To think it's crazy that we hang our stability on sexual attraction?

[NoisyDenimShaker]

This post is about being married (or as good as married).

As I've aged, and seen entire lives blown up over sex, it's occurred to me how completely crazy it is that we organise our entire lives around something as fleeting, whimiscal, and delicate as sexual attraction.

Our life's finances, our children's sense of home and stability, our mental health, our very home, which should be our sanctuary, is all ultimately hung on sexual attraction.

It's. Crazy.

And I don't have a better idea. That doesn't mean our species' way isn't INSANE.

I know people might say, well it begins with sexual attraction but it develops into something more, a shared history, being family, being best friends, deep love. I agree wholeheartedly with that, and it's my answer, too. I'm someone who was made for commitment, and I get more bonded and interested in my partner as time goes on. I'm not someone who gets bored with commitment.

However, after many years together, my husband did not feel the same. The lure of the big wide world beckoned, other women seemed more attractive, and off he went. And he used to be so in love with me. The same thing happened to a good friend of mine. Her husband adored her, until he decided more sex was more important and went off seeking it.

And we've all seen the threads on here about runaway husbands.

YOU might be comfortable with longterm married/committed love, but we really don't have much control over the possibility of a restless or unfaithful partner. And so our entire lives can get blown up, easily, over sex.

The truth is that all our security and stability is hung on sexual attraction, and I think it's utterly insane.

I have no answer, but it does occur to me that the aristo way of doing things - marrying for business reasons - might be more sensible than our way, which is to organise things around often-fickle hearts.

I'm getting divorced after a very long separation and I'm determined that my home and security will never depend on a partner's sexual attraction to me again, so I guess I'm heading for a LAT relationship if I find someone I really like. (Living Apart Together.)

I really miss not having a life partner, but on the other hand, I'm glad that the stability and security of my home isn't built on the bedrock of marriage, which is - according to a divorce lawyer who wrote a book entitled IF YOU'RE IN MY OFFICE IT'S ALREADY TOO LATE (or something) - well, according to him, marriage is all about sex. I had thought sex was a part of it, but he reckons marriage is all about sex.

Well, I don't want my security and stability to be tied to sexual attraction. It's too fleeting.

Sorry for the essay. What are your thoughts?

No smart woman hangs her stability on sexual attraction. It’s crucial to build a solid foundation based on shared values, respect, and mutual support rather than something so fleeting. Long-term security comes from emotional and practical compatibility, not just physical attraction.

Same to say exactly this! I am with my partner because we have a sexual, emotional, and intellectual connection. We share values, morals, life goals, finances, and aspirations, and we have a family together. That's what I've based my stability on. Not just my desire to shag him (that part is just a happy bonus 😂).

OP covered that in what I thought was a very convincing argument. She wasnt saying that sex is the only thing that holds couples together, shes saying it has the power to break them apart.

Your comment (and the next one) makes it sound as if every relationship that in one way or another broke down because of sex involved a 'not-so-smart woman'. I can understand why people might want to look at it that way though, it's reassuring to think 'I'm smart, it won't happen to me'.

Historically it was a need for two peoples labour to keep house and livestock and crops that kept people together. Today most peoples live aren’t so intertwined, yoi can feed yourself without your partner

You are correct that it’s stupid to base your whole life around how much you fancy someone.
For many people attraction only comes with the personality. It does for me. It takes months before I’d be interested in sleeping with someone.
There will be many people who will come along and tell you that they fancied the pants of their husband from the minute they met and now they’ve been happily together for 20 years. These people exist. They’re the lucky ones.
In the end any successful and happy marriage that lasts into your 60s can’t be based on sex.

Being on MN and seeing the occasional posts from men has really opened my eyes. They are ALL about the sex. It doesn’t matter how much he loves his wife and kids, or how long he’s been married, it’s getting his dick wet that matters most. The stories all boil down to that one thing. It’s baffling to me.

The few exceptions I’ve known in RL were those men for whom loyalty is an integral part of their character and who they are. And those who fear ever losing contact with their children. And anecdotally, possibly those with a low sex drive.

I've lived in countries where marriage was 'compulsory' and you married a good match, not for love. Affairs were common.

If you're lucky you'll meet someone decent that you fancy. If you settle, it rarely works. Sexual intimacy is important and people who don't think so, are gobsmacked when their partner leaves.

Did you read the OP properly? That's exactly what she did! And he fucked off for a shag anyway! JFC.

As the old (somewhat sexist, sorry) saying goes --
"Kissing don't last. Cookery do."
You can extrapolate cookery to DIY if you want to continue the sexist theme, humour or steadfastness, religion or shared values, whatever you like. But the underlying wisdom seems right to me.

Should add to the above, it was generally said by a man!

I mean, we’re animals. Animals are driven by procreation. So while for humans it’s not good for family stability, I’m not at all surprised it’s the case.

I would however argue that a man that fucks off for sex does not actually love you.

The 99 per cent of men are all about the sex or at least that special pshychological thread that holds them to us, no matter how we scored attraction wise to them to start with - some men do love wholeheartedly even women with no looks at all - look at the wife of Andre Rieu

but men do generally stay for life either out of love, duty, sex, morality and so on

I agree, but however much you might not want your relationship not to be dependent on sex, you can't stop potential partners from making it the be-all and end-all And since men know full well that it often isn't the be-all and end-all for women, they are hardly likely, when wanting a relationship with a woman, to be honest about the fact that it is the most important thing for them.

I know it's not a very modern view, but since men are capable of impregnating many women, for a very large part of their lifespan, and sex drive exists to promote the passing on of your genes, and that conceiving a child has no physical risk for men, it's not exactly surprising that men's priorities in this area are pretty different from women's.

My husband is tall, handsome, all of it. I am on the shorter side but very very charismatic, booby and with massive green eyes. He was saying things about not my type when we started but the sex went fireworks and has never stopped happening in a healthy way. I personally do think look amazing but ok, if a tall handsome man told me I am not that amazing , because I am short, curvaceous and so on, I would accept it, but the man is still here and actually the more the years go, the more afraid of losing me, because apparently my sex appeal doesnt need height and slim body.

I have a saying: call it a man and leave it alone.

Marriage/partnership is based on sex. Ergo, our lives (if we're in a committed, cohabiting relationship) are built on sex. It's a really, really uncomfortable truth, one I learned the hard way. And going forward, I say no to building my security on such a shaky institution, which sucks because I'm into commitment and marriage. (Well, I was.)

Like many women, I also feel that sex is only one part of marriage and that all the deep stuff - family, love, connection, shared values and goals, and a shared history - is more important than sex.

And if our DH/DP feels the same way, perfect! We've hit the jackpot.

But what about all those DHs or DPs who don't feel the same way forever? Who were loving partners for years and then had affairs and/or left?

My point is that we build our lives on betting that someone else will keep up their end of the sexual-fidelity bargain, but we have very little control over that. And yet we base our lives around that promise, which too often turns out to be one that our partners could not, or did not want to, keep.

And then our entire lives shatter.

As a society, how could we be so stupid as to create our worlds on a bedrock of sex? Because that IS what it comes down to. Ask anyone who has felt buried alive in a sexless marriage even though they love their spouse, or whose spouse has left their homes, children, extended families, and shared histories for someone else, or who has found out that their spouse is having an affair.

Marriage is not fit for purpose. If you bought an oven that only worked 44 percent of the time (or whatever the divorce rate is, something like that), you'd be so appalled with this product that you would never keep it.

Marriage does not work for us as a society, and that's a great pity because I'm a romantic who loves commitment.

I hate that our choices are to invest everything in this shaky, rickety, institution that only works half the time, or to live alone.

The solution would be non-monogamy, but I don't see how we'd easily move to that system being normalised.

Our society still does ask that we pair off, to raise children and afford a mortgage. These things are still hard to do alone. Sex is part of that package. When you stop being attracted to someone the choices are sexless life (loads of people opt for this), forced sex, or divorce.

I don't mean your case OP, but especially in my female friends choosing divorce it's not all about sex. The sexual disinterest is a symptom. When you stop respecting someone because they don't pull their weight or they're mean to you, sexual attraction goes away too.

In the olden days, you couldn't easily walk away. Socially it was unacceptable, and practically you needed two people. In a sense, nothing hung on sexual attraction (although affairs were common, I assume). But was that better? I don't know, but I don't think so!

Exactly. Marriage - and some of my friends' experiences - taught me how deeply sex-driven many, many men are.

No, I guess not. He did a very convincing impression of it for a few years though.

I mean, do they generally stay for life? The high divorce rate would indicate otherwise.

YANBU. What humans will risk, and give up, for sex really has to be seen to be believed. And I don't have a better alternative. Sexual attraction and decent sex is important to me, and so is stability and compatibility and shared values and all that jazz. And childrearing in particular really does require a two-person investment if possible. Perhaps the marriage-as-breeding-and-business arrangement has something to be said for it, although it carries a pretty high risk of illegitimate children that can throw a wrench in things anyway.

The divorce rate is not as high as you say though, especially not in first marriages. It topped out at 40% some time ago and has been falling since.

It’s all very well being worthy and saying your relationship is based on more than that but it’s bloody not! If your Dh didn’t fancy you in the first place it would never have happened. Op has a good point

I agree with all that. It's what makes me stop and consider how completely insane it is to expose ourselves to getting so hurt via building our worlds on marriage.

As a society, how could we be so stupid as to create our worlds on a bedrock of sex?

It's a recent phenomenon. As recently as the previous generation, divorce wasn't socially acceptable. People got married for all sorts of reasons, including sexual attraction, affection, financials, respect. Usually after a short courtship. But once you're in the marriage, you settled in for the long haul. You couldn't leave on account of sex.

In more recent times, we've kept that same model for starting out in life, but replaced the commitment aspect. Now you can divorce if you're unhappy with any aspect of the relationship, including sex. And of course, life has changed dramatically so that women have rights, are typically able to provide as well as men can, can control their reproduction, there's more mobility and we're more mobile.

If we were designing a system anew I doubt we'd end up with this one. It is the way that it is because of (mostly practical) historical reasons.

I think it's incredibly complex. I've seen enough of life to know that people who are happily married (including having regular sex), who love their spouses and would in many cases die for them can seemingly forget all of that when they meet someone who just sparks every sexual receptor in their body. I've reached the conclusion that it has to be partly biologically driven, as nature wants us all to procreate. This is not to say it's inevitable as we all have choice.

Women experience that drive too but IME women are more in control of their responses because of socialisation and many say no, despite wanting to. Historically, being a woman and having an affair was incredibly risky. Even though we are now much more equal, the legacy of that still exists on our socialisation. I also think of the women that do 'give in' to it, many are just much better than men at keeping it secret for the same reasons.

I'm now married. Happily. It's a second marriage for both of us after disastrous first marriages and a long period of being single for both of us. We got together and lived apart then together for some time before getting married and entered marriage much more as a business contract than a declaration of love. I think it helps that we're financially very equal and have been able to arrange things so that in the event of divorce a 50/50 split would have no impact on things like pensions etc.