Can a Relationship Work If You're Not Attracted to Him?

[Anthonia]

I throughly enjoy reading the advice given in this forum. They have given me great inspiration and insight as far as relationships are concerned.

My question concerns a situation I am in and seeking your opinion on the issue of how important is attraction.

I've had a great friendship with a man I've known for over 20 years.

We have gone out on many occasions, and we both enjoy each other's company.

He tells me he'd like to have a relationship with me. I have never felt any attraction towards him.

I sometimes wish there could be even a bit of that attraction but there isn't.

Then I say to myself, I'm getting older and chances become slimmer of me meeting someone to share my life with. Maybe if I decide to pursue a relationship with him, the attraction may develop? But at the same time I don't want to just be with someone I know there's no attraction to.

What are your thoughts on attraction in a relationship and do you think a relationship can develop or survive without it?

Thanks again and best wishes!

[Mabel]

Can a relationship work if there's no attraction?

Normally, I would say "no" right off.

But not so fast.

When you are younger, attraction is almost always a non-negotiable MUST.

It's crucial THEN for a lot of reasons.

One of the reasons is that if you're not attracted to your partner, you'll probably find yourself VERY attracted to someone else.

That can happen even if you are attracted to your partner, so why set up a recipe for disaster?

Why sell yourself short? Why not wait for the person who rings all your bells?

But let's get back to our questioner's situation.

So... what if you're a little older, maybe not much older, but let's say that 50 is not light years away (or maybe it's in the rearview mirror).

Attraction is just as important as ever. You still feel it, or don't feel it.

But can a relationship without attraction ever work out great?

Ask yourself this question:

Question: So you're not *attracted* to him, but are you *repelled* by him in any way?

Does the thought of being naked with him cause you to break out in a cold sweat (and not a good way)?

Or are you *Neutral* in your feelings right now?

Neutral can become attraction. It may already BE but you don't know it yet.

If the thought of wrapping your arms around him is a pleasant thought, then you've got something to work with here that may grow!

If you think you'd start avoiding the bedroom and going to bed at different times, then obviously the attraction is going south. And not in a good way.

[Gray]

What is This Strange Thing Called Chemistry?

As a psychotherapist, I have many clients who are searching for love. When I ask them what they are looking for in a partner, they will usually start by saying, "I want someone I'm attracted to."

Unfortunately, when I ask them their reaction upon meeting a new person, they will almost invariably say, "I'm not attracted to them, or, we don't have any chemistry."

I have always been mystified by these statements. What is this strange thing called chemistry? Why is it first on everyone's list? Why, especially for those I work with who have a hard time finding love, is it so hard to find this "chemistry?"

I have recently come up with an idea that finally makes sense of this whole thing. This idea also suggests some ways that you can work on yourself to improve the likelihood that you will find the love you want, if that is what you are searching for in your life.

For all too many people, attraction seems to me to be one of the most unreliable measures of finding the relationship you want. We are very often attracted to exactly the wrong people. Is this purely a sexual thing? Is it completely based on looks? I don't think so. Just look at your friend's relationship choices.

Why is it that people who have a hard time finding love often find themselves attracted to people who are not available, and can't seem to find anyone who is? Why do they find themselves unable to get out of relationships where their needs are clearly not being met, but can't seem to get interested in anyone who will meet their needs?

The trickiest mystery about attraction is that is appears to be something we have no control over. Ask anyone and they will say that they are either attracted to someone or not. We all experience this as something that happens to us. Chemistry either happens or it doesn't. If you are attracted to the wrong people, you're just not lucky.

When you believe this, it feels like all you can do is wait for the "right" person to come along. You hope that a person will magically appear who you feel chemistry with who feels the same thing for you and is also a suitable life mate. If that doesn't happen you are exonerated from blame, because this is all some mystery beyond your control.
We Create Chemistry or Attraction

Here is where I want to suggest an idea so radical, so different, that it may seem entirely implausible. Attraction, chemistry, isn't something that just "happens." It is something - albeit unconsciously - that you create, that you make happen. There is no such thing as "attraction." Really what is happening is that we are controlling our own emotional responses, out of our awareness.

How do I know? Having worked with many individuals and couples over the years, I am struck by the fact that every single person has their own relationship style. From the same pool of available partners, some people easily meet people and form quick bonds with them, but grow bored easily. Some can't seem to meet anyone at all. Others fall in love and create lasting, good bonds. Some people only get into relationships with people who are bad for them. Some people find good partners but have a hard time making a commitment.

Why does everyone have such different experiences with relationship? The truth is we create these experiences more than we know.

How do we create our experiences? We all carry around a "map" of the world, and a "map" of ourselves. We expect the world to be a certain way, and we expect ourselves to be a certain way. When we have experiences that don't fit into this map, most often we will do what we can to make the information fit. What do I mean?

For example, let's say you hate yourself and you say the world is full of untrustworthy people. You meet someone who is nice and kind. You can't believe that such a thing exists, so you don't notice the person. Or, you tell yourself it's not true, and you think the person is bad.

When you meet someone who fits your picture of yourself and the world, it rings a bell. If you meet someone who treats you bad, it confirms how you think of yourself and others. You tell yourself, "this is what I deserve."

This can work for attraction, too. If you meet someone who doesn't fit into the picture, you don't have a response. It just doesn't make sense. You don't feel chemistry. But if you meet someone who fits the bill of someone who will treat you badly, you find it exciting, because it feels like home.

Why don't people feel attraction to someone who is good for them? Usually it is because of fear. Instead of feeling the fear that goes along with something that doesn't fit the picture, or map, we have of ourselves and the world, we shut down. Shutting down is what we do when there is a risk of feeling fear. Instead of feeling fear, we feel nothing.

We don't realize we are shutting ourselves down. It just feels like we are "not attracted" to, or have no "chemistry" with that person.
The Secret to Finding Love is Creating Attraction or Chemistry

I'm not trying to say that you should be willing to get into a relationship with anyone. What I am saying is that when we are coming from a place of love instead of fear, it is easy to feel attracted to more and more people. As we become more and more aware of our emotions and what drives our emotions we have more choice.

When we are open-hearted, we have available to us a pool of an endless number of people to whom we are attracted. Then, instead of feeling like we are at the mercy of some mysterious thing called "chemistry," that almost never happens, instead we can make a choice about the best person to be in a relationship with.

The solution to finding someone to love is not finding someone to whom you are "attracted." The answer is to love yourself, and open your heart, and if you do you'll find that you feel chemistry with the whole world.

[Elliot]

The book by the name, Are You The One For Me?, written by Barbara De Angelis, Ph.D., brought to light some interesting notions about relationships. I dusted it off during my new-year house-cleaning, scanned it, and it got me thinking. (Very timely. Never mind its archaic publishing date of 1992.) If you've been reading this blog, you'll know I often differentiate 'relationships' from 'love'. They are not one in the same. One may beget the other, but they remain separate concepts. Love is a conscious state of being. It can be expressed in a variety of different ways and is found everywhere, even alone. Love needs no partner; it just is. A relationship is an earthly pairing of two or more entities. The connections formed therein-be it between parent and child, friend and friend, lover and lover, or man and dog-can be expressions of love. Healthy relationships require mutual consideration and respect. Love, on the other hand, requires no physical expression to exist.

The author, Barbara De Angelis, speaks of vibrational energy as the reason we're attracted to people; the reason we form relationships with another. Analogous to the way we respond to music: a soundwave vibrates against our body's own energy to create an effect-one of enjoyment, rage, excitement, sadness, disgust, beauty, or peace. We enjoy listening to sounds (music) with which our system resonates, De Angelis writes. And just as sound gives off energy, so do people. She goes on to categorize these recognizable vibrations:

Your physical vibration is the sum of everything you do to your body with food, cigarettes, drugs or alcohol, exercise, or sex, and can also be affected by strong mental or emotional vibrations.

Your mental vibration is the sum of all your thoughts, judgments and beliefs.

Your emotional vibration is the sum of all your feelings, past and present, including all your emotional programming.

Your spiritual vibration is the sum of your sense of peace with yourself and your world, your spiritual philosophy, as well as a reflection of all your other vibrations combined.

I could expound more on each area of vibration, but we'll save that for a later post.

Your spiritual vibration is the one most immediately accessible to anyone who meets you, because it remains the sum of all your experiences, beliefs, emotions, etc. This vibration manifests itself as approachability or aloofness. It manifests as charm and charisma, captured instantly in a smile or a stare-usually the thing that maintains steady interest longer than just mere good looks. You may have felt you were drawn to someone for the first time as if you knew him forever. Or you felt so intrigued by someone that you longed for a conversation over lunch. Then, like a loyal k-9, physical attraction follows closely behind. Or it doesn't. Physical attraction (the physical vibration resonance) shouldn't be mistaken for compatibility anyway. "Physical attraction is one element of a compatible relationship, but it alone will not be enough to make you and your partner compatible," De Angelis advises. Compatibility requires a resonance in all the categories-a luring from all four aspects of a person.

Wherever, however, whatever the allure, you will feel a strong desire to be around this person that speaks to your energies. They may make you feel vibrant with passion and life. Essentially, we'll be turned on by that person. Where it leads from there takes on a myriad of expressions. It can result in a great business relationship, bonded friendship, brief love affair, or life-long marriage. "When you find yourself sexually attracted to someone, it probably means the two of you have very similar vibrations in one or more areas," De Angelis says.

So, when pairing yourself with another, you're combining two frequencies, two wavelengths. They may come together harmoniously, or there may be a jarring of energies that presents conflict. Reality is, that harmony or conflict mirrors your own energy-that person is a mere reflection of yourself. Whatever trait you clash with, you might find you need to work that particular energy-namely, a negative one-out of your system. You can use the relationship formed with this new person with his own energy pattern to learn more about yourself. What you find abrasive in him, or tender, will be what's found (or lost) in you. Whatever your energy pattern, you will attract a complement.

All in all, we resonate with people whose vibrational energy is similar to ours. Just like magnets, like attracts like. We're drawn to those like us in any one of the aforementioned categories. Why do you fall for the same type of man? Why do you always get involved with clingy women? Why do we act like our mothers or behave like our fathers? Here's why. That resonance speaks to an energetic attraction. That attraction, although encompassing primarily similarities, can mean there are also disparities between you two in any one of the vibration categories. A 'disparate attraction' represents an area needing your attention. Via your connection formed with this person, areas are brought to light that you two relate on in some way or another. So the question arises, do you need to remove yourself from a particular recurring complementary energy pattern in order to enrich your own energies? Or do you need more of what that other person offers to further fortify a weakened physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual area within yourself? If it's the absence of a mother, then the other partner might be mothering. If it's an addiction problem, then the other might be adamantly sober. You see, attraction works like puzzle pieces. The energy in a certain area, depleted or abundant, scouts its match. (Life is a bit like a science project, isn't it? A chemistry experiment?)

Because compatibility demands all four vibrations be magnetic, whatever vibration is lacking upon first introduction can be bolstered into a more contributive part of the relationship with time. Say the physical attraction isn't there at first. Sharing thoughts and feelings with one another may give way to a mental and emotional resonance that sparks an eventual sexual resonance. Attraction is less about appearance, and more about who he is when he's with you and how you feel about yourself with you're with him. For compatibility to be clear, there will be an attraction to the whole person-however gradual that might arise. Immediate attraction doesn't necessarily equate to longevity. Allowing the time to get to know someone is in our best interest for the long-term relationship. In getting to know that person, we're given the opportunity to learn more about ourselves. We just have to look in the right direction. Inward. Time and space give us a chance to explore how we are with this person: do my insecurities creep up when I'm with him; do I seek rebellion when I'm with him; do I feel the most 'alive' I can feel around him? And so on. Rather than pointing fingers and dissecting a person for flaws, look at your reactions, your nuances and your end of the conversation. Are you hearing your own music? Anything play like a broken record?

Healthy relationships begin with our awareness of the energy we emanate. They present the greatest opportunity for rebirth and growth. They require continuous, deliberate effort... as we are works-in-progress. Adjust the tuning of your own symphony in order to create the harmony you seek.

[Anthonia]

Thank you all for your advice.