Alright, let’s just get into it. This isn’t easy to talk about, not even really to admit to myself, but here we are. It’s been on my mind, like a low hum in the background that’s slowly gotten louder. My husband is not attractive to me anymore. There, I said it. Feels weird even typing it out, like I’m breaking some unspoken rule.
It’s not like one morning I woke up and, bam, the attraction was gone. No, it’s been a slow fade, like a photograph left out in the sun for too long. You don’t notice it day by day, but then one day you look, really look, and you realize how much the colors have dulled. How much everything has changed.
How did I even get here?
I’ve spent a lot of time, probably too much time, replaying things in my head. You know, trying to pinpoint the exact moment or the specific reason. Was it after the kids came along and we were just two tired ships passing in the night? Was it when he stopped doing those little things he used to do? Or, and this is the hard part, was it me? Did I change in some fundamental way that shifted how I see him?
Honestly, I think it’s a bit of everything, a messy cocktail of life getting in the way, routines becoming ruts, and maybe, just maybe, us taking each other for granted. I remember looking at him across a crowded room years ago and feeling this incredible pull, like an invisible string connecting us. That feeling? It’s gone. I search for it sometimes, try to rekindle it, but it’s like trying to light a damp match.
My “practice,” if you can call it that, has been this internal wrestling match. First, there was denial. “It’s just a phase,” I’d tell myself. “All couples go through this.” Then came the guilt. Oh, the guilt is a heavy blanket. How can I feel this way about the man I vowed to spend my life with, the father of my children, a good man in so many ways? It felt, and still feels, incredibly unfair to him. He probably doesn’t even know the full extent of it. Or maybe he does, and we’re both just silently acknowledging this chasm that’s grown between us.
Little things, big impact
I started noticing the small stuff, things I used to find endearing or just part of him, now they… grate on me. It’s awful to admit. And I tried, you know? I really did.
- I tried initiating more, hoping to spark something.
- I tried suggesting new things for us to do together, hoping to find that old connection.
- I tried focusing on his good qualities, the things I first fell in love with.
Sometimes it would feel okay for a little while, a brief flicker, but then it would fade again, back to this baseline of… well, nothing much in that department.
It’s not that I don’t love him. I do. But it’s morphed into a different kind of love, more like the love you have for family, for a friend. The passion, the desire, that raw physical attraction… it’s just not there for me anymore. And it’s a lonely feeling. It’s like being in a partnership but missing a key ingredient, and you don’t know how to get it back, or if it’s even possible.
So, what now? That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? I don’t have any grand answers or solutions. I’m just… here. Living with this realization. My ‘practice’ these days is mostly about being honest with myself, first and foremost. It’s about understanding that feelings can change, even when you don’t want them to. It’s uncomfortable, it’s sad, and it’s complicated. But it’s where I am. And maybe just acknowledging it, even in a space like this, is a small step towards… something. What that something is, I honestly don’t know yet.
