How important is physical attraction is a relationship or does it just fade over time?
I think it needs to be there in the first place, in order to have a relationship at all. But over time, people value their partner’s personality traits and characteristics moreso than their looks, although this doesn’t mean that looks aren’t still valuable. If someone loves you they are always going to find you beautiful in some way, but sometimes people have to be honest with themselves if they have let themselves go when they get comfortable in a relationship. You see those makeover shows sometimes, where a person gets a makeover and their partner gets so excited and happy about it. It’s not that they didn’t love their partner before, but it’s a joy for them to have a partner who stays beautiful throughout the years. Even if beautiful means just putting some effort into one’s appearance, having pride in yourself, etc. Someone who loves you wants to see that you love yourself as well.
Physical attraction is important in allowing two people to get together, but it fades over time as you know more about each other’s strengths and weaknesses. So in the end, if you want to maintain the relationship, you need to know more about acceptance than simply relying on the perfect model of the partner that you idolised.
It’s pretty important. Even in a long term relationship you still want to have physical attraction. I pick out men for their character and their physical qualities. Most men pick out women for something physical they like, hair color, eye color, figure, smile- and they stay attracted to certain things about them.
Yes. Except for asexual people, part of being in a relationship is being able to be physically intimate with your partner (not that actual sex is required, but most people don’t date without at least the distant potential of hopping in the sack with them, after marriage or otherwise). When people get older, the type of love they feel changes from what’s labeled as ‘passionate love’ to ‘companionable love’. Looks may not matter as much when your older because that drive has died down due to the fact that the women are infertile, and while men’s libido lasts longer, it fades eventually because of the low probability that they’ll do more than shoot blanks even if they are still potent. I love my family and many of my friends (most of whom are male), but I don’t love them romantically. At a young age, love without physical attraction is platonic love. It’s a very close friendship, which is what happens to the luck marriages as those in them age.
I always went out with men I was physically attracted to. Physical attraction remains important to me, because in my experience men want to have sex quite a lot, and if you don’t fancy them it gets tiresome. Keeping on having sex with someone you don’t fancy is very trying. It helps if you go on feeling attracted to a man. Even if you have been married for years your relationship can be given an impetus, if you find new ways of relating to each other that make him seem more appealing. This has happened in my own marriage, for instance.
