Loss Of Attraction - The Top 10 Reasons We Lose Attraction To Our Long Term Partners

Is attraction bound to fade in a long term relationship?

At the beginning of a relationship, attraction just seems so easy, so effortless. Everything about your partner seems new and exciting and sexy. You find yourself endlessly fascinated by the mole on their cheek or the way their hair sweeps over their eye.

You got a little mole on your cheek right there. Oh, thanks.

But then the years and decades start going by.

So is it possible to still be attracted to your partner after you've seen them comatose on the sofa in potato chip grease stained sweatpants and a ripped T shirt?

Ouch.

Is it possible to still want to have sex with each other after you've seen your partner with snot running down their faces or you've held their hair back as they're vomiting violently into the toilet?

Wow.

I know. These are really illustrative examples, right? What about after you've seen your partner give birth or seen them with baby poop all over their hands?

Good question. You know, it's not easy to acknowledge that our partner may not be as irresistible as they once were. But the reality is almost everyone will experience loss of attraction at some point.

Hey, there we are. Vanessa and Xander Marin. We're married. We've been together since 2007. And it is our mission to equip you with the tools that you need to create an extraordinary relationship. Inside of the bedroom and out. So I'm a licensed psychotherapist. I specialize in sex and relationships. And I've spent the last 15 years working with thousands of people. And I've served as a featured expert for major magazines and websites like the New York Times, oh, the Oprah Magazine, Real simple and many more.

And I'm Xander. I'm her husband. And I used to work a pretty normal job in the corporate world, but when I started seeing how much of an impact Vanessa was making with her work, I decided that I needed to join her so we could reach even more people. I picked up some pretty good insight into what does and doesn't make relationships work along the way. And I just love sharing real stories from our own life and giving you the straight talk about what it's like.

So in this video, we are going to reveal the top 10 things that led to loss of attraction in long term relationships. And these reasons are taken straight from our followers. So you probably can think of a few things right off the bat. But we are willing to guess that you're going to be surprised to hear some of the responses that we received.

And we hope that after watching this video, you won't feel so embarrassed or ashamed if you you've lost attraction with your partner. So we want to share these top 10 reasons so that you can identify the aspects of your relationship that may need some work and start moving towards a hotter and more passionate relationship.

Okay, so here is how this video came about. So, a few weeks back, we polled our Instagram followers and asked them if they had ever experienced a loss of attraction in their relationship. If you're not following me on Instagram already, you definitely should. I'll put the link to follow me down in the description box down below. Now, I have to be honest with you. The responses that we got blew my mind. I thought I was just doing this, like, funny little poll, but we got so many DMs with these really long, really detailed explanations of why people had lost their attraction to their partner. I seriously cannot think of a time that we received more responses to a story, to a poll, or a question that I'd put up. So the response was just so overwhelming that we knew we had to make a video about this.

So, for many of our followers, just hearing that there were other people out there who had experienced the same thing made them feel so much less alone and so much less judgmental of themselves for it. They were just relieved. So, without further ado, here are the top 10 reasons people lose attraction to their partners.

Reason number one, you have been spending too much time together. So we figured we'd list this one because Covid is forcing all of us to stay at home with our partners, basically 24 7. So whether you've shifted to working from home or your partner no longer has their weekly baseball practice to escape and recharge, most of us are spending significantly more time at home with our partners. So for a lot of us, this was great. Initially, we're like, yeah, quality time. Especially if you and your partner didn't spend a lot of time together beforehand, it might have felt very exciting. But, you know, at the beginning of quarantine, you were probably spending all this time, like, baking together. You finally got around to all those home projects. You'd been putting on sourdough loafs. All those sourdough loaves. Yes.

Yeah. But, you know, that probably got old after a little while. You know, a few months or maybe even a few weeks. Most of us are feeling the accumulated stress of months and months of just being cooped up without our normal extracurricular activities. And let's be honest, it's hard to feel attracted to your partner when you both roll out of bed in your pajamas. And you're essentially staying that way for the rest of the day. Yeah. And it's also to feel hard. It's also hard to feel attracted to your partner when you're constantly inundated with all of their quirks and annoyances. Those little things that they do that are cute in small doses. You know what I'm talking about. They're always in your face with their unbrushed teeth or their weird throat clearing. I am not talking about the message, by the way.

I brush my teeth.

But, yeah, there's nowhere to hide.

Okay, so here's a DM that someone sent us about this. I'm still attracted to my partner in normal times, but being home all the time in this pandemic definitely isn't helping either of us. How can we get the sexual attention back when we're both working from home all week and lounging around in our sweats all weekend? It's not that we're not attracted to each other, but it just feels like such a big divide to go from cozy homey to sexy time. Can definitely relate to that one.

Yep. All right, reason number two, your partner has lost their motivation. This was such a popular response amongst our followers. So many of you felt like your partner has lost their motivation to follow through on projects, or they just aren't disciplined enough to stick with a routine or a schedule when they're at home all the time. And as a result, your attraction to them is fading away. This makes sense if you're used to seeing your partner as an ambitious, motivated person. It can feel like they're just being lazy or indifferent about their life, and that doesn't feel good.

Okay, so here is what one woman wrote in about this one. My husband has lost motivation or drive to commit to a task and follow through on it. I just hate that he doesn't keep his word. I feel like he's at a standstill, and I want to keep finding ways to better myself or to learn something new. And here's another one. The lost attraction seems to be from the lack of discipline and ambition in my partner. He just sits around and watches TV and plays video games. This is a huge turnoff to me.

I think at the heart of this is the desire to see your partner leading a happy and a full life, because that's really all we want. And they can't exactly do that if they're glued to the TV screen or their phone all day long.

Reason number three, your partner isn't working on improving themselves. So similarly to the last one, a Lot of you feel like your partner has stopped trying to improve themselves. It feels like they've given up on trying to be a better version of themselves and that stagnation just is not attractive. So for many of us, this desire to keep moving forward, to keep deepening our relationships, our spiritual lives, our careers, is what keeps us going on a daily basis. Feeling stuck in life doesn't feel good personally. And it's not attractive when you see it in your partner either.

One reader put it really well and they said, I feel like motivation also is a part in how attractive we see our significant other. Are they trying to better themselves or the family? Do they try to be happy versus in a bad mood, lazy and just stuck? It's not just about physical attributes, but how they see themselves too. So we also got a great message from one of our followers who suggested that if your partner needs help getting back to their normal, ambitious self, try leading by example. Here's what she said. I do not believe there's anything you can say to make someone want to improve. I say the answer is to lead by example. So start showing up for yourself each day, eat well for health and happiness, move your body, clean your space, organize your life, and your health and happiness will be contagious. It took 10 months in my case, but my husband joined me and we have both been showing up for years now. Wow. I couldn't have put it better myself.

I know, it's a great example. All right, that brings us to reason number four, which is that your partner has gained weight. This was one of the top reasons that people mention for losing attraction to their partners. And it was actually many more women talking about their male partners. Very, very few men mentioned this. So I want to be perfectly honest, we really hesitated to share this one because we realized that weight is such a sensitive subject and really it's a political issue. Like there are multi billion dollar companies, industries designed to make us feel like we're supposed to lose weight, that thinness equates health, and that the only desirable bodies are thin ones. So we're really proud to support the body positive movement. So we want to be super clear that we do not think that thinness should be the one and only goal, nor do we think thinness is the one and only way to be attractive to your partner.

There's also really something deeper at play here. As we read through all the responses we received about weight gain, we realized that rather than the loss of attraction being about physical changes themselves, it was actually about some something different. It was about the partner's lack of commitment to their well being and general lack of motivation, drive, effort and energy. So here's what one of our followers had to say. I personally am attracted to someone who is motivated and cares about themselves. It's not about looks or weight per se, but I'm definitely not attracted to a consistently sloppy and lazy lifestyle that doesn't incorporate any healthy, motivated behaviors.

Yeah, and we had another woman who said, I love my husband very much, but he has just completely stopped making any effort to take care of himself. He has such an unhealthy diet and absolutely never exercises and therefore has gained a lot of weight. The weight isn't really what bothers me, it's more about the lack of effort. So fortunately we also heard from women who had gained weight themselves but were realizing that attraction isn't as much about weight as they had previously realized. So here's a great story from a different woman. I struggled a lot with being insecure about my boyfriend not being attracted to me. I eventually realized that those insecurities were linked to my body image and and placing my worth on my weight or how I looked when I worked, on how I talked to myself and my relationship with food and exercise. Those insecurities started going away because my self esteem was coming back. I think for me it wasn't about how my boyfriend viewed me, but how I viewed myself. Interestingly, I've gained about £20 this year, but I've also started working out again and stopped chronic dieting. Doing these things for myself has helped so much. I even recently started asking my boyfriend to buy me lingerie, which he gladly does.

Great. And another woman wrote years ago, I put on a lot of weight due to my thyroid. Before I knew the cause, I was frustrated by the lack of results with regular exercise, dieting, using a trainer, etc. Every time my hubby said anything, I was super sensitive about it. My therapist helped me see it from a healthier perspective. He loved me and wanted me to be able to live a long, healthy life. Life to keep up with my future kids. To live long enough to see my grandbabies, to keep climbing mountains with him. To be my best, happiest, most confident self. So I started seeing the love behind the message instead of just internalizing a criticism like that story.

All right, reason number five is stress. So most people don't realize that when you're stressed, it's really hard to feel attraction to your partner. It's hard to feel attraction to anyone. You're just stuck in the stress so think about it. If your body is constantly in that fight or flight mode, there's just no space for desire or attraction to spring up. You're too focused on making it out alive to focus on sex. Now. The only nice thing about the loss of attraction from stress is that it's not personal. It's not about what your partner looks like or whether or not they've been striving to be a better version of themselves. It's about you.

So reason number six is your partner's behaviors. A lot of people realized that their attraction to their partner was more dependent on their partner's actions than physical appearance. One reader said, I feel like attraction is way more linked to my partner's actions and attitude than physical stuff. I'm the default parent and it's draining to say the least. So when my partner is scrolling on their phone constantly or complaining when I ask for help, it's a turn off. When our son tries to get their attention, my partner brushes them off or gets short tempered and I end up having to swoop in. Also such a turn off. Feeling like an inconvenience makes me spiral into a weird mix of blaming myself and resentment, which equals no desire to connect. The biggest intimacy killer in my opinion.

All right. And another reader said, I've been feeling less and less attracted to my husband lately and I feel like it's because he's contributing less to our lives. I work longer days than he does, make dinner, clean up, do laundry, et cetera. And then he expects me to have all this energy to have hot, fun sex. I can't.

One thing that we realized when we were analyzing all these responses is that every interaction between you and your partner either adds to or subtracts from your level of attraction to each other. So day in and day out, everything from how you handle arguments to who's in charge of chores, it affects your attraction to each other. So it's really important to pay attention to those behaviors and make sure you're on the same team.

That brings us to reason number seven, realizing that you've had more attraction to other people. So we're talking exes, flings from your past, and so on. We recently posted a video about how casual flings can often lead to hotter, more memorable sex than long term relationships can. So if you missed that video, we will add the link to it right up here.

We like to call this the casual sex phenomenon. There's just something about the lack of emotional baggage and knowledge that you may never see that person again that makes casual Sex really exhilarating. So don't feel bad if you find yourself fantasizing about past sexual encounter or casual partners that you may have had. It's not uncommon, but if you find that thinking about your exes or flings detracts from your attraction to your partner, it might be a good idea to keep your mind in the present rather than in the past.

Reason number eight, bad sex. I didn't look at you pointedly for a reason. So many people said that they don't enjoy sex with their partner and that makes them lose attraction to their partner. So one of the concepts that we teach in our online course for couples, the Passion Project, is that in order to increase your sex drive, you have to have craveable sex. Because if you're having uncomfortable, painful, awkward, boring, predictable sex, you're just not going to crave it. Like that wouldn't make any sense.

Yeah, and obviously bad sex is bad for a relationship in a lot of ways. But. But if keeping the spark alive is important to you, it's really time that you both invest in yourselves more fully to improve your sex life. So we'll include the link to the Passion Project in the description of this video down below if you're interested in learning more.

Reason number nine, having kids. So many couples shared that having kids caused them to lose their attraction for each other. They talked about stress, exhaustion, imbalances in childcare, and the lack of time that comes with raising children. We don't have kids ourselves, so we don't have personal experience with this one. But we do have a video that we made about why we don't have kids. So if you're interested in checking that out, we will put the link right here.

Reason number 10 is getting too comfortable. So look, we get it. The more years go by, the more comfortable you get with your long term partner. And in many ways, that's a really good thing. I love and I'm so comfortable with Vanessa after nine years of marriage, but.

It'S also really easy to get a little too comfortable. I think I've put on real pants maybe five times during quarantine. Xander has definitely burped in front of me more times than I care to admit. And we've definitely spent many lazy Sundays watching football all day long.

Isn't that what you're supposed to do on Sunday? Yeah, but you know, okay, at the end of the day, you two are different people. And as much as it can be nice to be so comfortable with each other, it's actually better for your sex life and your overall relationship health to keep making an effort with each other. So put on real pants. Close the door when you go to the bathroom. Seriously, quarantine or not, have a fun date night with each other.

We loved this reader's method for positive reinforcement. Rather than nagging or complaining, we go with the Reinforce good behavior method, complimenting something when it's done. My husband will say things like, I love when you take time to do your hair. It looks great today. You should do that more often. It opens an opportunity for me to explain why I haven't been able to lately feel good about how I look in that moment and take a mental note to add more effort in that direction. It works both ways and it seems to help us understand each other better.

Very smart.

I know we've got some smart followers.

Yeah. All right, so that wraps up the video on the top 10 reasons for loss of Attraction. So if you like this video, please give it a like. And better yet, leave us a comment down below and let us know if you if you've ever felt a loss of attraction for your partner for any of these reasons or for a different reason. Yeah, and make sure to hit that red button to subscribe to our YouTube channel and click the notification icon so that you keep getting these videos as soon as we post them.

And we also have a little gift for you. If you and your partner are struggling with attraction and wondering if you're truly compatible with each other.

Big question.

Big question that comes up. You're definitely gonna want to check out our free guide. Are you sexually compatible? So we reveal the number one quality that determines your sexual compatibility. I bet it will surprise you, so definitely make sure to check it out. You can click the link on the description box down below to download it. Thanks so much for watching.

See you next time. Not sure what you think you're like.

Oh look, closed down. Sorry. And here's another one.

Wow, That's a lot. Girl.

I choked on myself.