4 Tiny Ways To Keep Your Partner Attracted To You Forever, According To Experts
Long-term attraction is no myth.
Tim Samuel | Canva It takes more than love to keep you together. Before time wears on and routine grinds your relationship into complacency, there are considerate actions you can take to pull your partner's attraction, even if they seem to have drifted.
Here are 4 tiny ways to keep a partner attracted to you forever, according to YourTango experts:
1. Co-create a pain-free relationship
You must co-create often, in small and big ways, or the relationship will falter and attractions will depart. This leads to a second answer that considers the chemistry-type attraction. The one thing that kills romantic chemistry is pain (either emotional or physical).
There are two primary ways to avoid creating pain:
1. Make sure you are co-creating with your partner. Without this relationship, one or the other or both of you will lose interest.
2. Keep your relationship pain-free (both physically and emotionally).
— Larry Michel, The Love Shepherd
2. Have time apart
It has to be long enough to be able to imagine being with your partner. Know that absence and longing are critical elements of desire. When we are attracted to someone, our imagination conjures up thoughts of what it would be like to be with them, to express a moment with them. But, when we are with our loving partner, we stop imagining. That’s why being away from them for a long enough time to begin imagining again how it would look and feel to be with them — and recreating the scenarios in our mind — is essential.
— Miya Yamanouchi, Counselor/Therapist
3. Use open communication for authentic intimacy
Many heterosexual marriages fail because the wife, who has more control over the intimate life of the couple, loses interest in intimacy with her husband. She cannot teach him what she enjoys and may lack the ability to know what she enjoys. When she stops enjoying intimacy, she distances herself from her husband who may eventually find someone who finds him desirable for one reason or another. Men tell me all the time they would rather be with another person, or find a girlfriend instead of watching their wife's indifference or disgust in the bedroom.
However, if someone is lucky enough to find a woman who adores him, adores being intimate with him, and openly communicates with him about making their life more wonderful every year, that is the luckiest man in the world.
— Susan Allan, Life Coach and Founder The Marriage Forum Inc.
4. Every night, express gratitude for one thing your partner did that day
No matter how small the act (examples are doing the dishes, grocery shopping, sending a loving text, planning a vacation, and a kiss goodbye that morning).
Although intimacy creates chemistry, it’s not rocket science! Tell your partner what attracts you to them. It’s amazing what an arm around each other, a hand on a thigh underneath the table, or a lingering hug hello can do.
Share fond memories and discuss the future you are looking forward to having together. Intimacy needs TLC.
— Samantha Burns, Marriage/Couples Counselor
Artie Medvedev via Shutterstock
Love will last, and the attraction will grow over time when you focus on co-creating a mutually beneficial relationship that considers the other's needs, desires, faults, and flaws to make life as pain-free as possible.
Long-term attraction requires regular time apart to build desire and to explore interests and connections with other people. Building attraction that lasts forever takes effort to communicate in a kind and authentic way so your partner can help satisfy your needs and alleviate your pains. The openness created will make expressing daily gratitude effortless.
Will Curtis is a writer and editor for YourTango. He's been featured on the Good Men Project and taught English abroad for ten years.