Is It Normal to Be Attracted to Someone Other Than Your Spouse?

Key takeaways

• Name the line. Pastor Adam Mesa and his wife, Ashley, separate noticing that someone is beautiful from letting the mind slide into sexual imagination, which Adam calls lust.
• Look at the gap. Both point to whatever sits between spouses: low hormones, old wounds, a dry season, even kids who become an idol.
• Old pain shapes present habits. Ashley traced her jealousy to her past and found healing by looking to Christ.
• Leave early. Adam says he would stop going to a gym or coffee shop before attraction has a chance to grow.
• Modesty goes both ways. Men are responsible for their own eyes, and both spouses think about how they dress around others.
• Influence calls for firmer boundaries. The Mesas hold themselves to extra care because of what they could lose.

Where the question started

On the Beyond I Do podcast, Adam and Ashley Mesa, joined by Nancy and Andy from their team, took up a question many married people ask quietly. Is it normal to be attracted to someone other than your spouse?

Adam began with a story from early in their marriage. He was 24, a youth pastor leading about 20 college students, and some of the young women on the team were, in his words, objectively pretty. He kept group messages and never met one on one with the girls. Ashley still dealt with jealousy.

About six or seven months into the marriage, Adam noticed a pattern. After a pretty girl had talked to him at church, Ashley would initiate intimacy. Otherwise she was uninterested. He realized, as he put it, that "Ashley is training my brain that I get rewarded off of her being jealous." He said his wife's view of intimacy came from her past, when her boyfriends were professional athletes and she answered rivals by outperforming them. He added that he is always responsible for his own choices, but that if they were not careful, this pattern could have pushed him toward flirting. He says he never did.

What the couple in the clip said

The Mesas then played a short video from another couple. In it, a husband argued that attraction to someone else is normal as long as you do not act on it. His wife answered that she was attracted only to him. They explained that intimacy means "into me, you see," and asked whether you want to be with someone else or want to find out why you feel disconnected.

Adam said he agreed with the couple's information but he and Ashley would word some things differently. He pushed back on the idea that women are simply more mature here. In his view, women buy sexual fantasy books and watch fantasy movies in large numbers, and he pointed to Fifty Shades of Gray. He was clear that he was not describing this couple, and not every woman.

From counseling hundreds of couples, Adam said, women have their own vices. For many women, the fantasy is a value fantasy: kids who always need them become an idol that crowds out the marriage. What he liked in the video was the heart of it: "Anything that gets in between your marriage, anything that creates distance from your intimacy."

He also said the husband's language slid into what Christians call lust. Seeing someone as attractive is one step. Moving into sexual imagination is another.

When the body is part of the story

Adam shared a season about three years ago when he felt no attraction to anyone, including Ashley, whom he calls the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. He was more than 270 pounds. A doctor tested his testosterone and found it at 90. He said a healthy range runs from 300 to 700.

Even when Ashley came to him ready for intimacy, he could not be aroused. He lost 60 pounds and began treatment, and their intimacy improved. He added that attraction that moves into sexual territory is first a discipline of the mind, with hormone balance as one part of the picture.

Ashley on healing old wounds

Ashley described a TikTok she had heard. The speaker said people tend to lean toward their trauma without knowing it. Hers had been a pull to get her partner's attention so his eyes would not go elsewhere. She said she had to look at the man God gave her and at her own walk with Christ. As she told herself, "you are a daughter of a king. You are called. You have a purpose. You're fearfully and wonderfully made."

She believes the enemy tries to stir up what has been healed, so she keeps praying and standing on God's word. Healing has not made her overcorrect. She and Adam can say that someone is handsome or pretty and ask each other what they think. When Ashley admired an actor's build, her question to Adam was whether he wanted to get that buff.

She also sees beauty as something God made, and she said she sees it in the people who walk through the church doors. The question is where the line sits. If thoughts turn lustful, you discipline them. If something is missing in the marriage, Ashley said, talk with your spouse instead of letting the enemy replace them.

Leaving the gym and the coffee shop

Adam told a group of men what he does when a regular spot puts a woman in front of him who fits his attraction type. He leaves, for good. He would change gyms, stop going to a coffee shop and, if he could, move to a different department at work. "I'm not even going to play with fire," he said.

He described how it starts. Say it is one week out of ten, with no intimacy and a fight at home. He hugs her two seconds longer, laughs harder than he would with anyone else, asks about her day, and looks forward to the small boost of being noticed. Then comes a chat at Starbucks, then looking her up on Instagram. He said he knows these steps because he is reading people's mail from counseling.

He was quick to say he and Ashley are good nine times out of ten, and best friends. His point is that every marriage has a dry stretch. He added that emotional affairs now happen through DMs and comments, and that women have affairs as well as men.

He does not consider himself immune. He pointed to Samson in Judges 16, strong enough for a nation but not strong enough to say no to Delilah. Everyone has a weak spot, Adam said, and for some it is food.

Modesty on both sides

The men Adam spoke with also asked about women's clothing at the gym. His father's advice was to bounce your eyes, and Adam said a woman's outfit is never an excuse to stare. He acknowledged that some women dress to invite attention, and he said modern workout clothes are built to draw the eye. Even so, he put the responsibility on men to tame their own flesh.

Adam pointed to the garden, where Adam and Eve covered themselves once sin had entered the world.

Their eyes were opened, and they both knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together, and made coverings for themselves.

(Genesis 3:7, WEB)

Modesty applies to men too, he added, and he thinks about it at the gym himself. Ashley said she does not want church members seeing her in a sports bra and small shorts, so the outfits Adam buys her are what the couple call home gym outfits, worn on their own treadmill.

Boundaries for people who carry influence

Nancy said she admires that Adam has never opened with a comment on her hair or her looks. She is dating toward an engagement and said she used to be naive about handing out casual compliments. Adam answered that "the more you can lose, the more cautious you have to be," whether that is platform, influence or finances.

He said he is warm when someone needs prayer. He asks before placing a hand on a shoulder, and when he finishes praying he steps back about four feet. If he senses a woman is in a tender place, he hands her to Ashley or asks a colleague, Phil, to step in. He also said some pastors abuse their influence, and he does not want any woman building a fantasy around him. He leaves his underwear on the floor like everyone else.

What this means for you

Noticing that someone is attractive is a different matter from feeding the thought, and most of us know the moment the line gets crossed. The Mesas suggest asking an honest question: what is going on in my marriage right now? A dry season, an old wound or a body that needs a doctor can all make a small attention feel larger than it is.

Their advice is practical. Talk to your spouse before you look elsewhere. Remove the place or habit that feeds the pull before it grows. Let the Lord heal what comes from the past. You are responsible for your own eyes and choices, and the steps toward trouble are usually small ones.