loss of attraction in a marriage

[The Duke]

Recently I’ve hung out at the home of a married couple I met thru a girl I’m dating. The couple lives in an upper class neighborhood in suburban America. The husband is beta, a little boring, nothing striking about his personality, very vanilla, and clueless when it comes to women. He thinks money will make his wife happy. He is a nice looking older guy but out of shape. He constantly puts his wife on a pedestal and she feels suffocated by it. He has recently taken a job out of state where is he is gone 2wks at a time.

The wife is very sweet, 12yrs younger than him. I am sure she was a major hottie in her prime. She is still attractive(HB7) for her age, but could drop 15lbs. This couple has been together close to 20yrs. The wife has never worked a day in her life. She came from money and has a large trust fund to live off of. Her daily duties are to raise their high school aged son and take care of the home.

To those on the outside, I’m sure this seems like the perfect situation. But guess what….the wife isn’t happy. I picked up on this the first time I met her. She verbalized small displeasures about her husband and was too “friendly” with me. She is a woman that is bored with her husband. She feels like she “married her dad”.

This woman is badly looking for some tingles to reignite her attraction and I’m afraid she will cheat on him before that happens. She continues to make up excuses of why she isn’t happy claiming she is overworked! Lol. She is more and more critical of her husband.

This weekend the husband was home for a few days and instead of his wife wanting to spend time with him, she scheduled a girls night out! The wife has also been going out with her friends and drinking more.

The husband has started to get upset by her actions, yet has no clue that she isn’t happy with him.

The wife has made it clear to everybody but him that her mind is having second thoughts. I’m certain this deal will fall apart at some point in the future as she continues to step out and do her own thing.

I share this story because I see a lot of guys in situations like this. I blame the wife for not communicating her issues but it seems to be female nature. I blame the husband for lacking experience when it comes to women. You have to remain a challenge and always “date” these girls if you expect to keep attraction. The husband has even stated he doesn’t have to worry about his wife. He is on auto-pilot.

I so wanted to tip him off about what is actually going on, but I’m certain he would hear none of it. He will have to crash and burn on his own. I wish he could stumble upon this forum and read some of the stories that get shared here before its too late.

 

[resilient]

Read your story. Wow. He's in for a rude awakening. Sounds like he's using his wealth as a security blanket. That ain't going to give her the tingles after twenty years of vanilla action with him. Supplicating and putting her up on a pedestal isn't helping his case either. Two weeks gone at a time too is plenty of time for her to "occupy" herself with "girls night out" when he's out of town.

 

[highSpeed]

Recently I’ve hung out at the home of a married couple I met thru a girl I’m dating. The couple lives in an upper class neighborhood in suburban America. The husband is beta, a little boring, nothing striking about his personality, very vanilla, and clueless when it comes to women. He thinks money will make his wife happy. He is a nice looking older guy but out of shape. He constantly puts his wife on a pedestal and she feels suffocated by it. He has recently taken a job out of state where is he is gone 2wks at a time.

The wife is very sweet, 12yrs younger than him. I am sure she was a major hottie in her prime. She is still attractive(HB7) for her age, but could drop 15lbs. This couple has been together close to 20yrs. The wife has never worked a day in her life. She came from money and has a large trust fund to live off of. Her daily duties are to raise their high school aged son and take care of the home.

To those on the outside, I’m sure this seems like the perfect situation. But guess what….the wife isn’t happy. I picked up on this the first time I met her. She verbalized small displeasures about her husband and was too “friendly” with me. She is a woman that is bored with her husband. She feels like she “married her dad”.

This woman is badly looking for some tingles to reignite her attraction and I’m afraid she will cheat on him before that happens. She continues to make up excuses of why she isn’t happy claiming she is overworked! Lol. She is more and more critical of her husband.

This weekend the husband was home for a few days and instead of his wife wanting to spend time with him, she scheduled a girls night out! The wife has also been going out with her friends and drinking more.

The husband has started to get upset by her actions, yet has no clue that she isn’t happy with him.

The wife has made it clear to everybody but him that her mind is having second thoughts. I’m certain this deal will fall apart at some point in the future as she continues to step out and do her own thing.

I share this story because I see a lot of guys in situations like this. I blame the wife for not communicating her issues but it seems to be female nature. I blame the husband for lacking experience when it comes to women. You have to remain a challenge and always “date” these girls if you expect to keep attraction. The husband has even stated he doesn’t have to worry about his wife. He is on auto-pilot.

I so wanted to tip him off about what is actually going on, but I’m certain he would hear none of it. He will have to crash and burn on his own. I wish he could stumble upon this forum and read some of the stories that get shared here before its too late.

but you've already fallen into the trap. isn't keeping attraction going a two way street? so what I hear you saying is that he has to work his as* off to keep her attention and attraction and all she has to do is sit around desperately waiting for him to sweep her off her feet so he doesn't lose her? what kind of screwed up logic is that? way I see it, if you do screw up and marry them, the attraction thing is on both of them. perhaps we as men should be holding them more accountable. don't feel attracted to your husband anymore? hmmmm, it can't all be him, what are you doing or not doing to lose attraction?

 

[evan12]

So what can a husband do in this case? does he have to change his nature to be more funny ? I think it is wife issue her , it is like when you get bored from someone, what ever that one do you no longer want him

 

[ubercat]

Men have to lead. If u don't women go back to their default source of excitement.. another man. It's always hard to turn around a girl who s festered. She's rich. Just get out. I d personally setup some hidden camera. Show her a clip of herself and then suggest it's for the best if we split quietly.

 

[resilient]

Id personally setup some hidden camera. Show her a clip of herself and then suggest it's for the best if we split quietly.

OP's friend isn't ready for it.

I don't think he can turn the ship around to lead w/o unplugging first. That's the tough lesson with interest level... if he placed her up on the pedestal and he ignores slights at his expense here and there, he'll lose respect every time while she starts looking elsewhere for attention.

Auto-pilot aka complacency is where relationships go to die.

 

[samspade]

but you've already fallen into the trap. isn't keeping attraction going a two way street? so what I hear you saying is that he has to work his as* off to keep her attention and attraction and all she has to do is sit around desperately waiting for him to sweep her off her feet so he doesn't lose her? what kind of screwed up logic is that? way I see it, if you do screw up and marry them, the attraction thing is on both of them. perhaps we as men should be holding them more accountable. don't feel attracted to your husband anymore? hmmmm, it can't all be him, what are you doing or not doing to lose attraction?

It is on both of them. BUT - he is putting her on a pedestal according to the OP. I hate to say it, but he should be instilling a little more dread in her by demonstrating his options. The guy is traveling a lot and she still isn't worried about him straying? Plus he's out of shape. So he's not working his a$$ off to keep her attraction, or at least he doesn't know how to and he's doing it all wrong.

 

[The Duke]

She was totally onboard with him moving out of state for work. I think that speaks volumes to where her mind is at in regards to him. No woman that is in love with her husband would want her man to move away nor would she approve of him having potential access to other women. Women that are in love with their men are notorious for trying to keep them on lock down. There is probably a part of her that wishes he would stray as it would provide her a solid excuse to exit the relationship. I remember when my marriage was about to end and my then wife was encouraging me to dance with another female friend. At the time I had no clue why, but once we divorced it all made sense. She was hoping I would develop feelings for this other female, allowing my wife an easy excuse to end our marriage.

@highSpeed yes attraction is a two way street, but the husband thinks every thing is fine. The trap is, if he doesn't change the way he operates, he won't have a nice younger wife! He would prefer to keep what he has.

This is a great example of what happens when a guy gets complacent, stops leading, and puts his woman on a pedestal. These behaviors create unhappy women.

Keeping a male attracted is a lot simpler than keeping a female attracted long term.

 

[The Duke]

So what can a husband do in this case? does he have to change his nature to be more funny ? I think it is wife issue her , it is like when you get bored from someone, what ever that one do you no longer want him

Yeah some of it is boredom. A husband can start doing the things he used to do that initially attracted her. You can't ever stop "dating" your girl. Create some emotional fluctuation in her. Make her wonder what you are up to.

 

[BeExcellent]

Lots of people make the mistake of thinking:

"Ok. Now I'm married. All good. Let's put that on autopilot and move down the list in life."

And in so doing they take the marriage, their mate and the whole situation for granted. This husband is certainly doing that...but lots of men and women do this.

It's interesting in a way. People keep engaged and keep performing in their livelihood because if they don't perform then they can lose their livelihood. Everybody knows that.

Why people think a marriage ceremony means they no longer need to perform is beyond me and always has been. Getting married is the easy part. BEING married is the hard part, but it doesn't need to be so long as both parties make efforts toward one another consistently.

Women have the simpler job in that regard. Men are easier to keep happy than women. Women need more stuff to keep them occupied & satisfied (this is why women are better suited to the 24/7/365 cycle of child rearing.)

But you can't put a marriage on auto pilot and expect a good outcome. That the ensuing crash actually surprises complacent couples is rather ironic.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

Why people think a marriage ceremony means they no longer need to perform is beyond me

Marriage was invented when there was zero moral hazards involving couples and misbehaving. There was no choice BUT to make sure it worked. Used to be that if your marriage fell apart, your life fell apart. Or at the very least there was a much higher correlation to happy marriage = happy life. What you did to improve one (life) naturally and automatically improved the other (marriage).

Paradoxically, one of the goals of modern society (at least as defined by governments) is to provide as many social safety nets as possible, which consequently creates a significant amount of moral hazard. These social safety nets separate behavior from outcome as much as possible.

Because of the belief of the "right" to healthcare, for example, people are sicker than ever, since they've been relieved of the responsibility of self-motivated preventative healthcare.

Because there is very little negative incentives left for leaving a marriage (at least from a female standpoint) then few females will be self-motivated to keep a marriage working, if they aren't motivated by external factors.

Those females that DO have external factors (strong community ties, religious involvement, never-divorced close friends and family members) which act as negative incentives to keep them from leaving a marriage will be more motivated to keep it healthy. Those that don't, won't.

Generally speaking, few people will be motivated to maintain the health of ANYTHING when the negative incentives are removed. Moral Hazard is a *****.

The greatest self deception of humans is that we think we are motivated by positive forces, (staying healthy, making money, keeping relationships strong) but in reality most of us are more motivated by negative incentives (being healthy enough to not worry about impending death, just being able to pay the bills, getting away with putting in as little effort as possible, etc).

This is more and more evident as more and more negative incentives are removed (increasing in any kind of social safety net) and individuals become lazier and lazier.

Not coincidentally, this is greatly enhanced by our current fiat reserve system, which allows our governments to more or less print money to pay for all of these social safety nets. (Far beyond what they would be able to collect in taxes under a hard money system). And that most of the jobs females have (which allows them to be independent of any male income) are connected, in some way or another (e.g. various industrial complexes) to the money printing capabilities of the central banks of the world.

At the same time, this is the richest, and the most morally bankrupt society at the same time.

All because of the ability of the fiat currency regime to remove the natural (and needed) negative incentives by printing endless fiat.

It goes without saying that this current system is absolutely unsustainable, and when it ends, there will be a significant amount of human suffering. Like nothing ever experienced before.

 

[Rainman4707]

Is this even possible long term? It's not like any one woman could ever fully quench the male desire for variety, no.matter what she does. At some point doesn't contentment have to come from within?

Another thing, I've found that women are often very black and white with interest level. It's like once they decided they don't like you then they will make sure it is impossible for you to win them back. The best microcosm of this is the online dating date where she determines she doesn't find you attractive within the first 5 seconds before you can even open your mouth and there is nothing you can do to salvage it. This might be because there are usually lots of other men in the picture though, where that may not be the case in a marriage.

I'm not denying that relationship maintenance is needed at all, I'm just saying
1. You can only do so much, and
2. There is a point of no return

Yes, De angelo states that once a woman loses attraction for you, you cannot get her back. Might as well move onto the next one. He was talking about dating though. Not sure if this applies in marriage/LTR.

 

[Rainman4707]

I have to admit, I do think people exit marriages to quickly.

What is it it, something like 50% of marriages end in divorce. These people should'nt be getting married!!

 

[Huffman]

So what can a husband do in this case? does he have to change his nature to be more funny ?

This is thought in the wrong direction, you don't simply turn things around after 20 years of negative reinforcement. He'd be welcome to try, but it's probably way too late.