Is he with me for the wrong reasons?

[ComingFromTheSamePlace]

I've been with my partner for around 3 years.

He's told me I'm 'everything' he's ever wanted. We're both older (50 and 61).

Except that isn't true because I don't possess any of the actual qualities/features of women he's told me finds attractive or sexually appealing.

In fact, the only thing I'm confident he likes about me is that I've challenged some of his thinking and he now sees the world differently in some respects.

Like a university lecturer might challenge or change the way a student thinks.

But that doesn't really inspire physical attraction. I feel he is with me because his life is intellectually richer with me in it but that's about all.

Does it matter?

He sounds a great friend and companion.

But it sounds unhappy to me.

I wouldn't be happy with little sex and feeling less than, and you wouldn't be posting if you were either.

category12

You're right.

I just can't work out why it bothers me so much this time.

I believed the man I married was physically attracted to me when we got together, but the sexual interest dwindled within about the first 3 months. But I don't think either of us really realised for a long time because we felt similarly. Yet we still married and supported each other, etc. We were always physically affectionate, so there was lots of 'casual intimacy' and we put on a good front when we were with friends or family. No one ever questioned us!

I suppose its something I'm just used to in a relationship. It feels normal.

My partner and I have more casual intimacy at home than we do out in public but I also know that I actively distance myself now so he doesn't feel he 'ought to'.

The last time exh and I had sex, he told me he wasn't going to do it again because it made him feel dirty because it wasn't 'right'. I suppose that's how it makes me feel now.

I've also wondered if I'm bringing too much baggage alwith me. Maybe I've got it wrong. Maybe he made those 'lighthearted throwaway' comments about other women because he felt secure with me and assumed I felt the same and that it wouldn't bother me. I've read plenty of threads on here where discussing what people find attractive and who they find sexy is normal. Mayhe it wasn't intended to have the effect it did. But that still doesn't explain why he felt it was necessary or appropriate.

I don't really expect anyone to have the answers. It just helps to put things into words.

Maybe try some individual counselling sessions to see if you can work it through?

I think it’s a hard one to judge, for you or for any of us really.

You have this background of being criticised in relationships and so it is possible that you’re taking what were meant to be just throwaway comments as something much deeper.

My gut says that (from the examples you’ve given) these were just throwaway comments rather than targeted attacks at you, things like the Welsh accent one, I remember watching a program awhile ago where one of the main characters had an Irish accent and I said to my husband that I loved the Irish accent and I think it sounds quite sexy- that’s not me saying I don’t find my husband sexy, or that I’d rather be seeing any random with an Irish accent than him, it’s just a comment on one of my thoughts, nothing deeper than that. It sounds like if you were my husband in that situation and the next day we heard an Irish man in the pub you would have decided I’d rather be with him just because he has an Irish accent and that couldn’t be further from the truth.

My husband thinks Margot Robbie is sexy (can’t blame him😂), that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think I’m sexy despite the fact I don’t look like her. I think Idris Elba is sexy, my husband looks nothing like him but I still find my husband sexy and am attracted to him.

I'm in a similar situation OP in that the passion subsided after the first six months and we are now mainly just good friends. The difference is that I'm not very intelligent, so count yourself lucky on that point!

@ComingFromTheSamePlace I’m with you on the so-called throw away comments about other women - why make them in the first place? Especially if intimacy between you isn’t up to much. Would he be happy if you made comments about other hotness of other men nearby? Somehow I doubt it. On a scale of 1-5, how happy does this man make you? He doesn’t make you feel desired, attractive or appealing. Does he make you feel witty, kind, creative, HAPPY? Or just ‘intelligent’ and a good conversationalist? The fact that you’re on here for advice makes me think the man is the root cause of your discomfort, your gut is shouting at you about your unhappiness. Maybe listen to it.

@ComingFromTheSamePlace you don’t have a relationship. You have a friendship. Dump and enjoy life without all this second guessing and beating yourself up. You deserve more.

I think it's difficult because we are told to go for people with good personalities not just looks. I've never understood how you can be happy in a relationship with someone your not attracted to, fine if it's a friendship based relationship, but if you dont fancy your partner and they want sex its difficult for both of you. You feel pestered and they feel rejected.

I can see how it wears you down, he compliments celebrities or strangers and never you, the one that should matter the most. It’s like they will push the boundaries to see how far you let them go and what they can get away with. You are not wrong and it doesn’t seem quite right not to make you feel like you are truly all he wants. He could assume you already know how he feels about your attractiveness to him, nevertheless it can never get to know old can it? I would ask what he finds attractive about you, also if he’s keen to get physical with you, that also speaks without words.
Ultimately this would constantly grind on me though, having been with men that have shown similar traits, they would need to nip in the bud or I’d be off forever.

I wonder if he found and exploited a vulnerability in you—an egotism about your intellect? Like he flatters you about being different from those other girls because you changed his outlook or explained the Bosnian situation or carried interest loophole or something abstruse.

I don’t mean to be rude! I pride myself in being witty and am highly educated and politically involved. These are all things my DH openly admires and enjoys about me. So I have lots of ego wrapped up in his opinion of me and mine of myself. That’s normal. But he also adores me and finds me physically attractive. I would not want to be admired for my intellect (such as it is) but not also loved for my body and in a sensual way.

I think you may have a point.

But my response would be that there was no relevant context to the comments he's made. So nothing to prompt them. He just told me. Like he felt I needed to know. Like he just needed to say it.

I never make comments along these lines so they're never comments within a conversation and they never lead to a conversation. They just hang there and continue to do so as a reminder of where I'm lacking.

if he was equally attracted to me, I don't think it would bother me as much but it feels like they're implied criticisms of me because the silence around 'me' is deafening.

A lot of the things/people he has mentioned represent things he is enamoured by. Eg he's told me several times that he loves the [insert nationality]. He loves the language, the people, the culture. He speaks the language fairly well.

One of my friends is of this nationality and, whilst I don't think he 'fancies' her, as such, he is quite 'enamoured' by her. He engages her in conversations about her culture, music, films. And delights in it when she speaks her native tongue - I can see it on his face and hear it in his voice and laughter.

We've been out for drinks a few times and I'll often go to the loo or the bar when they're talking because I have no particular interest in it. It's not something she ever brings up in those terms when it's just the two of us and she never speaks in her native tongue around me unless she's struggling to think of the English word. But I can't just sit there and feel invisible and irrelevant and it serves as a reminder that he isn't enamoured by anything about me so i leave. I don't represent a passion for him in any way.

He never looks at me the way he looks at her when she's talking.

It isn't helped by the fact he told me last year, when we were discussing a man we know that most men become more realistic about who they can attract as they get older, which, in light of other things he's said, sounded a lot like there are the women he finds beautiful, sexy, pretty or is enamoured by (the out of his league, unattainable dream) and then there is me.

Like accepting the car or the house he has because he just knows that the ones he wants are out of his reach but he can always dream.

I'm the consolation prize.

@ComingFromTheSamePlace sorry - I’d dump this guy. He is really doing nothing for you except making you feel so much ‘less than’. And you’re NOT. Please don’t settle for this.

When you say he makes comments, is this what you mean? That he loves the culture, the people, the language. You happen to have a friend from that background, and he enjoys engaging with her about it. And from that, you conclude you’re irrelevant, a consolation prize?

OP, I genuinely mean this with care: you need therapy. This isn’t about him admiring a culture or chatting with someone who shares it. It’s about something much deeper in how you see yourself.

I don't think it would bother him really. He is far more likely to notice an attractive man than me. I know this because he will sometimes ask if I saw someone or comment appreciatively on how good a man looks and I haven't even noticed them!

When we first got together, he described my closest male friend as "the most impossibly handsome man" he'd ever seen without a hint of self doubt. So I don't think he sees it in the same way.

I used to do a creative hobby. It was something more male dominated and one that a lot of men 'fetishise'. I've dated men in the past who liked that I did it but then quickly didn't like that other men would see me doing it.

I don't fit the stereotype of women who do it generally though because the women are regarded as 'sexy'. The fact that I'm "not very sexy for a..." was one of the things my ex used to criticise me for.

My partner made a comment about a year ago that boiled down to I would look sexier doing it if I conformed to the stereotype a bit more and I haven't done it since. That's not just him though. I'll never be able to escape those criticisms so I've just taken myself out of the game.

OP, how are things financially?
What is your set up?
50 is a woman in her prime.
11 years is a big age difference which you will increasingly notice.

I think you need to decide if living with a good friend is really what you want to settle for.

Nurse with a purse is not a great position to be in, as in you making his life easier by your presence and by your contributing income.

You will be settling for very little and potentially giving a lot.

Would you seek some therapy to help figure out where your head is at?

Oh and I think his comments about what he finds attractive, being so different from you is not very kind.
I can't imagine my husband of many years doing it and I can't imagine my friends being thrilled to hear this either.🤨

I think your last line sums it up.

I wouldn't say it's a vulnerability or an ego thing. It's been a hindrance a lot of the time.

My exh used to say I was like The Flash because my mind was very quick. I was always several steps ahead in any conversation (less so now I'm older though! 😁) He said everyone thought it would be great to be The Flash because he could do everything so quickly but he, himself, found it excruciating because everything and everyone around him seemed to move so slowly.

It's not something I pride in myself. I didn't go into a particularly intellectual career. It's not something I judge others on. It's no more a reflection on me as a person that my height - which I also had no control over it's just a thing. But it is something I look for in a partner - an ability and willingness to engage at that level. And, especially, someone I can learn from too.

But, yes, I feel like that is the thing he values in me and is most fascinated by.

He's not done a 'not like other girls' on me. He's made general comments that he can now say things that someone else understands and he really enjoys the intellectual challenge but that's generally. Not related to women. He's never directly linked it to his exes or criticised them in any way.

But I feel like, to him, it's my USP and what attracted him to me.

It's also something I was criticised heavily for as a child. So it is nice when it's appreciated.

My partner made a comment about a year ago that boiled down to I would look sexier doing it if I conformed to the stereotype a bit more

Did it really boil down to that, though? Or is that just how you’ve chosen to interpret it? What did he actually say?

I think the problem is that it was 'nipped in the bud' and only the occasional comment has leaked out since then but the damage was done.

It's not that he enjoys engaging with her on it. It's how he does it.

It's just the awareness that I don't ever inspire the same positive emotions of passion and joy in him.

OP, I’m 56. I was in a sexless marriage for years and felt worn out and unattractive. We split up and 10 years ago (at 46) I went on OLD and after kissing a few frogs I met my now DP. There isn’t a moment of the day I don’t know he’s mad about me. He tells me I look beautiful (I’m a 56 year old chonk), holds my hand in public, and is enthusiastic and appreciative (and just thrilled to be there) in the boudoir.

The point is, if that’s what you want, you’re just wasting time with this man because he’s not going to give you that. That’s not who he is and no amount of fishing for compliments is going to change that.

I don't feel in my prime.

I feel unworthy and unimportant. I don't feel like I matter.

I have told him this and he always seems surprised and I think he believes it's an occasional negative thought that pops into my head.

I don't think he realises that it's a constant narrative that underpins everything.

Financially, we both earn similarly so no difference there but he is better off overall and has family he will inherit from whereas I have no family to inherit from.

I don't really value myself because it felt for so long that I was screaming it into the void and trying to prove to everyone else/myself/who knows that I'm worth more from relationships, family, friendships, work and now I feel I've just given up.

If absolutely no one else can see my worth, perhaps it really isn't there?

That's not true actually. My line manager said something at work yesterday that was so lovely and unexpected that I felt awkward and nearly cried.

How have we gone from your partner possibly not finding you physically attractive (but loving lots of other things about you) to no one seeing your worth?

OP, you know you’re being irrational.

Yes I was just thinking the same thing. It definitely seems like a lot of this is in OPs mind more than anything. She has told herself these things and now she believes them.

My dh can occasionally be thoughtless and make stupid comments. Physically I'm not his type and he isn't mine but there's just something about the way he smiles at me that means nothing else matters. I'm short and dumpy and grey but he makes me feel tall, slim and stunning, he completely adores me, finds me incredibly sexy and tells me constantly. That's what your relationship is missing. I will say though that some of the comments do sound like negging, may not be intentional but for example the activity you did and he said you're not very sexy for a..... that is negging.

Yup. Believing them, thinking about them obsessively, and having what sound like intrusive thoughts.