"I've never found him attractive"

Unlikely really.
38 years and counting.
And now they kids have moved on its better than ever.
Quite sad you think that really.

Sexual attraction isn't solely dependent on physical appearance. If it was, the human population would be far lower and far better looking 😅I've met good looking men who I have no desire towards whatsoever, and average looking men who I have been extremely attracted to.

Besides sexual attraction and money, there are other things needed in relationships - shared ideals and interests, similar views on life and hopes for the future, emotional support and availability...

If the question asked is about someone having never been attracted to their partner (whatever they look like), I think that is rather strange and I feel sorry for any men conned into a relationship based on dishonesty.

Ideally, have your own financial independence so you don't need to 'settle' and accept money over all else.

So there is no guarantee that even if you married someone who you found attractive at the time that they would stay attractive to you for the rest of your life

This is where I think the importance of both head and heart comes in for making a marriage decision. While I don't think people should settle for someone they have no romantic interest in, purely as they'd be a good spouse on paper, neither do I think they should ignore the parade of red flags just because they're head over heels in love.

@Doteycat it will come eventually to one of you at least.

My abusive XH would have happily gone on having sex with me while despising me. In fact one of the things that made him angry was that i stopped having sex with him after he told me he didn't think he loved me anymore. I was supposed to put out while he made up his mind.

Read your Victorian social history. Men and women needed each other to survive in a harsh eorld so linked up in couples for that reason. The perfect romantic love match is amazing but reality is many couples get together for practical reasons. Not me I got very lucky but wouldn’t judge pragmatists.

When I’ve seen it, it’s invariably done in a virtue signalling way, and the in contrast to a woman that isn’t happy about finding her partner unattractive:

“you’re a shallow harpy that is doomed to misery for thinking looks are even the slightest bit important. I’ve never found my partner attractive, because I’m the deep sort that considers physical attraction to be entirely irrelevant!”.

Because apparently it’s impossible to find a partner that is attractive AND a good person AND financially stable (and if that’s important to you, not because you expect to live off them, but want someone on equal footing to you, then you’re a gold digging harpy as well), and you should accept that you need to settle for three-teeth-Keith. Or die alone with cats, as if that isn’t indeed preferable.

This is such a crock of shite. 😂

No one is talking about it working the other way round, sometimes people marry and then the love and mutual respect grows. Some of my in laws have had arranged marriages and over time developed true genuine love and affection. No passionate beginnings but real love.

Yes, and what’s more, these women are not having sex they don’t want once a week. If the threads on dissatisfying/sexless marriages are anything to go by, it’s closer to once a year after kids are on the scene.

Not always.

I am still v attracted to dh and him to me.
I still get butterflies when he winks at me.
It can wear off but not always.

Well sometimes you have a great sex life initially and then after a couple of years it dwindles down with kids, work stress, health issues, irritating personality, infidelity, ED etc. So there is no guarantee that even if you married someone who you found attractive at the time that they would stay attractive to you for the rest of your life. Or your spouse might lose interest for the reasons mentioned above.

They’re not doing it once a week though, that’s the point. You said so yourself in your OP - these marriages invariably end up sexless or with such low frequency of sex they may as well be sexless (in a recent thread a woman said her and her husband hadn’t had sex for 5 years). Women in this situation are only gritting their teeth for a couple of years until they’re married/pregnant. For some that is acceptable to get the baby and financial security they want.

It’s the men who walk straight into these situations that you should direct you concern/pity towards, the women are being rational and realistic in order to get what they want in the timeframe they want it.

It is funny you should say that. I secretly play a game in my head to pass the time while at children's parties where I imagine I am a single woman again, at a house party, and wonder which one I would try to catch the eye of. It is always, always the one who looks most like my DH, and I have, to date, never come across a bloke in these scenarios that I would rather shag than my DH.

I am lucky in that I have always had a clear type (brown eyes and dark colouring have reduced me to putty since my mid-teens) and my DH is conventionally attractive in a tall, dark and handsome kind of a way.

We met when I was 21 and he was 25, have been together 15 years and celebrate 10 years married soon, and I love and fancy him more, and want and have sex with him more than I have ever done before. Sure, time will change our bodies but I do believe there will always be a spark if we bother to keep at it. The spark and the deeper intimacy can very much co-exist.

oh the horror - does love and lust in a less than "respectable" area score anything? Have you plotted the respectable areas in rightmove's next world map?

I never heard anyone saying this.

Besides, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Anyone is attractive if the right person lays their eyes on them.

I do think there's a difference, again, between "I want to marry a handsome man", and "I want to marry a man I am physically attracted to", and that seems to be something that gets confused here. Like some people have difficulty unpicking their own attraction from what society deems good looking.

Exactly this ^^ whether you marry with your head or your heart (or more likely other regions), it's a risk as to whether it works out or not. You could marry someone you don't find attractive physically but your bond grows and you have a happy marriage. Or conversely, you could marry someone you are besotted by and find as the years go by, you are not suited. There are no guarantees. Everyone has their own reasons for their choice in partner - one person might have had a really insecure upbringing and find a safe, secure, compatible partner with low attraction at the top of their list of relationship needs. However, for another, attraction might be on their list of non-negotiables.

Did she say she thought he was ugly, just those words, or did she say more about his looks.

Not the best-looking doesn’t automatically mean ugly.

There was definitely an era 25-30 years ago where if a woman wasn’t married by 30 she started panicking. Older people would warn her that she’d be left “on the shelf”. I know lots of people who sort of settled, because spinsters did exist and were scorned. It’s so different now. Yes some were lucky but they were super attractive. Plain girls often did settle for someone who wasn’t repulsive, but where the chemistry was fading.

Alpha males don't exist

The thing is men are far less picky and have low standards when it comes to the casual (I.e. sex). Most women can very easily attract most men for sex. It doesn't mean the man wants more than that though.

There's at least two motives that can drive "settling".

1. Women are conditioned to believe that a bad marriage is better than no marriage. "You're too picky, you'll end up old and alone" narrative with "old and alone" regarded as a bad thing when it's actually not.
2. The woman who wants children doesn't have time to spend searching for "Mr Right" so she has to settle for "Mr Right Now" to father her kids and then divorce him later.

Attraction wears off anyway over time so your marriage could be in tatters anyway. Plus the men often find partners less attractive after a certain age anyway so it works both ways. Marriage isn't just about from the chandeliers I'm afraid. There is more to it than that.

YABU. How attractive a man is in his 20s has nothing to do with whether a couple is in an unhappy marriage 20 years later. I don't know any woman who openly says they married someone they didn't fancy. And attractiveness is influenced by many things, not just physical.

You are conflating a lot of different issues and blaming women for failing marriages. Think there is some internalised misogyny you need to work on.