OK, I am a woman in her 40s and I think I might be able to give a slightly different perspective on a couple of points. I love my partner's personality, but he is also very handsome in both the traditional sense and in what I, personally, go for. He's my "type." (I would say he looks like a mixture of Cristiano Ronaldo and Ryan Gosling.) I fell is love his personality of course but there was also an immediately attraction based on his looks.

That was seven years ago when we were both in our 30s and closer to peak form, so of course things change. However not all of those changes are permanent. He started losing his hair, which sort of cooled me off a bit, but he got a new hiarcut now that looks great. And he also went through a period where he started to gain quite a bit of weight after being very broad and lean, which did sort of deaden my attraction a bit. However, that wasn't permanent either. I did encourage him to eat healthier and exercise more, but I never said why, and never pushed the issue. I just did it for both of us. Over time, many months, he started slowly eating better and being more active. Two years later, he is basically back to his fighting weight and is hot as hell to me.

I'm not going to sugarcoat it, the fact that my partner is very attractive to me just objectively and I don't need to look through the scrim of his personality all the time really helps grease the gears in the relationship. This is because he is not perfect and there are times when, personally, he really grates on my nerves. In those times, looking at this hot, attractive man, and the handsome face and great body helps stoke the fires. When he personality becomes a bit of a turn off, as it would with any imperfect human, the physical element is still there, and that really helps.