guts to look at ALL of it for what it is. It's pretty hard to consiously say to yourself- "hey this person doesn't do it for me sexually, but who cares I'll marry him anyway".
I don't know what I was thinking, but it wasn't that.
We all have those instances where we wish we had stepped back and thought "Well shoot I should've thought this more thuroughly." It's hard to imagine taking that and placing it on a marriage because we've been told growing up that we didn't have to rush it, we can date the field, we can have our own goals and dealbreakers and apply that to the man you want to spend the rest of your life with.
But it does happen when it comes to marriage. I did it because at the time I thought I had no other options. I HAD to get out of my house. I HAD to marry him because he was the only guy who looked at me and was interested in me. I HAD to marry him in order to start my life.
All I did was put myself at a complete standstill and essentially tricked my H NOW that I think about it. We didn't have the answers then, don't have them now, but we sure do have those questions we never bothered asking ourselves in the first place, eh?
GTFO