# "Chemistry"



## Randy52 (Oct 15, 2011)

The widow of a former co-worker/friend recently remarried. I could not help but recall some conversations where he often shared his frustrations at her absence of libido and her attitudes about sex in general. I commented to my wife about wondering if her new husband knew beforehand what he was getting with her and also asked her why someone who was asexual, as she appears to be, would even WANT to be married. 

My wife responded that maybe she has a "chemistry" with her new husband that she didn't have with her previous one. She went on to remind me that she had been that way in her previous marriage, tho I find that very difficult to imagine after seeing her now. She said that while she had loved her ex-husband, she had never felt that "chemistry" with him and sex was rare and not very good. She said she tried to be a good wife and while she hardly ever initiated sex, she always tried to accomodate him when he did, which was seldom. That "chemistry" had never been there for her, but she married him anyway, hoping that it would develop and that the sex would improve. Neither ever happened.

There are many, many posts here from husbands and wives about severely mismatched libidoes. Most say they still love their spouse, but apparently it takes more. 

I wonder how many would say they are still IN love with their spouse???

Also, how would you define that intangible term "chemistry???"


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## PHTlump (Jun 2, 2010)

Chemistry is basically sexual attraction. It's not a magical thing that should be the subject of a holy grail-type quest. You can cultivate it. You can create it.

However, people are proud. So, when a man's wife doesn't want to have sex with him, he naturally assumes that she is averse to sex in general with all men. Often, the wife has no general sexual aversion at all. She's just not sexually attracted to her husband.

That's always my first thought when someone posts that his wife (or husband) doesn't want sex. Maybe he or she just doesn't want sex with YOU.


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## Dr. Rockstar (Mar 23, 2011)

PHTlump said:


> Chemistry is basically sexual attraction.


Totally disagree. If anything, "Chemistry" is non-sexual attraction... late nights at the coffeehouse discussing politics, having the same taste in movies or literature, etc.

Think of it this way... If you would want to hang out one-on-one with your partner if sex was taken out of the equation (as we're seeing on another thread right now), then you have chemistry with that person.

Does it need to be cultivated? Absolutely. But can it be created from whole cloth intentionally if it doesn't exist to begin with? Absolutely not.

Love and sexual attraction are very complicated beasts (with two backs). Much more complicated than we tend to make them out to be on the TAM boards. And there are myriad reasons why someone may not be interested in sex during marriage, just like there are myriad reasons why someone may want to be in a relationship but not want sex.

Personally, I think the posts we see here have less to deal with sex alone as they do to deal more with the resentment of the imposition of being asked over and over again for more sex or less sex to match our partner.


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## DTO (Dec 18, 2011)

PHTlump said:


> Chemistry is basically sexual attraction. It's not a magical thing that should be the subject of a holy grail-type quest. You can cultivate it. You can create it.
> 
> However, people are proud. So, when a man's wife doesn't want to have sex with him, he naturally assumes that she is averse to sex in general with all men. Often, the wife has no general sexual aversion at all. She's just not sexually attracted to her husband.
> 
> That's always my first thought when someone posts that his wife (or husband) doesn't want sex. Maybe he or she just doesn't want sex with YOU.


Agree that there sometimes is not a general sexual aversion. And, I'll never understand how either partner can devalue sex to such an extent that they justify the attitude "I do not desire sex with you, but I want to marry you anyways". I know that people marry to have kids, escape a bad situation, or to not be alone; I just do not get how some people feel so inadequate and powerless as to feel marriage is a good solution.

Disagree that you can create it out of thin air. You either have some base level or you do not. You can restore it in a marriage, but that's not the same as creating it out of thin air. You can also give generously to your partner in it's absence, but unless you had that spark at some point generosity is as good as it gets, and (again) that's not the same.


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## PHTlump (Jun 2, 2010)

Dr. Rockstar said:


> Totally disagree. If anything, "Chemistry" is non-sexual attraction... late nights at the coffeehouse discussing politics, having the same taste in movies or literature, etc.
> 
> Think of it this way... If you would want to hang out one-on-one with your partner if sex was taken out of the equation (as we're seeing on another thread right now), then you have chemistry with that person.


If that were true, then people would talk of having chemistry with others of the same sex. I have never heard of a woman claim to have great chemistry with another woman, or a man with another man. Because there's no sexual attraction.



Dr. Rockstar said:


> Love and sexual attraction are very complicated beasts (with two backs). Much more complicated than we tend to make them out to be on the TAM boards. And there are myriad reasons why someone may not be interested in sex during marriage, just like there are myriad reasons why someone may want to be in a relationship but not want sex.


I disagree. People are generally much less complicated than they believe they are. While specific actions are numerous, motivations are generally few.



Dr. Rockstar said:


> Personally, I think the posts we see here have less to deal with sex alone as they do to deal more with the resentment of the imposition of being asked over and over again for more sex or less sex to match our partner.


I fail to see the difference in your distinction. To me, asking about sex is still about sex. And if you're not having sex with your spouse, it's generally because you're not attracted to your spouse. And the reasons why can generally be narrowed down to a handful of possibilities.


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## PHTlump (Jun 2, 2010)

DTO said:


> Disagree that you can create it out of thin air. You either have some base level or you do not. You can restore it in a marriage, but that's not the same as creating it out of thin air. You can also give generously to your partner in it's absence, but unless you had that spark at some point generosity is as good as it gets, and (again) that's not the same.


I'm not suggesting that you can create attraction from nothing. For example, using the sex rank scale of 1-10, if a woman views you as a 1, unless you won the lottery, you're not jumping up to an 8. However, if you were a 4, which she still wouldn't be interested in, you could climb to a 7 and become pretty attractive to her.


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

Maybe your co-worker was bluffing, so that he wouldn't have to talk about sex. Many men do not want to discuss what they do with their wives...many men do. Some men do not want other men to think of their wives sexually, so will go out of their way to say their wife is a cold fish, when the opposite is true. 

You don't say how your friend died. Was he in good shape and did his equipment work? (Again, you'd have to go on what he told you...) If he had a long-term illness of any kind, sometimes this can affect someone's sexual attitude as getting close to someone who isn't in the best of health is emotionally risky, and for a lot of women, sex is emotionally based.

There are a whole lot of reasons why you might be wondering about this. And a whole lot of reasons why you might never know for sure.

I know that when I'm at ballroom dance, one guy can try to dance with me and have all the right moves technically and try to talk to me and nothing really works. It seems like I can't dance. Then some guy who I am not particularly physically attracted to and who seems too jolly personally for my tastes asks me to dance, I accept, and we have a whole conversation while I'm dancing like a pro. Unfortunately, the other guy I danced with notices...but everyone who dances knows there is no explaining this phenomenon, it just is. Dancing and sex have their own way with people. It is an entirely different language altogether. 

Focus more on what you have with your wife and less on what others might be getting themselves into. I really think that it is a personal dynamic. The other day some lady said to me, wow, I don't think I would want to know your husband, after how your marriage turned out. I said to her matter of factly, oh, it would be quite pleasant to know him unless you were in an intimate relationship with him. People do change dynamics depending on who they're with. If you paired my husband with someone who wasn't co-dependent, he would have a terrible time coping even on the first date. All relationships are a dance, and a dance is about a center of balance, and the center of balance depends on the two people and what they're doing together.


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## southbound (Oct 31, 2010)

Dr. Rockstar said:


> Love and sexual attraction are very complicated beasts (with two backs). Much more complicated than we tend to make them out to be on the TAM boards. And there are myriad reasons why someone may not be interested in sex during marriage, just like there are myriad reasons why someone may want to be in a relationship but not want sex..


 Good golly Miss Molly!! Things can actually be even more complicated than people make it out to be here? Well, if that doesn't cement my idea to stay single after a divorce, i don't know what would.

I once thought life and relationships were fairly simple until i came here and started reading. I thought if two intelligent, logical people who loved each other got together, what could go wrong? Then my wife asked for a divorce after 18 years because she wasn't happy. That shocked me. Then I came here and realized, "Oh, so it's complicated." Trying to lead a drama free, uncomplicated life is where I messed up I suppose.


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## Dr. Rockstar (Mar 23, 2011)

PHTlump said:


> If that were true, then people would talk of having chemistry with others of the same sex. I have never heard of a woman claim to have great chemistry with another woman, or a man with another man. Because there's no sexual attraction.


I think you're using a definition of "chemistry" that's irregular. By your definition, you should have no friends, male or female, because you have no sexual attraction to them. Assuming that isn't true and you do have friends, what do you call the force that makes you want to hang out with them?


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

Chemistry can be sexual, it can be non-sexual, it can be romantic, it can be platonic.

It's all about how you gel with someone.


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## Dr. Rockstar (Mar 23, 2011)

PHTlump said:


> I disagree. People are generally much less complicated than they believe they are. While specific actions are numerous, motivations are generally few.
> 
> 
> I fail to see the difference in your distinction. To me, asking about sex is still about sex. And if you're not having sex with your spouse, it's generally because you're not attracted to your spouse. And the reasons why can generally be narrowed down to a handful of possibilities.


I think you and I are going to have to agree to disagree on these points. The reasons someone may not want to have sex at any given time in a relationship could probably be broken down into either not being attracted to their partner or not feeling attractive themselves. But the underlying reasons for those feelings could be literally anything from abuse to infidelity to chmical imbalance to exhaustion, to irritation with the spouse over an argument you had two days before, to distraction over a work conflict, to... anything. To paint in such broad strokes when exploring a loss of libido I think oversimplifies the problem and doesn't acknowledge the deeper causes


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## Dr. Rockstar (Mar 23, 2011)

southbound said:


> Good golly Miss Molly!! Things can actually be even more complicated than people make it out to be here? Well, if that doesn't cement my idea to stay single after a divorce, i don't know what would.


"I sense a note of sarcasm in your tone, young Skywalker."


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## Enchantment (May 11, 2011)

Always thought chemistry was a high school or college course whereby you get to mix all sorts of chemical concoctions together and see if they blow up or not. :scratchhead:

Must be showing my age here because when I was younger there wasn't anything called 'chemistry' as it related to attraction, so I've no idea what the modern connotation of the word means.


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## PHTlump (Jun 2, 2010)

Dr. Rockstar said:


> I think you're using a definition of "chemistry" that's irregular. By your definition, you should have no friends, male or female, because you have no sexual attraction to them. Assuming that isn't true and you do have friends, what do you call the force that makes you want to hang out with them?


I'm using the English definition of chemistry. Merriam Webster defines chemistry, in the sense we're using it, as "a strong mutual attraction, attachment, or sympathy." MW even gives the example of the usage of chemistry as, "They tried dating, but there was no chemistry between them." If you want to use chemistry as a non-sexual word, then I think you're the one that's bucking tradition. You certainly are in this thread, which is about sexual attraction between spouses.

As to your questions of what I call the force that makes me want to hang out with friends, I would say friendship, or enjoyability would suffice.


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## PHTlump (Jun 2, 2010)

Dr. Rockstar said:


> I think you and I are going to have to agree to disagree on these points. The reasons someone may not want to have sex at any given time in a relationship could probably be broken down into either not being attracted to their partner or not feeling attractive themselves. But the underlying reasons for those feelings could be literally anything from abuse to infidelity to chmical imbalance to exhaustion, to irritation with the spouse over an argument you had two days before, to distraction over a work conflict, to... anything. To paint in such broad strokes when exploring a loss of libido I think oversimplifies the problem and doesn't acknowledge the deeper causes


I'm talking about the feelings. You're talking about the causes of the feelings. If a wife doesn't want sex because she's stressed, it doesn't matter what she's stressed about. She feels stress and that decreases her libido. It's a predictable reaction. Saying that there is infinite reasons one could be stressed doesn't mean there are infinite emotions or physical consequences of those emotions. 

To try to overcomplicate the issue doesn't help deal with the problem. If your wife has a low libido due to stress, she needs to improve how she deals with stress, mitigate the underlying cause of the stress, or both. It really doesn't matter what the cause is. The treatment should be one of those options.


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## Rejected (Dec 26, 2011)

The frustrating thing for me is that it is my non-sexual love for my husband, my attraction to him as a person, that makes me want to make love with him. I want to have sex with him more now that I did the day we got married because nearly nine years' of marriage has only deepened my trust and respect for him. To me, it is everything BUT the physical that makes me feel like I have "chemistry" with him. But he has zero interest in sex. Maybe the two things are mutually exclusive to others, but for me, they are one and the same.


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## southbound (Oct 31, 2010)

Dr. Rockstar said:


> "I sense a note of sarcasm in your tone, young Skywalker."


I might have made my response a bit humorous, yet i am serious. I don't know why things have to be so complicated. Why can't two mature, intelligent people just get along? All this stuff seems like a game to me, and I'm not a social game player.


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## Stonewall (Jul 5, 2011)

Yes, after 35 years I not only still love my spouse but I love more now then I did in the beginning.

As for chemistry,

pour baking soda into water and watch what happens= no chemistry.

Now pour baking soda into vinegar = that's chemistry!


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## Mavash. (Jan 26, 2012)

I can attest to being more in love with my husband now more than I was when we got married 20 years ago. There is just something so magical about being together this long through all we've shared.

Chemisty I've read is yes a sexual attraction and I agree. Furthermore either you have it or you don't. It cannot be manufactured.

Without chemistry my husband and I wouldn't have made it very long. LOL


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## PHTlump (Jun 2, 2010)

southbound said:


> I might have made my response a bit humorous, yet i am serious. I don't know why things have to be so complicated. Why can't two mature, intelligent people just get along? All this stuff seems like a game to me, and I'm not a social game player.


The reason sexual relationships are complicated is because that's the way we're designed. We just have to accept that and do the best we can with the cards we're dealt.

If you're not good at playing the games that women like to play, then I suggest you improve your skills. Otherwise, you will be lonely.


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## Hope1964 (Sep 26, 2011)

Randy52 said:


> I wonder how many would say they are still IN love with their spouse???


I am not STILL in love with him, but I am in love with him again. We lost it for a while there, but it's back 



Randy52 said:


> Also, how would you define that intangible term "chemistry???"


I think chemistry is just that - chemistry. In large part anyway. The interaction of chemicals between two people - in this case, pheromones. You know how people say they love the way their spouse smells when they get sweaty? Pheromones. Or they love the way his chest smells? Pheromones.

It also has to do with the other senses besides smell too - it's the whole package. And how the signals the other persons physical attributes send to your brain fire up your pleasure receptors.


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## FrankKissel (Nov 14, 2011)

PHTlump said:


> I'm talking about the feelings. You're talking about the causes of the feelings. If a wife doesn't want sex because she's stressed, it doesn't matter what she's stressed about. She feels stress and that decreases her libido. It's a predictable reaction. Saying that there is infinite reasons one could be stressed doesn't mean there are infinite emotions or physical consequences of those emotions.
> 
> To try to overcomplicate the issue doesn't help deal with the problem. If your wife has a low libido due to stress, she needs to improve how she deals with stress, mitigate the underlying cause of the stress, or both. It really doesn't matter what the cause is. The treatment should be one of those options.


But by admitting that a woman may not want sex because she's feeling stressed (or tired, or upset or whatever) doesn't that kinda prove it's far more complicated or nuanced than simply a matter of "she's not attracted to you?"
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## PHTlump (Jun 2, 2010)

FrankKissel said:


> But by admitting that a woman may not want sex because she's feeling stressed (or tired, or upset or whatever) doesn't that kinda prove it's far more complicated or nuanced than simply a matter of "she's not attracted to you?"
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


I have never said that "she's not attracted to you" is the one and only reason that women have low libidos. I'm simply saying that it is far more common than most men want to believe.


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## yolanda_fan (Jan 12, 2012)

> I'm not suggesting that you can create attraction from nothing. For example, using the sex rank scale of 1-10, if a woman views you as a 1, unless you won the lottery, you're not jumping up to an 8. However, if you were a 4, which she still wouldn't be interested in, you could climb to a 7 and become pretty attractive to her.


Really? How does that work? (Serious question, not sarcastic). I always thought chemistry--sexual attraction, in this case--is simply there between two people or it isn't. How do you cultivate it in people if they're in a committed marriage but the chemistry is minimal?


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## LadyFrog (Feb 27, 2012)

To answer question #1, I can unapologetically say I am IN love with my husband. I am always amused when I think of the part in Gone with the Wind where Rhett asks Scarlett if she has ever heard of the disinterested wife falling in love with her own husband. That's what happened to me.

I think "chemistry" has a lot of different components. Whenever I look at my husband I want to jump his bones. I love him and for me sex is one way to confirm and express that. We're both pretty physically fit so maybe that has something to do with it? I don't know. Do you think there is a difference between having sex and making love?


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## Lionelhutz (Feb 2, 2012)

Human being are not only complicated they are ever-changing. When are considering a relationship, times that complication by 2.

Thus I think Chemistry can both suddenly appear and can be nurtured over time, or never develop despite everyone's best intentions.

I have met women where have I felt a very strong and unexpected sexual desire and I am unable to point to any single reason. That feeling may exist even this is no obvious compatibility in any other way.

In the case of my wife, I did not have an immediate powerful sexual attraction to her which is not at all to say she wasn't physically attractive. She was. I just didn't have the feeling that I urgently wanted to get naked with her. But in time that feeling developed.


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## PHTlump (Jun 2, 2010)

yolanda_fan said:


> Really? How does that work? (Serious question, not sarcastic). I always thought chemistry--sexual attraction, in this case--is simply there between two people or it isn't. How do you cultivate it in people if they're in a committed marriage but the chemistry is minimal?


You can increase chemistry, or decrease it, by cultivating what your spouse finds attractive.

Here are two images of the same woman. She is much more attractive in one than in the other.









It can work for any trait. If a wife appreciates money, and her husband gets a big raise, he gets a sex rank bump. If a man likes long hair, and his wife grows hers out, sex rank bump.

Any trait, or behavior, that your spouse finds attractive can be used to increase your chemistry by cultivating that trait or behavior.


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