My Husband Isn’t Attractive to Me

 I was lifting weights in the gym. The entire time, there was this woman watching me go through the motions of my routine. After about 45 minutes, I went to the bag, put my one leg over the rail while I wrapped my hand in a hand wrap. I then put my other leg over the rail, giving my hamstring a good stretch while I wrapped my other hand. This has always been my way of wrapping hands while stretching. I’m all about efficiency. I set the timer on my phone to 3 minutes and 15 seconds and started my round.

After the 3 minutes, I paced up and down, waiting for the 30-second break to end. At that moment, she walked over. She said, “I see you know how to box; can you show me how to hit the bag?” I said, “Sure, but when I finish the next two rounds, then I’ll show you…” Just then, the phone chimed to signal the start of the round. She sat there watching me until I was done.

Then, when I was done, I signaled for her to come nearer as I showed her how to hit the bag. While we were working the bag, she started conversing. After a bit of chit-chat, she finally said, “I wish my husband was like you…” I said, “But you don’t know me…” She said, “I mean, that he looked after himself like you…” I said, “Well, then encourage him to do that; bring him with you to the gym…” I saw where the conversation was heading, so I excused myself and left. The conversation, however, hasn’t left me. It got me thinking. I wondered how many women don’t find their husbands attractive. It also made me wonder how many men know that their wives don’t find them attractive.

Over the years of experiencing married women constantly flirting with me, and then having met their husbands at some point, it dawned on me. Most of us men work for our families and forget to work on ourselves. We think that our wives and our children will appreciate how hard we work for them, but the truth is they don’t. They don’t because they can’t. They can’t relate to anything we actually do. But what they can relate to is how well we look after ourselves because that’s what they’re doing. They are looking after themselves, and you are looking after them.

The truth about women and children is that they recognize your effort when you are recognized by others. Otherwise, you’re just the guy that comes home at night and sleeps, eats, and then leaves again. They have no relationship with the person you are in society, and if you’re no one in society, no one at the gym, no one at the church or mosque, then you’re no one.

Attraction for a woman isn’t all about how you look. It’s about how she views you in relation to others, which in turn has to do with how you are viewed in your society. There is no metric for attraction. A woman can find a short man attractive and yet say out loud that she wants a tall man. She’d choose the short important man over the tall unimportant man any day. But what gives him importance? It’s his social standing in the community, and how OTHER PEOPLE view him.

The woman in the gym was not attracted to her husband, not because of how he looks. She thinks that’s the reason. It’s because of how SHE sees him. He no longer has a purpose outside of working for her and her family, which makes him into a slave. She didn’t marry a slave. She married a man who had a purpose and who had goals, until his purpose and goal became looking after her.

What happens more often than not these days is that the woman wrestles with the man for authority in order for her to feel secure. She doesn’t trust his leadership. However, once he gives her that authority, she no longer finds him attractive. It has nothing to do with whether he goes to the gym or not. It has everything to do with a reversal in the relationship dynamic. He lost the battle for his own autonomy to a woman, and that woman doesn’t respect him for that; she instead despises him.