Episode 28
"I'm no longer attracted to my wife" - what to do.
Two men wrote to me this week with the same question: “I’m not as attracted to my wife as I used to be. What do I do?” It can feel unsettling and helpless. But if you can relate to that, you aren't as helpless as you might think.
In this conversation, I share why attraction doesn’t have to be just spontaneous. You can intentionally cultivate your desire for your wife by paying attention to what you still find beautiful in her. On a related note, I talk about spontaneous vs. responsive desire, and how you can use responsive desire to open the door for intimacy, even if you don’t feel spontaneously attracted to your wife at the moment.
We’ll talk about loving the whole person, body and soul, and building an attraction rooted in the relationship you’ve grown together.
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Transcript
Hello.
Speaker A:Hey there.
Speaker A:Today I want to talk about a question that I received twice in my inbox over the past week.
Speaker A:And the.
Speaker A:The question is basically this.
Speaker A:I am no longer attracted to my wife or I'm not as attracted to her as I used to be.
Speaker A:What do I do?
Speaker A:How do I work through this?
Speaker A:Now, first of all, I just want to acknowledge the honesty of that question because that takes some honesty and it's hard to write and acknowledge that, but it's true.
Speaker A:It's something that we probably have to deal with.
Speaker A:And look, I can appreciate it as well.
Speaker A:I've been married for 26 years and when you've been married for 26 years or longer, you don't look the same way that you did when you first got married.
Speaker A:26 Years is a decent amount of time.
Speaker A:And God willing, I Hope there's another 26 years of marriage in store for me and my wife.
Speaker A:And we will definitely not look the same when we are 70 as when we were 20.
Speaker A:You know, it's just the facts of life.
Speaker A:So at the same time, I have seen beautiful retired older couples and they are joyful, they're passionate, and they're obviously attracted to each other.
Speaker A:They're close, they're physically affectionate.
Speaker A:I want to be like that.
Speaker A:I assume that you want to be like that.
Speaker A:But these people don't look like the, the people that we see in Hollywood.
Speaker A:20 Year olds in perfect physical condition.
Speaker A:How do we get from here to there?
Speaker A:How do we bridge that gap?
Speaker A:What do we do?
Speaker A:Here's.
Speaker A:I have two things to say about this.
Speaker A:The first is you actually have more control over your attraction than you might think.
Speaker A:For most men, we experience spontaneous attraction, spontaneous desire.
Speaker A:So we see our wives and they look, the light catches them just right, or they're wearing something really beautiful, or they give us a certain look.
Speaker A:Whatever it is, something about them really attracts us and we feel physically attracted to them.
Speaker A:And it's a fairly spontaneous response to often something visual, which is how they look.
Speaker A:And there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker A:There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Speaker A:What I want to say is that is not the only way that desire can arise or that attraction can arise.
Speaker A:You can consciously cultivate your attraction to your wife even as her body changes.
Speaker A:One of the men that asked me this question, his wife is pregnant, right?
Speaker A:And obviously his wife's body is changing quite a bit because pregnancy, that's just what happens.
Speaker A:I have five kids.
Speaker A:I know about that.
Speaker A:Everybody knows about that.
Speaker A:And he knows about this too, right?
Speaker A:He totally Acknowledges it, but he's also honest about her body's changing and it's changing and it's not the same as it used to be.
Speaker A:What do I do?
Speaker A:So here's.
Speaker A:Here's what you do.
Speaker A:One of the things that you can do is consciously focus and reflect on those things that you do find attractive about your wife.
Speaker A:Even if her body is changing, even if she's pregnant, even if she's getting older, there are still things about her that really attract you.
Speaker A:Think about those and call them to mind consciously.
Speaker A:Is it her hair?
Speaker A:Is it her smile?
Speaker A:Is it the way she walks?
Speaker A:Is it.
Speaker A:Think of the physical things, because there still are physical things that you can find attractive.
Speaker A:Maybe it's her eyes, maybe it's the curve of her neck.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:Whatever it is, whatever features of your wife physically that you find attractive, still call those to mind specifically.
Speaker A:Really think about those.
Speaker A:Cultivate your thoughts about those things, and that can help rekindle that attraction that you have for her.
Speaker A:Now we're working outside in the body, as John Paul II tells us, is the way that we can.
Speaker A:It's the way that our immaterial soul can manifest in the world.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:That's what John Paul II basically says, which is really cool.
Speaker A:So as we appreciate our beloved, even physically, we.
Speaker A:It's a doorway into appreciating her as a whole person.
Speaker A:And a whole person includes the physical, but also, of course, her mind, her soul, the immaterial parts of her.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:And those are the things that we also need to consider.
Speaker A:Because reflecting on her goodness, her joy, her generosity, all of the characteristics that you really fell in love with, reflect on those also, because think about the beginning of your relationship.
Speaker A:Usually there's some physical attraction.
Speaker A:Ooh, there's a pretty girl over there.
Speaker A:I should ask her out, right?
Speaker A:Something like that, right?
Speaker A:And that's fine.
Speaker A:That's how it starts.
Speaker A:That's good.
Speaker A:That's holy.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:There's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker A:But then as we cultivate that relationship with them, we get to know them as a whole person, right?
Speaker A:Much more deeply.
Speaker A:And we fall in love.
Speaker A:We fall in love with a whole person.
Speaker A:Not just with the physical part of her, not just with the body, but with her whole self.
Speaker A:With her generosity, with her joy, with her sense of adventure, with her humor, with whatever the.
Speaker A:The beautiful things are about her, with how intelligent she is or whatever it is.
Speaker A:All of those things are what we fall in love with in.
Speaker A:In addition to being attracted to her body.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:The body and the soul together form the whole person.
Speaker A:And so it's that whole package.
Speaker A:So we can look at those parts of her physically that are still attractive to us.
Speaker A:And there will be parts, right?
Speaker A:There are still things that we can find really beautiful about our wives, even as they change, even as, honestly, look in the mirror.
Speaker A:We're not going to look the same when we're 70 as when we were 20 either, right?
Speaker A:So we should give her the same grace that we probably give ourselves and recognize that aging is a natural process and pregnancy is a natural process, and people change physically.
Speaker A:And we can.
Speaker A:Our love can be endure beyond these changes physically, and our attraction can endure beyond these physical changes also.
Speaker A:So we look at the physical things that we still are attracted to, and we cultivate those things.
Speaker A:We think about those, and we allow ourselves to be attracted to those parts of her that are still really attractive to us.
Speaker A:And then we combine that by thinking deeply about what an amazing woman she is.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Why did I marry her?
Speaker A:I married her for a lot more than just physical attraction.
Speaker A:There's a lot more to it than just that.
Speaker A:So if we think about those two things together again, we've got the physical and the spiritual, the mental, the relational.
Speaker A:Those two things are the whole person.
Speaker A:So if we contemplate those and allow ourselves to be attracted to those things, we can actually cultivate a sense of attraction to our wives.
Speaker A:We don't have to let it just be spontaneous.
Speaker A:And the thing is, if we allow it just to be spontaneous, we're going to be victims of our circumstance, right?
Speaker A:If it's just spontaneous, it may or may not come, and then we're just.
Speaker A:Then what do we do?
Speaker A:We're just helpless.
Speaker A:And that's what these men who emailed me, that's how they feel through the email.
Speaker A:They feel a little helpless.
Speaker A:And I'm recording this to say, you're not helpless.
Speaker A:You can actually cultivate that attraction back to your wife and orient your heart and your mind and your eyes and your affections and attraction to her consciously and intentionally.
Speaker A:All right?
Speaker A:The other thing that plays into this is this idea of spontaneous and responsive desire.
Speaker A:And this is a really common kind of basic distinction between desire, different kinds of desire, sexual desire.
Speaker A:So very briefly, spontaneous desire works like this.
Speaker A:My desire spontaneously comes up.
Speaker A:That's why it's called spontaneous in the way that I mentioned before, like with attraction, right?
Speaker A:It's just, I see my wife, she's beautiful.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:This desire spontaneously arises, more or less, and then I decide what to do with that desire, right?
Speaker A:If the time is right, I might initiate and we might make love.
Speaker A:Great.
Speaker A:So the desire happens first, and then the initiation and lovemaking happens next.
Speaker A:Responsive desire is exactly opposite.
Speaker A:Responsive desire is like there's an initiation for making love.
Speaker A:And the person experiencing responsive desire probably doesn't, like, by definition, doesn't feel a whole lot of desire right at the moment.
Speaker A:But they make a conscious decision and say, you know what?
Speaker A:There's no reason not to.
Speaker A:It's a good time.
Speaker A:And I love my spouse, I love my wife, I love my husband, whatever.
Speaker A:So, yeah, let's make love.
Speaker A:And so they make that conscious decision.
Speaker A:So the initiation and the lovemaking begin before the desire is there.
Speaker A:And then after things start, the desire arises from the activity, right?
Speaker A:From foreplay and getting into the mood and all the rest.
Speaker A:So that is responsive desire.
Speaker A:Can you see the connection there with this challenge of not feeling attracted to your wife?
Speaker A:Because I hope you can.
Speaker A:You can lean into a responsive desire pattern.
Speaker A:Even if you don't feel spontaneously attracted to her, even if you don't feel spontaneous desire for her, you can still make a act of the will, a decision of love to make love with her.
Speaker A:And in doing that, your desire will arise after you start getting going, right?
Speaker A:And your attraction and desire will come with it, and it will be there once you start getting into things.
Speaker A:So that is another thing that I think is really important, because typically more men experience spontaneous desire than women more often.
Speaker A:Now, these aren't like definitive categories of personality or anything like that.
Speaker A:Everyone will and can and will experience both spontaneous desire and responsive desire throughout the course of their lives, throughout the course of their week, throughout the course of the month, whatever.
Speaker A:And sometimes you might feel that spontaneous desire.
Speaker A:Sometimes you might need to lean into a responsive desire.
Speaker A:The thing is that more often than not, men feel a spontaneous desire, and more often than not, that spontaneous desire, that pattern of feeling aroused, feeling desirous, and then making love, that is the only pattern that we ever see portrayed in the culture, right?
Speaker A:Think about any movie, any TV show, anywhere.
Speaker A:That's the pattern.
Speaker A:I'm not suggesting you watch movies and TV shows that have that in there, but we all know that's the only.
Speaker A:That's the only cultural pattern that we see.
Speaker A:But that's not the way it has to be in reality.
Speaker A:Side note, if you take Hollywood movies and TV as your guide for how lovemaking should generally work in your life and in your marriage, that's not a great guide to take.
Speaker A:I'm just gonna say that will set you up for all manner of, of disappointment.
Speaker A:And this is one of them.
Speaker A:This is one of the ways lovemaking doesn't have to be spontaneous and desire doesn't have to be spontaneous and desire doesn't have to precede a decision to make love.
Speaker A:All of those things are false.
Speaker A:They can, there's nothing wrong with it, but they don't have to.
Speaker A:And if we can open ourselves to new possibilities and understand that things can actually work in multiple different ways, that actually allows us a lot more freedom and a lot more opportunity to show and share and receive love with our wives than we might otherwise have.
Speaker A:And it takes us from this position of feeling trapped or powerless or helpless.
Speaker A:I'm just not attracted.
Speaker A:There's nothing to do.
Speaker A:There's a lot to do.
Speaker A:There's a lot to do.
Speaker A:You can choose to make love with your wife anyway and lean into responsive desire.
Speaker A:You can actively proactively cultivate those thoughts of attraction with your wife, both physically and spiritually and emotionally and relationally.
Speaker A:Consciously cultivate that and reignite that attraction.
Speaker A:The more we can do these things, the more our attraction will lie less with just pure physical appearance and it will shift more and more towards a foundation of being, a response to our deep, authentic love for the whole person of our wife.
Speaker A:And that is where we want to move the foundation of our attraction.
Speaker A:Because that is what's going to endure for, for 30, 40, 50, 60 years of marriage until you are a gray haired, beautiful retired old couple who are inspiring young people all around you.
Speaker A:God bless you.
