Need your help to understand!

[cloud9]

Hello,

I am a mother of two kids and in a relationship since last 12 years.

I was thinking that I was frigid and had been forcing myself for at least 20 years to had sexual relationships. I tried many things but I feel that I do not enjoy sex but felt obliged or trying to tell myself that I liked having sex and convincing myself.

In my present relationship, I love my partner but I have no sexual desire and I think in the past I was trying to prove myself to be sexual.

My boy friend in high school that I would sleep in the same bed with every weekend will blame me that I can not have sex and he would say that he did not love me. we were together for 6 months and we broke up but he wanted me to still spend time with him from morning to the evening.

I made a clear break and we did not speak for a year. After we graduated he came in to town, to say sorry to how he had treated me. We had on and off casual sex as by the time we saw each other I was determined to be good at sex as I have met someone I really liked and wanted to be with him for the rest of life. Sex became for me a challenge, I really did not enjoy it but I felt I had to be able to have sex to be able to have a relationship. I think I am in the A-gray romantic.

I have a sex drive,not high, I do masturbate, not so often but for me that is enough. my ideal sex with another person is masturbating, may be for visual stimulation to see them masturbate. my partner thinks I became more and more selfish as I feel that I can not have further sex. When I tried to have sex with another woman , I also just wanted to get off and I prefer to be alone to masturbate.

I have no desire to be penetrated even I can have some radical fantasies. But mainly I feel so sexless.

I do feel attractions to men but I panic when I do not know what can happen and seeing myself being not capable of having sex with them. I am romantic and my partner is not really. He is sexual so he can not understand why I never desire him. He thought it was him, I think I can not anyway have sex with someone and enjoy it like other people seem to. I feel that when there are too much flirting going around me, not towards me but someone else , very uncomfortable.

right now I am trying to understand all this. It will be great if you can help me to come to further understanding. Thanks!

[Tarfeather]

my partner thinks I became more and more selfish as I feel that I can not have further sex.

It sounds more selfish to expect sex when you don't like it.

[Kitty Incognito]

This sounds a lot like me except add a few more years to the relationship part (which will be ending soon). I think it's very hard, if not impossible, for a sexual non-romantic person to understand an asexual romantic person. For a lot of them, sex is love and acceptance and without it their self esteem takes a major hit. My (soon to be ex) husband has called me selfish and cold on more occasions that I can count because I'm not interested in sex as much as he is.

It took a while for me to "get" that libido, romantic attraction, and sexual attraction are all different things before I could start to figure out where I stood on each of those (still working it out). Before this, I think I've confused romantic attraction and libido with sexual attraction because I didn't know any better. In the beginning of my relationship, everything seemed good but as my libido went down an my romantic attraction to him took a nose dive (because of his reaction to my lack of sexual interest and other things) my asexuality became more obvious.

[Tarfeather]

I think it's very hard, if not impossible, for a sexual non-romantic person to understand an asexual romantic person. For a lot of them, sex is love and acceptance and without it their self esteem takes a major hit.

I don't know, it's also to some degree a thing that you have rational control over. I think anyone can come to terms with the idea that sex isn't love, even if they will never fully be able to untangle the two emotionally.

[Kitty Incognito]

I think it's very hard, if not impossible, for a sexual non-romantic person to understand an asexual romantic person. For a lot of them, sex is love and acceptance and without it their self esteem takes a major hit.

I don't know, it's also to some degree a thing that you have rational control over. I think anyone can come to terms with the idea that sex isn't love, even if they will never fully be able to untangle the two emotionally.

Having rational control over it assumes that a person has the capacity or emotional intelligence, at that time, to truly understand it. Not just from the other person's point of view, but also understanding how their own emotions play into it. I'm not saying that no aromantic sexual could ever understand a romantic asexual or come to terms with any of their own hang ups about sexual attraction and love, just that it seems rare... especially if that person has trouble distancing themselves emotionally from the situation or had a completely different impression of how their partner felt (back when they may have acted sexual).

I don't know if any of that makes sense. I just know from personal experience that if Cloud9's partner is still feeling it's about him and is taking her lack of attraction personally then he is probably not able to separate his self-esteem from sex... especially if he thinks she's become "selfish". Sometimes two people can work through their differences (and it warms my heart to see it), but then sometimes two people are just not healthy for each other and too incompatible. Not any one's fault, it just is.

[Howard]

You could find interesting the thread 'sexual compromises and support' in the section For partners, allies and friends as your situation is, sadly, common.