Had a hard conversation with my girlfriend about my attraction to other women

Hi there! I’m no relationship expert, but I’m a girl and I kind of(?) understand what you mean and also your girlfriend’s response.

Physical attraction (as long as it’s very instant and no feelings of love/lust) are normal, so it’s understandable what you feel when you see attractive women.

But in the other hand, us women we hate the idea of our man thinking about another woman. Your GF is not crazy, and it’s the normal reaction every woman would have.(as long as it’s not exaggerated/toxic). We feel insecure/hurt and think that we’re not enough.

Reading your text seems like you genuinely love your girlfriend. Try explaining it to her, even tho it might be a little hard. If that doesn’t work, it’s better to not say anything about it. As long as you’re sure about your feelings towards her, it’s all good.

 

I think I don’t understand what you mean by “attracted.” Like, you notice they are attractive, or you feel for a moment that you need to get into an intimate relationship with them?

 

sounds like your gf feels cast aside and undesired. no woman, or person for that matter, wants to feel that way. sounds like you have done alot of damage here. through conversation with your gf you have clearly been more than vocal about all these attractions you feel for other women. how vocal are you about your attractions to her? telling her when these conversations come up that oh you also find her attractive doesnt count and feels like an after thought. you told her that you have this attraction for other women "3-10 times per day"... are you texting her 3-10 times per day telling her you're thinking of her and how sexy she is etc? i'm guessing not. so with these numbers swimming in her head obviously why wouldnt she feel like you are lusting after these other women at her expense? why would any woman feel special? not trying to be rude but i speak from experience and i ended up losing her. you better find some way to make her feel like she is in the only woman in the world you really see, if you actually want the relationship that is

 

if texting her 3-10 times a day that you are thinking about how she's sexy would be a lie for you then..idk that seems pretty sad. lol are you even into her? obviously no one wants a compliment you don't mean so yeah if she found out you were saying it just for the hell of it then i agree that wouldn't be great. i guess for me even though i would feel transient attraction to other women i would pretty immediately snap back to thinking about my gf, and any sexual 'energy' per se that had been very briefly stirred by someone else immediately got redirected to her. i would snap out of it and think "damn wait...my gf is fucking hot. this girl (I'm looking at) doesnt actually hold a candle to her. I can't wait to see her tonight, i should text her.' i'm pretty sure that's all your gf wants you to feel, but genuinely. THAT'S what i mean by her being the only woman you see. you should only really be looking "through" the others. hope that makes sense.

 

sorry, i think i understand what you meant now. i guess to that i would say, i may have looked at my ex and thought "wow she is hot" but would not have thought to say that out loud every time i thought it (which was and should be A LOT -is that how you feel about yours?). i cannot speak for all women but i think especially in this situation where she is feeling undesired it is really important that you verbalize any and all thoughts you have about her like this. it may not come naturally to you to say it out loud, but you still feel it right? she cannot read your mind. maybe you think you tell her all the time but it sounds like this is going to require some more over the top effort. like to the point where your attraction/lust for her is indisputable and almost annoying. she may not know how to respond but i do think it something she might need. a lot of her proof right now is in the "i'm not special" and "his lust is for other women" category. this is not a 'maintenance' phase moment this is a basically 're-courting' her moment. maybe i have misread how dire the situation is though.

you know better about if sharing that 'plan' would hurt her feelings. but you say this 'sexual energy' you feel for other women isn't that deep, right? you need to take that meaningless sexual energy and give it meaning by attaching it to her. that shouldnt be hard if these sexual feelings for other women are truly surface level and ultimately nonspecific (are they?). actively redirecting your sexual feelings/thoughts to her is a good practice to get into. you should have been doing that all along lol. i feel like, besides abstaining from P/M and never letting your glances at other women go past just a glance, its the most active thing you can do to "re shape" your brain from the porn mindset. the goal is to reshape it from always scanning the field for something new to focusing on the really great thing in front of it. reshape it from wandering to thoughts of porn/random women to wandering to thoughts of YOUR woman, an exciting memory of the last time you were intimate. sure abstinence and all is necessary to set the stage, but the reshaping doesn't just happen, you have to actively help it along. you cant get lazy with it. it isn't just NOT thinking about other women, it's additionally actively thinking about HER instead and reminding yourself constantly how much you desire HER. and then make sure she knows it too (as above)

 

First, greetings! And welcome to the this here place of anger and pain (I mean that sarcastically)!


What you do is what you have been doing. It just takes a long time for your brain to "rewire" itself. Believe you me, I know! I know exactly what you described in what you were trying to explain in your original post and your response to Meshuga. Also, I am going on two years doing the redirecting and reassuring myself of who I am and how I feel about my wife.


What you can do differently, however, is to really focus in on the "sexual energy" (which is focused in the pelvic area, I presume) and redirect it upwards. The focus is not on "enjoying" the feeling but on truly understanding what it is, and how you can change it. It is much like training a dog or a horse or learning some sort of craft. Once you get into the details you will learn exactly how to respond to your own energies proper.


One must seek understanding in order to get to the next stage of the recovery process. One such understanding is having to deal with the "attraction" that we feel (again, I know exactly what you mean). This is a cue reaction because the brain got used to "mating" with all those women from P, that is all that it is, especially within the context that you shared in your original post (here I am suggesting that your heart is in the right place). Now that all the "mating" has stopped your brain is having a hard time adjusting to your new way of life, much like trying to stop a runaway train, but maybe somewhat easier. It might take more time though. Those cue reactions don't take anything away from your wife. You know you love your wife, stop fighting yourself on this, let it flower. You are not providing the right amount of water and sunlight, nor the right type of soil when you are fighting yourself (getting to a deeper understanding of recovery will naturally help with this).


Now, with the question about how to make your wife feel valued. What I have found by how I have interacted with my wife, whom is also very logical and rational, is that understanding her idiosyncrasies is what makes her happy: knowing what she likes, knowing her daily processes and yielding to those processes, and knowing the deepest aspects about her. Once you see the deepest aspect of who she is you will see a true flowering of healing within yourself and within her. Once you have found this you might think to yourself, "of course! Why didn't I see that before?!"


Now, there is yet another level that I feel that I must share (something I recently realized). Whenever I see my wife (not because of her but because of the addiction) there is an entire movement of anxiety, pain, and struggle in the form of thoughts and emotions that floods my brain and consciousness, which then causes a rush to go and "act out" just like addicts do. It happens so fast that you don't realize it until you pay careful attention. When you become aware of this you can start to work on re-engineering your brain such that you decouple that entire movement from the times that you see your wife. From there healing for both of you will start to happen in a totally different way.

I hope that everything works out for the both of you!

 

Don’t bring it up or discuss it. Focus on not acting on it, loving her, valuing her but avoid this from becoming a bigger deal. She’ll never be satisfied with the answer she gets because low self esteem is probably at the root of her questions. It’s a truth of life for many men, but she doesn’t need to know it.

 

I applaud you for not lying. Lying does far more damage in the long run. Being vulnerable and telling a hurtful truth will either help you get into a deeper level of intimacy or lead you guys to separate. But, you are building a relationship on truth and intimacy rather than lies, which takes away her choice and agency. If you keep her through lies you will eventually lose her anyway.

 

Sounds like basic physical attraction. It’s there and then it’s gone. You choose not to act on it, like hundreds of thousands of both men and women choose not to act on it multiple times, every day. Frankly, it’s easier to not act on it than otherwise.

Feelings are not a thing you can just choose to have or not to have. I think maybe you can shift some of them over time, but how, exactly, is not clear. I think you’re doing as much as you possibly can to do the right thing for now, but I’m not the one you have to convince.

Unfortunately, abusing P kind of burns up all your relationship capital, and then some. It’s going to take a lot of consistency to rebuild trust.

 

I think I've had this exact conversation with my girlfriend before. Without generalizing too much about your current situation it sounds like your girlfriend is dealing with anxiety and trauma from whatever trust issues you had earlier in your relationship. It is a very difficult conversation to navigate, but I think you're doing the right thing by telling the truth and being honest with how you're feeling, and eventually I would suggest phasing out this conversation or not mentioning it even if you continue to have these feelings. I did the opposite and now my girlfriend and I are taking a break from each other...

Back to your original reason for posting this thread, it sounds like you were looking for ways to reassure your girlfriend and show her that you only have feelings for her. I think couples therapy is a good step that will lead to better, more open communication, but have you heard of love languages? There are supposed to be five love languages: Acts of service, physical touch, quality time, gifts, and words of affirmation. Knowing your girlfriend's love language can go a long way in providing support and love in a way that will connect with her.

From what you posted it sounds like one of your girlfriend's love languages is words of affirmation. This might mean that texting her "I love you" or "I only think of you" might not register for her, but a handwritten letter or a memorable confession of love during a vulnerable moment might really connect for her. Now these may be absolutely garbage suggestions as my girlfriend's love language is also words of affirmation, and I haven't figured out what to say to her yet haha. But maybe it's something to give some thought if you're not sure what you're going to say next to help comfort your girlfriend. Thank you for you posting and good luck to you brother.

 

Yes, that makes sense, but that's not the whole picture. The mentality of, "well everybody else does it so that means I can too." comes to mind.. Well, everybody else steals, so let me steal too, etc...

It is true that men have done that before. On the other hand,, I can only assume that there are countless men in history that stay loyal to their partners as well, whom aren't driven by the sexual impulse, for if there were not I suspect we wouldn't even be striving for being loyal to ur wives. There is a part of us that wants that stability of a relationship, a stability that is felt in our whole consciousness, a companionship. This too is a part of our history as humans. However, a stable family doesn't make for a good story line.

It is the drama that we gravitate towards. The drama of the man or woman cheating and that series of consequences that follows this (the cheating, the fighting, screaming, etc...). All that is exciting and it actually causes a rush within us. P skews this (depending on what kind you watch). When people cheat in the story line of P everyone just has sex with each other. That is hardly the truth in this society. Many women see the value in stability and companionship. Men can't see it because they align with this history of cheating and whatnot.

You are consciously aligning yourself with that history of men, the history that is exciting and one most people want to hear about because life is dull. Stability is dull, it doesn't make for a good source of exploitation. I don't use the word dull in a bad way, perhaps mundane is a better word.

You can align yourself in a different way. You can can become the person that is bonded with one woman and allow that to flourish within. This is the capability of humans. We are capable of altering our inner experience in any way we so choose. It is hard to image this because everyone is so caught up in the urges and how strong they are and that story of struggle is also entertaining.

This change in perspective has been my personal journey, and it has led to a more wholesome experience of life.

 

not sure if its fair to blame her dissatisfaction on her having "low self esteem". that probably is a factor because the things you have done have made her feel unattractive, but I suspect it also has to do with how she thinks women should be treated in general. this is a point my ex made often. even a very confident woman can think how you look at other women is disrespectful. i think its kinda juvenile to assume she only feels this way because she's insecure

calling how OP thinks a "truth of life for many men" or some of the other comments about this being "natural" is something we have to be careful with i think.

first i'll say just because something is built into your biology doesn't mean it is automatically 'healthy' and worth encouraging. for example, the biological hatred and fear of anyone outside of your group - a "natural urge" that if fed and watered turns into racism and xenophobia.
sure our inherent biology sets the scene for us to have sexual thoughts. but dont pretend that we didnt feed and water them with what we chose to include in our daily lives (porn, actively objectifying women you look at, consuming media which objectifies women, etc). all of this unnecessarily strengthened and enhanced the so-called "natural" thoughts into something much more ugly, pervasive and disrespectful.

OP you say you think a piece of your feeling has little to do with porn because men have been doing all these things since the beginning of time, implying that the way men view women (and the way you now view women) is purely inherent and therefore unchangable. but it has already changed drastically since caveman times. the human brain is very plastic. we men have created a society which allows us to actively feed and water our base sexual urges (be it with wanton rape (which used to be socially acceptable), infidelity, porn, etc). this history + current practice of watering has made men's view of women increasingly hypersexual and it is happening at an increasingly younger age (literal 5 year old boys watch P, you really think that doesnt shape the human brain?). the way male society views and treats women should not be considered healthy or normal or the human "default". the base attraction may be hardwired, but i think the qualities of the attraction (extent, frequency, strength, power dynamic, etc) have all really been warped into something more ominous. that was an active process that we participated in, and while the effects are harder to undo, i feel like it is still our responsibility to try. to discount that as you seem to be doing maybe feels more comforting but is very inaccurate.

tldr: it's nature versus nurture. we started with some sexual nature, but we (including you) have nurtured it in fucked up ways. dont justify things with "its natural". take responsibility for the fact that your past actions were doing this unnecessary feeding and watering, and dont justify doing that any longer. recognize that the "attractions" that you continue to have at such frequency and strength are not 100% natural and therefore can be shaped/influenced in some way. dont get lazy and just accept it as a "truth of life." to me thats a useless line of thinking as it only inspires being complacent. especially if what you are really pursuing is a deep companionship.

as i side note you seem to jump a lot between calling these things you experience feelings or urges or thoughts or attractions. to me those are all very different things and have different implications so i would make sure you figure out which one it actually is. if you are mixing those or hiding which one it truly is that will be very confusing and more hurtful to your gf.

 

That's like my ex. She had trust issues and I thought I could get her to trust me but I was wrong. Eventually, the relationship came crashing to an end. Do you and your girlfriend a favour and move out. Ending a relationship is painful but staying in a relationship like this will make it even more painful.

I would add that it's not a good idea to tell a SO that you find other women attractive. You don't need to say that because it goes without saying. If I was in a relationship I wouldn't expect my girlfriend to not find other people attractive. Now it would be a problem if someone was going around staring long and hard at the people they find attractive but by the sound of things that's not what you're doing. But I don't think you finding other women attractive is the issue here. Sounds to me your girlfriend has trust issues. Your behaviour may have made contributed to her lack of trust but it was probably already there before the relationship started. It's my opinion that your relationship is unsavable and it would be a mistake to try and save it.

 

I'm currently going through this so I'll let you know if my relationship is savable

 

She broke up with me...