I feel bad about this, but my boyfriend is ugly

Are you living with a secret that you feel guilty even confessing:

“I feel bad about this, but my boyfriend is ugly.”

Maybe you are worried that you’re being shallow, you wish you felt differently and you don’t know what to do about it.

In this article, I promise you will find zero judgement, just practical advice to guide you..

My boyfriend is ugly

Here’s the thing:

You probably don’t need me to tell you that “ugly” and “beautiful” are incredibly subjective terms.

One woman’s Prince Charming is another woman’s Shrek, and vice versa.

Even though there does exist certain stereotypical classical standards of beauty within society, the truth is that there is a very long spectrum of individual taste and preferences.

As the age-old saying goes: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder“. It may be a cliche but it’s true.

The fact that you find your boyfriend ugly is really significant, and suggests there could be something else going on.

Sadly, it’s unlikely to be something you can simply ignore and hope it will go away. You need to get to the bottom of what is causing this feeling.

Only then can you figure out if it’s something that can be fixed or the symptoms of bigger issues in the relationship.

How we physically see people is subjective and it isn’t static

You see a guy across a crowded room. You are instantly attracted to him. He is like some kind of chiselled God.

With excitement and anticipation, your heart starts to beat faster as he crosses the room to talk to you.

All kinds of romantic scenarios furiously start to play out within your mind.

But as he opens his mouth to speak, what falls out over the next few minutes suddenly becomes the biggest turn-off.

Until 30 minutes later as you stare at him, you can’t even see anymore what you had initially found so good-looking.

The features you admired at first have faded fast. Once you got to know him, he looks entirely different now. He’s actually kind of ugly in fact.

Many of us have had this experience, or something similar.  And we have also had it in reverse too.

You meet someone who you weren’t instantly attracted to, but that attraction grows with time.

People can “magically” become either ugly or handsome

To further illustrate my point above I want to share two examples from the vaults of my own love life.

When I first met one of my ex-boyfriends, initially I wasn’t even slightly attracted to him.

I’ll be blunt. I didn’t find him good looking. I wasn’t interested in him romantically in the slightest.

But as I got to know him, he transformed before my very eyes. Our compatible personalities made me find him better-looking.

And I don’t mean that I overlooked him not being cute. And was willing to see past it, because I am such a mature and evolved person, blah blah, blah.

I mean, I started to literally see him differently.

I no longer found him physically unattractive when I noticed other appealing personality traits he had. He became physically hotter to me as I found his character hotter.

On the other hand, I also have an ex-boyfriend who was a model.

He was so beautiful to me (and I’m guessing to lots of other people too) and I was extremely attracted to him instantly.

I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have found such a good-looking guy who I got on so well with too.

But by the end of our relationship, he borderline disgusted me. When I looked at him I no longer saw this handsome model.

His worst features jumped out at me, and I saw them written all over his face.

The problems in our relationship that we could not navigate made him look very different to me. We never had sex anymore and I didn’t really want to go near him.

I share this information with you to hopefully highlight my point that:

You may think it’s about looks but the reality could be something totally different.

You may think that you find your boyfriend “ugly” and it’s an aesthetic problem in your relationship (and it might be— which we’ll get to later) but it also could be an emotional one.

What to do if you like a guy’s personality but not his looks?

I promised you zero judgment from this article, and that’s a promise I intend to keep.

Because not being physically attracted to someone does not make you shallow or a bad person in any way.

As we’ve already seen, attraction is very complicated and multifaceted.

But I will be honest with you. Because I think that’s important so that you can find real solutions to the problem you are facing, rather than kid yourself.

So here’s the thing:

You cannot be attracted to your boyfriend AND think he is ugly.

Because the two are contradictions.

You may recognize that:

• He’s not your usual type
• Physical attraction is not at the top of the list for what makes the relationship so strong
• That other people might not see in him what you see in him.

But if you are attracted to him, you are very unlikely to simultaneously think of him as “ugly”.

Why?

Because as illustrated above, personal qualities ARE attractive. They are just as attractive, if not more, than physical looks.

Presumably, when you first met, you were attracted to these qualities?

They drew you towards him and perhaps made you see him in a different light.

If he were ugly and unkind, stupid, rude, boring, etc. I’m guessing you wouldn’t be with him right now.

So the big question is, despite the fact you’re not attracted soley to his looks, are you attracted enough to other things about him?

“My boyfriend is not good-looking” certainly isn’t a deal-breaker for some people.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if your boyfriend is good-looking or ugly. But it 100% does matter if you are attracted to him.

Is it normal to find your partner unattractive?

Relationships, just like people, are complicated.

If you were to ask me, is it normal to not be attracted to your boyfriend sometimes? I’d answer back with a wholehearted YES.

Because the truth is that love and relationships in real life aren’t like they are in the movies.

Hollywood and fairytales have done us a huge disservice in setting up far-fetched expectations for what real-life romance really involves.

In the real world, you see all sides of someone. Not the perfectly manicured and curated version.

We see each other first thing after waking up, laid bare with sleepy eyes, bed hair, and morning breath.

We are privy to the less than glamorous aspects of daily life. Like the fact that everyone has to poop, and all the other less than sexy bodily functions.

They don’t show that in the movies do they?!

Relationships can also become strained. Some days you may wake up and feel frustrated with your partner. Because relationships can be hard.

At other times you might go through bad patches or phases in your relationship where things aren’t so great.

And on those days, or during those times, it’s totally normal to find yourself thinking: “I find my boyfriend unattractive sometimes”.

The problems really set in though when this thought becomes sustained.

Is the relationship as great as you think?

As we’ve already established, attraction goes far deeper than just looks alone.

So, the way you are seeing him right now in an unattractive light could actually be due to shifts that have taken place emotionally.

If you feel like your boyfriend is ugly then I’m guessing it was never his looks that first appealed to you.

You must have found other things about him more important. But as time has passed, maybe you have stopped focusing on these things.

Perhaps other strains within the relationship have started to cause tension. And so your focus is no longer on what you really liked about him.

Without the presence of these positive feelings toward him, you notice and focus on the lack of physical attraction to his looks instead.

So my questions to you would be:

• Is the relationship as great as you think?
• Have your priorities shifted?
• Has your relationship changed to make you feel differently?

Do some soul searching, dig deep, and be honest with yourself about other issues there might be which could be causing you to feel this way.

How to increase attraction in a relationship

If you are not ready to throw in the towel and you want this relationship to work there are things you can do to try to increase your attraction.

If you know that you do still find many things about your boyfriend attractive, it’s time to enhance those things.

1) Remind yourself of the qualities that drew you to him in the first place

Mindset is important. Your attraction is created in your own mind. And what we focus on in life is what we notice.

Being grateful for what you have actually rewires the brain to be more positive, and is something you can train your mind to do.

Remind yourself of all his very best traits and what makes him sexy and attractive other than his looks.

2) Work on your intellectual and emotional connection

There are many different elements in a relationship that lead to attraction.

Focusing on these other aspects can help strengthen the attraction, like your emotional and intellectual bond.

Talking to each other and growing closer can do wonders for bringing back that spark.

3) Have fun together

Try to inject some excitement by doing things where you get to enjoy each other’s company.

When you laugh and play together you release lots of feel-good hormones that can increase attraction.

All relationships are a compromise

The truth about grown-up relationships is that they all involve compromise.

Every single one. Because nobody is perfect.

The “full package” doesn’t really exist. It starts and ends with the perception of the person who is viewing it.

We often have a checklist of what we imagine we want from a partner, and then we meet the opposite. But it just works.

Then all of a sudden you don’t care so much about certain things anymore that you were once sure mattered so much.

But you have to work out, what is most important to you and what you truly want?

And only you can answer that. It’s going to be different for everyone.

Not everyone is as concerned about physical attraction within a relationship.  But for many other people, it’s a truly vital ingredient in order for them to have a healthy and happy relationship.

What you need to think about is whether you can “sacrifice” having a very good-looking boyfriend for other qualities he brings?

And one thing to remember is:

This is not always a question you can answer using your head.

Your logic may tell you one thing, but your heart may not be able to get on board.

You can tell yourself all day long that his personal qualities matter more than his looks. But unless you can truly feelthat way too, you will continue to be plagued by the same problem.

And that problem is this…

You desperately want to like him, but you don’t

I’m not suggesting you don’t think he is a nice person or a good boyfriend — or you probably wouldn’t be with him.

When I say “like him” I actually mean feel attracted to him.

You can actually think he’s kinda conventionally ugly and not give a damn, because you’re still attracted to him.

But if you’re not attracted to him, it isn’t something you can just sweep under the rug and try to ignore.

Yes, you can find someone more attractive when you get to know them.  But if that’s just not happening, then having a nice personality isn’t going to cancel out this lack of attraction you feel.

No matter how much you try and talk yourself around.

Please know this:

• You are not a bad person, beauty is personal and relative.
• Looks aren’t everything but attraction is important and it’s not something you can force yourself to feel if you just don’t.
• You’re not shallow if you decide to break up because you don’t find someone attractive.

No one thinks my boyfriend is cute

I’m running out of ways to say that attraction is subjective, so I won’t labor the point anymore.

What you are into has been shaped by so many factors and circumstances unique to you.

I’ve literally lost count of the number of times my friends and I have had completely opposite types in men.

I tend to think of this as a good thing, that way we’re not going after the same guy.

It doesn’t matter what everyone else thinks, but it matters what YOU think.

You are the one dating him, you are the one who has to be physically intimate with him.

If you feel embarrassed of an ugly boyfriend, then the chances are you just aren’t attracted to him.

What do I do if I’m not attracted to my boyfriend?

Sure, it’s not cool to base an entire relationship solely on looks. But neither is it likely to work out in the long term if there is zero attraction.

You might think, yeah but my boyfriend is unattractive but I still love him. But you need to consider whether that love is platonic or romantic.

It’s totally true that looks fade as we age, and what you are left with is the person. But attraction doesn’t need to fade in the same way, because it’s based on more than just what the external shell looks like.

If your boyfriend’s looks are a deal breaker for you, then that’s just how it is.

Don’t judge yourself, admit it to yourself. It’s not shallow, because the reality is that you need attraction in a relationship to sustain it.

Ugly is quite a strong negative reaction to someone’s physical appearance. If you honestly think that about him, then you both deserve better.

We all deserve to be with someone who appreciates us for who we are. This applies to both him and you.

So if this isn’t the guy for you, let him go and let him find someone who will feel that way about him.

And believe me, somebody will, because “one man’s meat is another man’s poison.”

I’m sure you care about him. I’m guessing you wish that you felt differently. But there comes a point when you need to get real with yourself, for both of your sakes.

Don’t lead him on. Don’t let things deteriorate until you start to be unkind or disrespectful towards him, he doesn’t deserve that.

You are blocking another girl from coming along who finds him drop-dead gorgeous. And you are blocking yourself from finding a guy who you find attractive in the ways you truly need.

If you genuinely find your boyfriend totally ugle, then that’s not something that is so easy to come back from.

To conclude: Get tailor made advice for your situation

While I hope this article will offer you a really comprehensive way to help you deal with your lack of attraction to your boyfriend, it can be helpful to speak to a relationship coach about your situation.

With a professional relationship coach, you can get advice tailored to the specific issues you’re facing in your love life.

Relationship Hero is a site where highly trained relationship coaches help people navigate complex and difficult love situations. Yep, even tricky topics like finding your boyfriend ugly.

They’re popular because they genuinely help people solve problems.

Why do I recommend them?

Well, after going through difficulties in my own relationship, I reached out to them a few months ago.

After feeling helpless for so long, they gave me a unique insight into the dynamics of my love life, including practical advice on how to overcome the issues I was facing.

I was blown away by how genuine, understanding, and professional they were…and with zero judgment.

In just a few minutes you can connect with a certified relationship coach and get tailor-made advice specific to your situation.

Click here to get started.