Expert therapist and author Dr. Stephen J. Betchen, D.S.W in his book titled, Magnetic Partners: What pulled you together maybe pulling you apart (2013) poses a question in a chapter of his book titled, the role of physical attraction in your relationship, asking if a partner who’s never been physically attracted to his/her mate grow this attraction with time?
Betchen claims that in nearly 35 years of practicing couple’s therapy he’s actually never seen a partner all the sudden ‘get it’ when they ‘never had it’ to begin with. What he had seen is few couples who ‘had some’ and ‘grew more’ but what Betchen emphasized is how even those couples who were attracted to non-physical aspects of their partners (like intelligence) couldn’t seem to evolve a physical attraction. Clearly couples must either have it from the beginning or they don’t have it at all.
Each and every romantic relationship must have an initial physical attraction for optimum relationship health and happiness. Now I’m not saying looks are everything but in any romantic relationship what is everything is having both equal physical and emotional attraction.
Basically, a romantic relationship cannot rely solely on emotional attraction alone.
A romantic relationship without an equal physical and emotional attraction, Betchen claims, is a ‘house-of-cards’ because no matter how much you want to be with someone for the emotional connection you have with them, if there is no initial and natural physical attraction in the relationship then the relationship must manufacture one, which doesn’t exactly work correctly since it was never there to begin with. This concept is very much like missing a key ingredient in a recipe and having to make up for it in other ways, the finished product never turns out the same.
Basically, a romantic relationship cannot rely solely on emotional attraction alone. Thinking that ‘he’s such a great guy with the same values as me’ is simply not enough because romantic relationships must have a foundation of both emotional and sexual chemistry in order to thrive. No matter how perfect someone is for you emotionally, if there is not an equal physical attraction then the relationship is set up for a rocky and passionless ride
