Asklemmy

I'm sure understanding those things helps, but it's not an easy thing to hear for people stuck in an imbalance in the relationship.

Sure doesn't feel "healthy" when you feel your needs aren't being met, especially when you get told the problem is you because you want more than they are willing to give.

"A big part of my love language is physical intimacy. When my partner doesn't reciprocate any interest in it, despite every attempt on my end to communicate my needs, it makes me feel unloved. I'm hurting and you're going to tell me it's my fault?"

Look, it's very easy to casually give advice like this when you aren't stuck in what feels like a fundamentally broken relationship.

This is bullshit honestly. I have been married for almost 30 years. For 27 years we had sex pretty much everyday. Then my wife had to get her ladybits rearranged by a doctor due to a bladder prolapse and went through early menopause.

We still have regular sex, but not everyday anymore.

i mentioned this to another person but I'd suggest watching this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU3GOKOEKaU

i personally think a lot of people experience a slow down in sex because they don't understand how a sex drive in the opposite gender even really works and sometimes they don't even understand their own sex drive. she has a ton of videos hopefully you find some of them helpful.

not trying to attack you just wanted to provide a reason why physical intimacy goes down over time.

If you're going to tell people to look into the lens of romantic*/companionate (and all the other ones you didn't mention: nonlove/liking/infatuation/empty love/fatuous love/consummate love) you should at least give them some starting points.

• Triangle theory of love: Robert Sternberg (1987, 2006)
• Brain regions; attachment/commitment vs sexual desire: Diamond (2004), Aron et al. (2005), Xu e al. (2011)
• Lust/attraction/attachment, dopamine/serotonin influences: Helen Fisher (2006), Aron et al. (2008),
• More influence of dopamine/serotonin: Ackerman (1994, p. 165)
• Critiques of simplifying love: Fehr (2006)
• Some more neurotransmitters and hormones: Macdonald & Macdonald (2010), Hill et al. (2009), Gouin et al. (2010), Ditzen et al. (2009), Theodoridou et al. (2009)
• Loves sternberg didn't consider: Berscheid (2010), John alan lee (1988),
• Decreases in romantic love: sprecher & regan (1998), Tucker & aron (1993), Gupta & Singh (1982) and the followup D. Myers (1993), Walster & Walster (1978), Abhmetoglu et al (2010), Call et al. (1995), Klussman (2002)
• Non-decreases in love: Acevedo et al. (2011),

Personally, I would really, really recommend the textbook Intimate Relationships by Rowland S. Miller to anyone who is curious about the subject. I had to go pull my edition off of the bookshelf to quickly throw out all the references above.

*because passionate love isn't the category. The proposed idea was the triangle theory of intimacy, passion, and commitment, which led to the eight above categories----