Is my partner no longer attracted to me?

How do you redefine attraction? 

We all know that sinking feeling. It could be set off by something as small as a glance, a certain look in your partner’s eyes that you don’t recognise. Maybe at night, they roll to the other side of the bed instead of holding you close like they usually do, or the gaps between intimate moments grow longer, from days to weeks, unspoken lengths of time that begin to seem endless.

Whatever it is, it’s not the same as it was. Attraction in relationships, especially long-term ones, changes over time – that’s normal. But when it starts to feel like there’s this awful, impenetrable mass between you and your partner, when you start to feel lonely even when you’re together, that’s when things need to change.

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Emma Cholakians, Clinical Psychologist Registrar and Co-Director at Couples Therapy Melbourne, says a lot of our feelings of attraction are actually a result of natural reactions happening in our brains.

“We all know that honeymoon phase where it’s really intense, and we’re all loved up, and we feel really great and excited by each other. What’s actually going on is it’s not just that novel experience of getting to know someone but our brains producing all of these neurochemicals that trigger the excitement so we’re ready for action, we’re looking for bliss,” she says. 

“There’s this massive sense of pleasure, and what happens is that [it] kind of naturally peters out. It changes, but generally after about the 18-month mark. Our brains start to tell us that this is familiar, it’s comfortable, it’s safe, it’s secure, and we start to create more bonding neurochemicals which are more about attachment.”

When the frenzied, lustful desire fades into something more gentle and enduring, couples can get the impression that there’s something wrong with their attraction levels. Sex might become less frequent and physical touch more sparing as distance creeps into the relationship.

Emma tells me typically one partner will report feeling a loss of attraction towards the other which causes a rift. She says this is often related to a difference in libido between partners and can also happen in other big moments of neurochemical change, like after people have their first child.

Sometimes, the lack of attraction might not even have anything to do with what’s going on in the relationship. If one person is feeling depressed or stressed out about something in their own life, they might be too distracted or down to fulfil their partner’s needs. There will always be ways to reignite the passion, but Emma says the hard truth is it’s never going to be the same.

“That’s one thing that a lot of people will ask about when they come to therapy. It’s like they might say ‘What we want to do is we want to take it back to how it used to be’, which is just physically impossible. But [with] the idea of reconnecting and establishing desire again and working on attractiveness, the most important thing to be able to do is you want to be able to name it and talk about it.”

According to Emma, bridging the gap between you and your partner by opening up a constructive conversation is the first step. Obviously, it’s a difficult topic to address – it’s important to take a delicate approach to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings or causing defensiveness and getting caught in the “dance of triggering each other”.

“You probably don’t want to come in like a sledgehammer and say, ‘I’m not attracted anymore’,” she says. “You might want to think about being able to say ‘Hey, I’ve noticed that we’re potentially not on the same wavelength’ or ‘I feel like there’s something missing, what are your thoughts?‘.”

Getting on the same page is key to redefining attraction. Emma says even small things like figuring out your love languages and expectations in a relationship can be useful tools to help you create something new and beautiful with your partner. 

“Doing little self-assessments to be able to understand, like, what is love for me? How do I give it? How do I receive it? How does that potentially help with connection and attraction?”.

Obstacles are guaranteed to come up in relationships – such is the nature of life. Moving past them and figuring out new, well-considered ways to love each other can be messy, but if you can do it, it’s evidence of a relationship that is built on something much stronger than just a dopamine high.

For tips on how to navigate difficult conversations with your partner, head here.