Hello. I'm not going to repost MY whole story (I actually thank the Lord that mine was one of those erased- though I miss the great advice I was given), but here is something I found online the other day. It's the only -and I mean only- thing I've found that gives hope for a marriage where one spouse was never attracted to the other. I feel bad for this guy's dad that women keep marriying him when they weren't attracted to him, but I am comforted to know that in at least one case, attraction developed over time.


I know Dr Harley doesn't teach unconditional love, but I thought the post offered hope to those of you who feel stuck in a crummy marriage b/c you aren't attracted to your spouse. The attraction actually CAN grow.

**edited link

DTC

I came to a totally different conclusion reading that story.

To me it's sad that the guy wishes his mom would learn to be caring and thoughtful, but not his dad. He feels mad today, so he thinks about calling his mom to chew her out, and decides instead to look to see if there is someone is his mom's position. Instead of looking at what he can do for himself in his own life. His dad "wants to be a better man," but he is still "such a loser in so many ways." Daisy, I like you, but I am *so* at a loss as to how this woman's life would have been better off by staying, how this would encourage someone who found the spouse unattractive to begin with. The moral I get from this story is that it's better to cut your losses, because even if this man were married to a saint, he'd still be "such a loser in so many ways."

Sorry to be such a Bah Humbug.

Maybe his dad is already caring and thoughtful, or at least more so than his mom.

It is pretty selfish to say I didn't really find you attractive, so I'm going to leave you now.

But you are leaving out a key part


So it's more than just wanting to be better, he is actually accomplishing it.

Meanwhile mom is still "wanting to be happy" but is looking externally for that, instead of changing her approach.

Why discount what a young man who probably lived every day with his mom has to say about her? He likely knows her very well.

She quit, his step mom did the work.

No spouse is perfect, so why expect them to be?

Your life isn't better because of the other person. Your life is better because of your personal approach. If you take responsibility for your own happiness, instead of expecting another to hand it to you, like they owe you happiness, then you'll likely have a healthy approach to marriage.

Mom certainly wasn't marriage building. By leaving, she said she had zero concern for her husband's happiness. There's no POJA, no meeting needs, no avoiding LB in a decision like that.

So even if dad had faults, her approach did nothing to make for a happy marriage for either herself or her husband.

I think if you read the whole thing at the Yahoo! questions site, you may have a different take on the matter.

I think this excerpt shows that the stepmom practiced some very MB techniques and they worked for her. She showed him how she loved him and "love grew over time". She filled his ENs; hopefully he filled hers as well. There are probably other parts to the story that were behind the mother leaving: maybe AS was her #1 need. Maybe the Dad didn't practice MB techniques with his first wife and maybe the only reason he did so with wife #2 was because she modeled them for him.

It's a classic case of how 'fake it 'til you make it' *can* work!

I think this step mom also demonstrates something that has somehow become a dirty word in our society - commitment. I have always been a embarassingly emotion-based person, so I get the whole butterflies in the stomach, fireworks thing. But to say 11 years later, "Wanted butterflies, never had 'em, tired of it, b'bye!"

Statistics show that the rate of divorce among arranged marriages is much lower than among those of us who used the "fuzzy in your tummy" method. Now understand that I am atrracted to my husband. But there have been times I didn't feel that. At our lowest point, I would have sworn up and down that I never felt that. When I was raging in my yet undiagnosed bi=polarness, I am sure that isn't wasn't wild passion that kepy my husband around. It was commitment. I don't know where that fits into MB, but at some point we just have to make a decision, don't we? Like til death do us part?

Daisy, I came back this morning to delete my post, because it brought you happiness, so who am I to "Bah Humbug" that. But it's already quoted, so I'll leave it, along with an apology. I'm sorry that I didn't keep my negative thoughts to myself. OH, I like your take much better than my own. You filled in the blanks in a more positive way than my mind did yesterday.

EE, I had clicked the link to read the whole story, because the excerpt itself was nice, but the whole story left me with such a bad taste in my mouth. I lived many years telling myself to appreciate what I did have *instead of* being thankful today *and* looking at what I actually do want in my life and what actions I was enthusiastic about taking in order to get there. Now this stepmom may have done both, but this young man doesn't speak of that, only of being a giver alone. Whereas MB is about finding a sustainable balance between the Giver and Taker in each of us.

I didn't think the guy's mother was talking physical attraction, AS. The guy said his dad was handsome. Attractive is the whole thing, how do I feel when I'm with this person. Dr. H goes into great detail in HNHN for Parents how parents with young kids lose this attraction for each other, because the time they once spent together and the things they used to do for each other to meet their intimate ENs (Affection, Conversation, SF, and RC) gets replaced by stepping up the time spent on DS, FS, and FC, without finding the POJA. With the small kids being cared for by the real mom, the stepmom has lots more time to focus on Affection.

Fortunately there are books like HNHN for Parents to help folks who do want to make it work.

L, that's exactly what I was getting at. This woman didn't leave because of AS. Like the guys on the board who have a "dirty windshield" because of lack of SF, for women, too, LBs and neglect make any ENs met hard to see. In Why Women Leave Men, it talks about how more women than men leave in these power-struggle no-win situations. I think it's because women and men rank FS and FC differently. On that link, there were other stories where the parents had stayed together for the sake of the kids, and the kids said *that* was awful, and advised to OP not to go down that route.

I'm glad that there are alternatives like MB to help parents show kids what a healthy marriage and family look like.

But notice he describes his dad as a giver, as loving, caring, etc.

So I don't think you can say he wasn't.

Why not take him at his word. He knows all three parents. If he says his mom was selfish, his mom is likely selfish. If he says his dad is loving and caring, but flawed, or a loser, then that's probably what his dad is.

Remember, if this guy is a teenager, early 20's, loser could just mean his dad is not cool. It could mean he can't keep a job, was a drop out, etc as well. It's pretty vague. It appears you've taken the most extreme definition of loser and applied it to dad. Really, we don't know what he means by this term.

But since he describes his dad largely as good, I suspect he is more good than bad, more willing to try than the mother he described, etc.

I just reread the article, and I do see now rereading it that he says his Dad was loving and affectionate with his mom. You may be right.

Well, NED, I'm glad you didn't delete your post b/c I never would have looked at it from that perspective if you hadn't commented.

I did not stay in my marriage (left for other reasons, not having to deal every day with the attractiveness issue for me is a huge side-benefit that makes me feel better when I get to feeling lonely).

His post also showed the difference between two women- the boy's real mom, who didn't want to work on things, and his step-mom, who worked on the marriage til attraction developed, but it also showed a guy who married not one but two women who weren't attracted to him.

I had postulated that if xH had made an effort to improve physically and take care of things that were important to me maybe I wouldn't get all lustful, but at least be more enjoyable. But so many sources told us there was no hope- you couldn't develop attraction, he didn't try, b/c he didn't want to waste his time (so he said).

This will probably sound dumb, but there are a lot of really nice guys out there. And a few are interested in me. It's just very, very, rare that I get "butterflies" for anyone... and I was feeling quite hopeless of ever re-marrying til I came across that post. I don't care about butterflies (you can't miss what you've never had) but I *do* enjoy male companionship, and would like to re-marry someday.

But who wants to marry someone not attracted to them in *that* way?

So I guess I read into the post differently than everyone else- I read into it, there's hope for me to develop attraction for someone and also hope that someone would overlook that fault in me.

:-)

Daisy, I've heard a lot of folks say that they've never felt those butterflies. I've had the opposite problem, many times I've felt butterflies when it was inappropriate, and had to step back from spending time with the person. In the course of a week, do you do anything that puts you in close proximity with a man you're interested in? The example I've seen in the movies a lot is when a man is showing a woman how to swing a golf club or a tennis racket. Maybe if you're dating someone you would like to have butterflies for, trying an activity like that?

Well, there have been a few times (7, according to my journal, LOL!) that I have felt butterflies for someone- and I've always stayed far away from them when it's happened b/c I was afraid that if we got too close (emotionally or physically) that I would do something dumb. Almost like a pre-emptive no-contact. I guess the problem for me is that it happens so rarely.

I'm not currently dating anyone, but will keep that idea in mind.

How can you really tell if someone's attracted to you anyway? Especially if they ACT like they are, and you're blinded by YOUR feelings for THEM?

Many women marry men they have no attraction for, simply because the guy's halfway decent and they feel they "should" marry him; he's the "safe" choice. And as mentioned above, many women who lose that "loving feeling" for their husbands come to rewrite history in their minds to fool themselves into thinking they never had it in he first place (especially if they develop those feelings for someone else!).

Hi everyone. I stumbled across a site today that I wish I had found 15 years ago.

If you (or your spouse) are never really attracted to anyone sexually, check out: **edit**

For those who didn't read my story before it got deleted, I'm one of those unique individuals who never experienced attraction to my husband, even while dating. I've rarely experienced attraction to anyone but it has happened on occasion. The longest stretch between occurrences is 7 years (yes, I track such things in my journals, lol!).

You don't know HOW many times I've been told by well meaning counselors, clergy, parents, etc that it's impossible to not experience sexual attraction on a normal basis. I must be lying, having an affair, or be mentally unstable.

While the site appears to be a homegrown effort, it is certainly nice to find a group of people who feel the same way about sex. There�s even a section for �normal� folks married to asexuals.

Daisy, I don't get it.
Two posts ago, you talked about "getting butterflies" for other men.

The very next post is about asexuality, having no sexual feelings for anyone.

Good question, Retread. The butterflies aren't connected to the sexual act itself but the thought of cuddling, kissing, being held. Hope that's not TMI, but I don't know how to make people with a normal sex life understand.

What I found comforting about the asexuality site, is there are a lot of people there who've only felt attracted to people a handful of times. There's also those who enjoy affection, who even feel giddy around people they're attracted to, but at the same time they are not interested in sex itself. Finally, there are quite a few folks (demisexuals) who do not experience physical attraction upon sight, but rather attraction develops after getting to know someone. All 3 of these conditions *describe* me! I suspect that the "butterflies" I felt for those guys were not the same "butterflies" that my ex used to feel for me.

Reading their conversations with their spouses was like sitting in my house while we discussed these issues over and over, where I tried to understand why sex was so important to him and he try to understand why it wasn't to me.

Why did I even go searching for such a thing?

Well, I took a business trip and ran into an old acquaintance (who happened to be one of those 7 guys). I accepted his invitation to catch up somewhere public, and I told him all that happened over the last two years. I will be honest and admit I was kind of hoping something would happen because he was something of a player when I'd previously known him.

Well something did happen: He held me, and kissed me (first time I'd been kissed on the lips in 15 years), and he wanted more. But even though I'd felt attraction to him, and really enjoyed being held, there was no desire to "go there."

I've never felt more crazy in my life. Or disappointed. How can I have feelings for someone, and not want what the feelings are supposed to stand for? I could understand if it was a moral or religious issue, ie I physically want it, but I don't want to disappoint God or do something I know is morally wrong. But I didn't want sex. All I wanted was to be held.

And I was not expecting that. Here is this gorgeous, fun, financially independent guy. Every bone in my body should have been fighting to resist him. But it wasn't.

I was comforted to read about the sexuality model and the various flavors of sexuality and actually meet (electronically) people who have the same problems I had and experienced the same struggles I had. People who were ridiculed by their parents about not having an SO in high school. People who were continually told "Why can't you just be normal?" Like I was.

I know I'm probably crazy and seriously need counseling. On the other hand, maybe �just maybe- it's actually possible to be born with an extremely low libido and not be crazy.

This gets back to the, "I don't feel like it" school. These people think they should do what they feel like doing. They don't believe. or don't understand, that emotions can follow actions.

When enough people don't feel like wanting a sexual relationship, psychologists, professional and amateur, are ready to cook up a medical-sounding term and then describe it as normal. Accepting that is a dead end.

Of course some women, and men, are born with lower sex drives. Some lose their libido with aging. Some women experience decreased libido after a childbirth, and assume it means they must not really love their husband any more.

Some men experience loss of libido after an injury, or treatment for prostate cancer. Other men may become less capable, or incapable of having sex after such treatments, but still feel a hire desire for their wives.

The same opposite results may follow a woman after surgery or other treatments for cervical cancer, uterine cancer, ovarian cancer, or a hysterectomy.

Personally, I believe a lot of the final direction things take is entirely mental. Go read the testimony of the survivors of these extreme medical treatments, and you will see the entire gamut I describe, but some will begin in one place and end in another. A lot of men and women will find that the powerful sex drive, or lust, may be gone, but it no longer overpowers the feelings of affection and appreciation they have for their mates. For them, a door closed, but a new door opened to a deeper sexual bond in their marriages.

Those who did not move to that new level of sexuality may have other negative influences in their lives that they did not overcome. But they may have just taken the shallow feelings they had as a sign, or proof, or an excuse, that they did not need to try. That's the mental difference.

I suppose it's one thing if you "lose" a libido...or if I was talking about something that was once there, but now is gone.

But what if you never really had one to begin with? I mean, my ex and I didn't even kiss while dating. He tried to do things and I didn't enjoy it and wasn't interested in figuring out why I didn't enjoy it.

It's like beer. Or smoking. Tried each, didn't like it, and saw no reason to develop the "acquired taste" that everyone said it would be.

I will bring this up with my new counselor: though I can't think of any negative events contributing to this, I will certainly ask her opinion. If I can�t find some �trigger� that, once removed makes me �normal,� then I shall work with the counselor to come up with some sort of way to overcome it so that I can participate in a mutually fulfilling relationship with a partner.