Handling Long Distance with a Sexual Partner

[Will O’ Whisp]

Hello! I suppose I’m new – never posted, but lurking for the past few years. I’ve been more comfortable with the label “ace” recently, mentioning it to friends, who are generally very accepting (attempting to mention it to my mother... is another story that set me back a while).

 

I spent my college years attempting to make myself enjoy sex by letting people do what they want, despite not feeling any desire. I fear sometimes that I’m not ace, and that those bad experiences simply led me to this label. Part of this doubt is due to the relationship I’m in now. 

 

I’ve allowed myself to open up enough to attempt a relationship for the first time. I was bold and told my partner that I fell somewhere on the ace spectrum, and told him what that was. He appeared to accept it, but now I wonder if he has... When in person I can zone out enough to avoid any extreme sex-repulsion, but long distance is putting a strain on both of us. Multiple times I’ve gotten drunk trying to stop caring enough to partake in various long-distance activities that I hear allos find normal. I want to make him happy, but what he asks of me leaves me shaking and numb for the rest of the day. When trying to bring this up, he’s very apologetic and hard on himself, but that doesn’t seem to change anything going forward. The time comes around again where he has his needs, he says he feels lonely because I don’t “want” him in the right way – I say I don’t want too, he continues to lament until I feel I need to, and so I do, shaking all the while. He is then critical of himself, and I’m left consoling him and protesting the names he calls himself.

 

Since I seem to be able to go through with sex in person, he sometimes hints that I want to use the label “ace” to feel special and unique. Is he right?

 

What am I doing wrong?

[gaogao]

36 minutes ago, Will O’ Whisp said:

Multiple times I’ve gotten drunk trying to stop caring enough to partake in various long-distance activities that I hear allos find normal. I want to make him happy, but what he asks of me leaves me shaking and numb for the rest of the day.

y i k e s

 

if he doesn't believe you and doesn't want to work with you to understand your needs and your boundaries, that is a really bad sign. Whether or not you're sexual or asexual is irrelevant. Just because some (or even most) sexual people think certain sexual activities are 'fun' or 'normal' doesn't mean they're fun or normal for all sexual people, so if you were sexual you might still have a similar reaction! On the other hand, if you say you are ace, it's not on you to prove that you are ace to the people around you. People don't know you the way you know yourself, so it's impossible for anyone other than you to make a final judgment call - the invalidation he's throwing at you sounds like he's just trying to guilt and manipulate you into doing what he wants, and that's not ok whether you are "actually" a sexual person or not.

Let him know that whether he thinks you're just using the label to feel special or unique doesn't matter. What matters is that you don't enjoy the type of sexual activity he's trying to make you participate in. If you are pushing yourself to do something for him that makes you shaking and numb for the rest of the day and getting drunk to deal with it - he can say he's sorry all he likes, but that's just not healthy for you. Just beating himself up and having you comfort him doesn't show any remorse, if he was really sorry he'd do more to change himself or take your needs into account.

 

The fact that he's quietly trying to invalidate you and saying you don't want him in the "right" way isn't healthy at all...  it's not all about his needs, it's also about yours. Compromise is fine but compromise means both parties are giving something up equally - no relationship can survive if one person is ignoring all their needs, which is what you seem to be forced into doing right now... Hang in there!

[Will O’ Whisp]

11 minutes ago, gaogao said:

and that's not ok whether you are "actually" a sexual person or not.

Thank you so much for your thoughts, I’ll try to make that clearer to him when communicating my perspective. He’s really a nice guy at heart, and cares a lot for me.. Do you have any recommendations on how I find a compromise when even little things are hard for me, and he wants everything? I’m at a loss. 

[gaogao]

3 hours ago, Will O’ Whisp said:

Thank you so much for your thoughts, I’ll try to make that clearer to him when communicating my perspective. He’s really a nice guy at heart, and cares a lot for me.. Do you have any recommendations on how I find a compromise when even little things are hard for me, and he wants everything? I’m at a loss. 

I think you need to be clear with him that he's never going to get everything he wants with you, no matter how much he cares about you and no matter how much you care about him. It seems pretty clear that if you give him everything he wants, you won't ever be healthy or happy. This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with asexuality - you are an individual and you have realised that what he has been asking you to do has had an incredibly negative effect on you. If he doesn't accept you are ace when you say you are (which is really very upsetting as someone who is supposed to care about you) he at least has to accept that your drive is lower than his and that you're not as interested in certain sexual acts as he is. He's going to have to understand that he cannot continue to manipulate you into these sexual acts when you are uncomfortable with them - that is not something a caring individual should do, and it is not compromise because he is not compromising by giving anything up. 

 

Do you feel he has compromised on anything in your relationship? If he can't give up anything and you are always the one doing what you don't really want to do to make him happy, you could ask him whether he is really ready to be with you.

 

I only ever achieved the ability to compromise with my partner by saying that as much as I loved her and that as much as I know she loves me, we might not ever be truly compatible, and if either of us ever decides that we can't keep going we will have to talk about it and be ready to either compromise further or part ways, but we must never compromise to the point it destroys us.

 

It's clear you are trying your best and unfortunately your best is destroying you - if asking your boyfriend to give up on this one long-distance sexual act would destroy him as well, it isn't really good for either of you if the result is mutual destruction.

[Will O’ Whisp]

3 hours ago, gaogao said:

I think you need to be clear with him that he's never going to get everything he wants with you, no matter how much he cares about you and no matter how much you care about him.

Thank you – I guess I knew all this, but I needed someone to tell me. I wish you the best of luck with your own compromises. ❤️