For those who are in mixed relationships - advice?

[rockstar_babyy]

So I'm fairly new to this but I just wanted to tell my story and maybe get some advice/support?

My fiance and I have been together just over 2 years and have (mostly) always had a rather inactive sex life in terms of she hardly ever wants sex. We never really knew why she was like this and thought maybe it was stress related or her low self esteem was the reason. I also felt like it was my fault that maybe I wasn't attractive etc. I have learnt to live with it though figuring things would improve once she changed jobs or once she started to feel good about herself. However as someone with a very high sex drive I do tend to get frustrated after about 6 weeks of nothing (which is usually the case, once every 2 months on average) which ends up in both of us getting upset.

Last night I googled asexuality and this site popped up. After reading a fair bit, everything sort of clicked and after showing my fiance she agreed that asexual makes sense as to how she feels. Today has been a very emotional roller coaster for me in terms of feeling like I am the bad one for always trying to have sex with her, feeling hurt to know that the person I want to spend the rest of my life with will never be sexually attracted to me, lucky that she does actually sometimes get aroused and want sex and that she definitely love cuddles.

I guess I just want some advice on how to make it work? I dont want to seem like the bad guy for wanting sex when she doesnt but at the same time I still crave that intimacy with her.

Thanks for reading.

[Bad_Mr_Tree]

I'm the asexual in the relationship and my sexual partner and I have been together for a long time. Unfortunately we only began to understand my asexuality half a year ago after eight years together.

She feels very much the same way you do, and we probably have sex as often now as once every two months.

The most important and crucial thing, at any stage of a relationship, is to be honest with yourself and your partner. What is it that you need, what is it that you can share. This can be very difficult at times and is something that has to be revisited as our ideas and personalities shift or change.

Slowly overtime I've understood that there are things that I need, that she can't give me. I've accepted that perhaps I will never share those feelings with her, but I've also come to understand that the things that I want, working passionately together on a project, can be found in other relationships.

This has been a double edged sword. Firstly, because sharing a project is what allows me to build intimacy with someone, and to be more romantically inclined, and secondly because she views herself as she described it to me last night: "incidental".

If you arrive at a time and place where each of you feel incidental to one another's goals and aspirations, and needs, it becomes very difficult and burdensome/inauthentic to continue with romantic gestures since the intimacy of a shared passion is lacking. At this point it becomes exceedingly important to understand how much romance you really need in your relationship to feel wanted/loved/trusted/respected. I've come to understand that I don't really need that much, that a shared history, shared ideas, the time we spend together and each others character is enough to be as involved as we are. I can be content with what we have now (minus the hurtful comments she says because she isn't).

But for a relationship to work both parties need to be either content, or working together, hand in hand, towards the same goal.

Are you doing that now? Do you see yourself doing that in the future?

I know I've gone a bit off topic with a few details of my own experience, I hope that you find something in it that cautions or guides you.

[Psyrhys]

This is just my opinion; since I'm still fairly young and have only ever been in one relationship, you may want to take this with a grain of salt.

I think it's important for the two of you to talk things out. It's possible that there's a compromise where both of you can be happy. The main thing to keep in mind with compromise, though, is that BOTH of you should be happy with your relationship, and neither one of you should be uncomfortable with how things are. It's also possible for people to become uncomfortable with something they used to be fine with previously, so you should keep communicating about what both of you want and need. I've heard that sometimes Want-Will-Won't lists are useful for helping to determine boundaries and such. I won't promise anything, since I haven't actually looked into them much, but I wanted to throw the idea out there. Maybe look into ways of being intimate that don't necessarily involve sex?

You're not a bad person for wanting to be intimate. The bad thing would be trying to force your fiance into doing something she doesn't want to do - which you're not doing. The problem is, if being intimate is important to you, and she's not able to provide that, you may not be the best people for each other. It sucks to say it, but some people just aren't compatible in that way. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with either of you - it just means that what you need is not what the other person can give. In order to make a relationship work long-term, you have to be comfortable with each other, and that's not going to happen if one of you is forced to do something they don't want (having sex in her case, or not being intimate in yours).

Like I said, that's just my opinion, but I really think you should talk things over. Communication is one of the most important parts of a relationship. Hopefully, there will be a way for both of you to get what you need without anyone having to feel pressured into something. I hope that helps.

(Since you did ask specifically for people in mixed relationships, I'll share a little about my own. I'm currently dating a non-asexual guy, and we've been together for almost seven months. My circumstances are a little different than yours, since I already knew I was asexual when we started dating, and I told him about it after we'd been together for a little while, before things got too involved. I told him that I wasn't really interested in sex, that I wasn't ready or willing to take that step, and it was very possible that I never would be. I think I was lucky - he was very accepting, and said that he cared about me more than any particular activity, and wanted to do whatever he could with me without making me uncomfortable. I have pushed my boundaries a little with him, but it's always been my choice of when and how far, and he's never pressured me in any way.)

[Oddball-Meo]

First of all, you shouldn't feel bad for wanting sex. It's a natural part of your sexuality the same way it is for us asexuals natural to not feel sexual attraction towards anyone. You should also not feel hurt because your partner isn't sexually attracted to you (I know this is easier said than done), there is nothing wrong with you. Asexuals just don't find anyone sexually attractive, so as cliche as it sounds: it's really not you.

As for advice to make this kind of relationship work is lots of good communication and everyone has to be willing to compromise. Of course even if you compromise and so does your partner it doesn't guarantee everyone will be 100% satisfied with the compromise. Unfortunately you need to come to terms with the possiblity that you won't necessarily have the ideal relationship you always imagined. However not being completely satisfied doesn't mean you both can't be happy, in fact you both should be otherwise it won't work.

Being in a mixed relationship is hard but it CAN work. But also keep in mind that each relationship is different, what works for one won't always work for another.

[whitesphere]

It's not a bad thing to want to have sex. The important thing is that BOTH people need to find ways to be sincerely happy with the relationship. It is great that you are respecting her needs not to have sex, but not fair to you since you have such a high sex drive.

I'd be careful of trying to sublimate the sex drive (i.e. redirect it into other activities) because what you end up doing is more like flat out denying an important part of yourself. And, obviously, pretending you feel something you don't won't work.

If there are sensual and romantic compromises that fulfill most of that need, that might work. But from what I've heard from my sexual best friend (female), the frustration comes because romantic and sensual activities cause sexual arousal and she feels very frustrated and upset when these romantic and sensual activities don't lead to sex.

Sometimes two good people just can't stay together because they don't meet each others' core needs. There's no blame or shame in that. And it doesn't mean you stop loving the person, just that you need a woman who shares your sex drive at least enough so you feel romantically connected to her (for some sexual people, they don't feel "really" in love without sharing what is, for them, the closest you can get to another human being).

[Tarfeather]

I'd be careful of trying to sublimate the sex drive (i.e. redirect it into other activities) because what you end up doing is more like flat out denying an important part of yourself. And, obviously, pretending you feel something you don't won't work.

Don't know, all I can say is that my sex drive went down all by itself over the past few months. I no longer have the view of my partner as a sexual partner, and this has now extended to a hormonal level. It's not so much about denying a part of myself, as much as it's about accepting her. Sex is also not like food, one can easily be forced into a situation where they have to do without it, and I've done so for my entire life. I'm actually just glad I'm not completely alone, that would be much worse, and could easily be the case for the rest of my life.

[Martin de V]

Echoing the "You gotta talk to her" sentiment. It's the only way you're ever going to have a chance of changing things. Compromise can work; you can get more thany you're getting if you're willing to work within her comfort zone. You'll wind up getting less than you want, and she'll wind up getting a little more than she wants, but if you can figure out a way to do it that won't traumatize either of you...you'll do okay.