DATING FORUM

Question

I’m in a crisis and I really don’t know what to do. During the past year, I was engaged to a gorgeous girl. Every guy I knew seemed to be running after her. People warned me that she was a real flirt, and even while we were engaged, she was texting guys she had known or dated in the past. When I complained, she accused me of being jealous and assured me that they were just friends.

The wedding invitations were sent out. The hall her parents paid for was booked. Everything was set. Then she literally dumped me out of the blue. She told me that getting engaged to me had been a mistake and she couldn’t see herself being married to me for the rest of her life. I was crushed.

With the help of my family, I eventually got better and slowly started dating again. I decided that I didn’t want to date pretty girls anymore because they reminded me of my ex. Then I met an amazing girl who looks nothing like my ex. Here’s the problem, I’m not really attracted to her.

I fell in love with her personality. She’s kind, wonderful, and someone whose company I genuinely enjoy. I thought the physical attraction would grow over time, but it hasn’t. Now she wants to get engaged, and I can’t see myself spending the rest of my life with a woman that I’m not physically attracted to. I feel terrible because she hasn’t done anything wrong. How do I break up with her? Do I tell her that I’m breaking up with her because I think she’s unattractive?

Response

You’re facing a painful dilemma, but I think the answer becomes clearer once you separate her worth as a person from your feelings of attraction toward her. First, let me tell you something very important. You should not marry someone you’re not attracted to just because they’re a wonderful person. And just as importantly, you shouldn’t tell her you’re breaking up with her just because you think she’s unattractive. Those statements may sound contradictory, but they’re not. 

Physical attraction is not the only ingredient necessary for a successful marriage, but it’s a legitimate component of a romantic relationship. Character, values, emotional compatibility, trust, communication, kindness and shared goals are enormously important, but as the old saying goes: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

Here’s the thing. There’s a tremendous difference between saying, “She’s unattractive,” and saying, “I’m not attracted to her.” The first is a judgment about her. The second is an honest description of your feelings. A woman can be considered beautiful by everyone and still not be attractive to a particular man. Conversely, a woman who doesn’t conform to conventional standards of beauty can be incredibly attractive to the man who falls in love with her. It isn’t something that can always be explained rationally. And you shouldn’t feel guilty for acknowledging that. What would be unfair is pretending that attraction doesn’t matter to you when you know it does.

The fact is that you already gave it a chance. If you had met this woman once or twice and immediately decided, that she’s not your type, I might have given you different advice. But that isn’t what happened. You developed feelings for her. You fell in love with her personality. You spent enough time with her to allow the relationship to develop. You specifically hoped the physical attraction would grow. But it didn’t. That is significant.

You shouldn’t enter an engagement hoping that marriage will somehow produce feelings that haven’t developed during the relationship. That would not be fair to her. Worse, it could even be considered cruel. 

Can attraction develop after marriage? Sure, sometimes it does. But you cannot build a lifelong commitment around hope that a fundamental feeling will eventually appear.

This is where I would urge you to exercise tremendous sensitivity. Please do not tell her that she’s unattractive or that you’re not attracted to her. If you tell her, “I’m breaking up with you because I don’t think you’re attractive,” you may be giving her information she doesn’t need and cannot do anything about. What is she supposed to do with that? She may spend the next several years wondering whether she’s unattractive. She may start scrutinizing her face, her body, her clothing and everything else about herself. She may wonder what other people think of her. She may compare herself to your former fiancée. And she may carry that insecurity into her next relationship. None of that is necessary.

Your responsibility is to tell her the truth without wounding her unnecessarily. You can tell her you don’t feel the romantic connection necessary to move toward marriage. That is honest. You don’t have to tell her you don’t like her nose, her figure, her hair, her height, her face, or anything else. She isn’t being rejected because she is objectively unattractive. She is being rejected because you don’t feel the attraction you need to feel. There’s a huge difference. 

And don’t tell her that you chose her because she wasn’t as pretty as your ex. That may be an important realization for you, but it isn’t something she needs to hear. You were badly hurt. You associated your former fiancée’s beauty with the pain of your relationship, and you decided that avoiding women who reminded you of her would protect you from being hurt again. I understand why you did that. But you may have inadvertently allowed your previous relationship to influence your next one.

Don’t choose a wife based on what she isn’t. Choose her based on who she is. Your ex was beautiful. That doesn’t mean beauty was the problem. The problem was whatever happened within that relationship. There are beautiful women who are completely loyal, devoted and trustworthy. There are women who are not beautiful who are not loyal, devoted, and trustworthy. Beauty doesn’t determine middos.

There is another side to this equation. You say this woman is amazing. In that case, she deserves a man who thinks she’s amazing and is attracted to her. Imagine marrying her and five years later she discovers that you never really felt any physical attraction toward her. Imagine how painful that would be. She deserves to be with a man who thinks she’s everything he wants. Not someone who thinks: “She’s wonderful, so I should probably be able to overlook this.” Truthfully, that isn’t fair to either of you.

Don’t keep dating her because you feel guilty. This is perhaps the most important part of my advice. If you already know you don’t want to marry her, don’t continue dating her because you don’t want to hurt her feelings. That isn’t kindness; that is postponing the inevitable. And the longer you wait, the more painful the eventual breakup will be.

Right now, she wants to get engaged. If you know you cannot honestly say yes, you owe her the truth before she invests even more time and emotions into this relationship. So, what should you say to her? I recommend you keep the conversations honest and simple. Tell her you’ve thought about the relationship very seriously. Tell her you care about her and admire her tremendously, and that that you genuinely hoped your romantic feelings would develop further, but they haven’t. And then tell her that because marriage is such a serious commitment, you can’t ask her to marry you when you’re not able to give her your whole heart. You don’t need to say the word “unattractive.”

You can stress that she’s an incredible person, and that’s what makes this so difficult for you. Tell her you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the relationship because you care about her and you don’t want to hurt her. You can be transparent by saying you genuinely hoped that your romantic feelings would develop to the point where you could see yourself taking the next step, but you realized that they haven’t. Say that you don’t think it’s fair to her to continue when you know you’re not able to make that commitment wholeheartedly. Keep repeating that this isn’t because there’s something wrong with her. Assure her that she’s a wonderful person, and that she deserves someone who can give her the certainty and love that she deserves. Conclude by saying that you’re very sorry that you can’t be that person. And then stop.

Don’t get pulled into a debate. She may ask, “What’s wrong with me?” Your answer should be: “There is nothing wrong with you. I simply don’t feel the way I need to feel in order to marry someone. She may ask if it’s her looks. Again, tell her that this is about your feelings That is both honest and compassionate.

One final thought. Your previous engagement left you with a very painful lesson, but don’t let that pain teach you the wrong lesson. The lesson isn’t that beautiful women are dangerous. The lesson isn’t that you should avoid women who remind you of your ex. The lesson is that you need to evaluate the whole person. Look for middos. Look for integrity. Look at how she treats people when she doesn’t need anything from them. Look at how she handles attention from the opposite gender. Look at how she handles conflict. Look at whether your values align. Look at whether you feel emotionally safe with her. And yes—look at whether you’re attracted to her.

You don’t have to choose between “beautiful but problematic” and “wonderful but I’m not attracted.” There’s no reason you can’t eventually find someone who is both wonderful and attractive to you. You don’t need to settle for either extreme. 

Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for a good person is to refuse to marry her for the wrong reasons. You’re not rejecting her worth. You are acknowledging that she deserves someone whose heart, mind, and feelings of attraction all say the same thing: “Yes, this is the woman I want to marry.” 

Baila Sebrow is president of Neshoma Advocates, communications and recruitment liaison for Sovri-Beth Israel, executive director of Teach Our Children, and a shadchanis and shidduch consultant. Baila also produces and hosts The Definitive Rap podcast for 5townscentral.com, vinnews.com, Israel News Talk Radio, and WNEW FM 102.7 FM HD3, listenline & talklinenetwork.com. She can be reached at [email protected].