I don’t think it’s an issue of becoming unattractive. I think the issue is losing your connection to each other. My wife and I grew apart over the space of a decade. A lot of things happened and each opened the gap wider. I was always attracted to her, but we never got physically intimate any more.
Finally I couldn’t stand it any more and I started trying to find other women as lovers. I thought that if I could satisfy those needs elsewhere, I could tolerate being married to my wife. However, I misjudged what I was really looking for: love. It wasn’t sex. It was the desire to feel like the center of someone’s world. To feel accepted in all ways.
During this time I fell in love with a number of women, several of whom were my age. They were beautiful to me. I surprised myself. In fact, young women are no longer beautiful to me. Yes, they are pretty, and beautiful in a looks kind of way, but they don’t have that energy and life that women my age have. It is that energy and that inner power that gives women their attractiveness, in my opinion. Anyone who is stuck on youth and physical beauty, just has no clue, I think.
Eventually, I confessed to my wife and she was so shocked because this was so out of character for me. She took me to a shrink, and I was diagnosed with a brain disorder. I started being treated and we started going to counseling. It’s been three years since then and things are better. We still are working on our relationship, and probably will be forever. But she is still attractive to me. And I don’t need any special games to make me excited about making love to her.
With my wife, it was really about how we felt about each other. For a long time we didn’t trust each other. I was always waiting for her to tell me she wanted a divorce. We couldn’t see much good in each other. We became more like a business than a family.
If you maintain that feeling towards each other—the one that makes you passionate about each other, then old age will never get between you. If you can’t maintain that, then I don’t care how old you are—whether 20 or 80—your relationship will be in trouble.