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How to tell my girlfriend that I'm ace?


FairyRing

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I don't know how to tell my girlfriend that I'm somewhere on the ace-spectrum. She's my best friend and we don't keep secrets, and I feel like I'm lying to her by not telling. I feel guilty about this but I'm really scared to tell her; I'm afraid that she thinks that a relationship with an ace person takes too much work, or that she might feel unwanted and leave me. I know that sex is important to her and this scares me. I feel like I've only just realized that I'm asexual (maybe grey-ace?), but the more I think about the the more I feel sure that that's the case. 

Do you have any advice for how to tell her? Or maybe any experience about telling your partner? 
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NerotheReaper

You should just be honest with her, and explain to her asexuality and your feelings rather soon than later. Being able to talk and be honest is very important, she will either react in two ways: accept it, or not. You might need to explain and you guys might need to talk about it, and what it might mean to your relationship. Hopefully she will accept you, and be okay with this. 

 

Good luck! 

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I think it's kind of tricky sometimes to get this across to people. When I realized I was ace I'd already had experience with explaining to people that I'm introverted, but there's more to this discussion, especially with an SO. Some things to make sure of (just my suggestions):

 

1) Make sure they're in a space/frame of mind where they can hear you. Make sure you have their full attention, that they understand you have something important to share. (The first time I told my spouse, I'm not sure he even heard me. I was all excited having just discovered asexuality as a thing, so I probably jumped the gun without making sure he was listening. When I next brought up the subject it was as if in his mind that conversation hadn't even taken place.)

 

2) Make sure to give them a clear, concise definition first of what asexuality is. If they've never heard of it, and even if they have, they may have misconceptions.

 

3) Make sure they understand your personal variant on asexuality. It really is a spectrum, maybe 4 spectrums rolled into one. 

 

4) Be sensitive to what being sexually wanted/desired means to them, if at all possible, and make sure they understand this doesn't mean you don't love them. (This can be the trickiest bit of all.)

 

So obviously there's some advance preparation needed. The first thing I would do is find some really good concise articles, definitions to print out or link to for them. I'd have printouts in hand, myself, if I had this to do over again.

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Talk about your feelings, not about labels. I mean, instead of telling her "I'm asexual" and then explaining what that means, just tell her how you feel about physical intimacy. And then, when it is all out, you can add "by the way, that's called asexual". Don't hide behind a label she probably doesn't know anyway. Go into the details of your feelings.

 

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Thank you all for such good replies!! 

 

On 19.10.2017 at 2:08 AM, Moonchaser said:

 

3) Make sure they understand your personal variant on asexuality. It really is a spectrum, maybe 4 spectrums rolled into one. 

 

4) Be sensitive to what being sexually wanted/desired means to them, if at all possible, and make sure they understand this doesn't mean you don't love them. (This can be the trickiest bit of all.)

 

Honestly these two are the ones I have the most trouble with.  I'm afraid that when she hears the word "asexual" she'll just assume a bunch of stuff that don't necessarily apply to me.

On 19.10.2017 at 3:28 AM, roland.o said:

Talk about your feelings, not about labels. I mean, instead of telling her "I'm asexual" and then explaining what that means, just tell her how you feel about physical intimacy. And then, when it is all out, you can add "by the way, that's called asexual". Don't hide behind a label she probably doesn't know anyway. Go into the details of your feelings.

 

This is a good advice! She knows what asexuality means but I don't think she knows how much of a spectrum it really is. I think telling her how I feel first and then bringing aaexuality to it might work the best. 

 

On 19.10.2017 at 1:10 AM, NerotheReaper said:

You should just be honest with her, and explain to her asexuality and your feelings rather soon than later. Being able to talk and be honest is very important, she will either react in two ways: accept it, or not. You might need to explain and you guys might need to talk about it, and what it might mean to your relationship. Hopefully she will accept you, and be okay with this. 

 

Good luck! 

Thank you! I think I really just lack courage do tell her, but I'm trying to come up with ways to come out with it. I guess I won't know if she'll accept me or not until we'll have a good talk. 

 

Thank you all for your good advice!! 

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Just a quick addition to the great advice you've gotten:

Remember to emphasize how you feel about her, the things you love. For me, my partner started immediately count the situations they might have forced me on something, you know taking a blame on something. Make sure she knows there's nothing wrong in the way she's acted, and that she knows you want her in other aspects.

 

I wish you the best of luck! Do let her in on the things. I used to show my partner the posts I wrote (to the national board) so he'd feel included - it was our issue and not just mine and he'd know I'm not just entering some strange community like a cult :ph34r: :P

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Get her drunk. Wait, that didn't work so well for me.

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When I learned what demisexual was, I thought that was me. Later I started questioning of I may be ace or greysexual (which could mean a variety of things), and I told my boyfriend. We have had periods of time not having lots of sex, but I think the words scared him. He always said it was fine if we didn't have sex a lot, but now if it was forever he wasn't so fine with it

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12 hours ago, Ash_fi said:

Just a quick addition to the great advice you've gotten:

Remember to emphasize how you feel about her, the things you love. For me, my partner started immediately count the situations they might have forced me on something, you know taking a blame on something. Make sure she knows there's nothing wrong in the way she's acted, and that she knows you want her in other aspects.

I'm actually afraid that she'll think she's forced me to do things and/or feel guilty... That's really an important thing to remember and I think I'll need to emphasize that she hasn't done anything wrong. 

12 hours ago, Ash_fi said:

I wish you the best of luck! Do let her in on the things. I used to show my partner the posts I wrote (to the national board) so he'd feel included - it was our issue and not just mine and he'd know I'm not just entering some strange community like a cult :ph34r: :P

Okay this is a good thing for me to keep in mind! I think that I'd really easily just avoid the subject once I've told her but no matter how difficult it'll feel I need to share and include her. 

12 hours ago, ANOTABADGrade said:

Get her drunk. Wait, that didn't work so well for me.

I actually thought if I should take a few for courage haha. Sorry that worked against you though! 

 

5 hours ago, fallenangell said:

When I learned what demisexual was, I thought that was me. Later I started questioning of I may be ace or greysexual (which could mean a variety of things), and I told my boyfriend. We have had periods of time not having lots of sex, but I think the words scared him. He always said it was fine if we didn't have sex a lot, but now if it was forever he wasn't so fine with it

One thing I'm scared of tbh. I know sex is important to her and she has a high sex drive. We don't have that much sex because I turn her down often, and so far she's been fine with that. She's started to ask me why we have sex so seldom though and honestly I don't know how to answer... I really should tell her sooner than later.

 

Thank you all again for your replies!!

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Are there parts of sex, which you enjoy?  Have you thought about good compromises? Schedules about sex? Acceptable ways to turn down? Variations?  For me, sexual, it worked better to put in schedule and to try to think of sex as something mostly for me, but also enjoyable for her as I help her past the first couple of barriers of discomfort. We try to think of it more like a massage, than sexy sex. I ask more. Like "is it just for me today?" As i feel her being a bit reluctant to receive touches. Or "do you want me to continue this or stop?" As I can get confused when her body isnt that easy to 'read'!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Alright so I managed to tell her how I feel ahout sex and slipped in some info about the ace spectrum. 

It went much better than I expected? She said she was happy that I was learning more about my sexuality and said it wouldn't pose a problem to our relationship - she said it'd be a different story if I was sex repulsed. 

On 21.10.2017 at 11:08 AM, MrDane said:

Are there parts of sex, which you enjoy?  Have you thought about good compromises? Schedules about sex? Acceptable ways to turn down? Variations?  For me, sexual, it worked better to put in schedule and to try to think of sex as something mostly for me, but also enjoyable for her as I help her past the first couple of barriers of discomfort. We try to think of it more like a massage, than sexy sex. I ask more. Like "is it just for me today?" As i feel her being a bit reluctant to receive touches. Or "do you want me to continue this or stop?" As I can get confused when her body isnt that easy to 'read'!

I guess the part I like in sex is the cuddling that comes afterwards haha. We were talking about some compromises a little - I still feel super awkward talking about this stuff with her for whatever reason ( I guess I'm feeling a little guilty). 

We have basically agreed that she may initate sex whenever she wishes and I may turn her down whenever I feel so. Which is probably going to be often haha, but she also said she doesn't mind if we don't do it that often. 

 

Thank you for this reply, it's really neat and good to read something from the other point of view! 

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