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How many of you are married/have children?


Pax F

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I left my husband 9 years ago. Have a wonderful daughter who is now 22.

I wish I had known about asexuality back then, I tried to be a dutiful wife, by complying once a month, but the best part of the past nine years has been not having to do that anymore.

So why am beginning another relationship??????

I love the hugs and companionship, but I wish we had never started, sex is already an issue and much as we love each other, I see broken hearts ahead. His and mine. But I don't want to pretend or be dutiful ever again.

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I have one daughter, who is a product of what I consider my token heterosexual act, which is to say, when I graduated high school, girls in my town got married and had families, and with the pressure of my parents that was what I was encouraged to do. I was with my ex 12 years, and while I loved him and enjoyed the less invasive aspects of a relationship such as holding hands, long talks, snuggling, and things of that nature, the sex I did for him. Literally a 12 year long performance, I rationalized because that's what people who love each other are supposed to do. He knew there was something off about me, towards the end of our relationship he would say things like 'you so frigid', 'are you sure your not a lesbian', etc. etc. I was so tired at that point of living a lie that I didn't even care when we broke up. I felt like a huge burden had been lifted. I have started to talk to my daughter about why I don't have a husband or boyfriends because she is nine and has started to notice that I'm a little different than her friends mom's. She will ask me if I am going to get married someday, and I always tell her no. I try to keep it age appropriate though and we are able to have a few laughs about it. One time someone asked her if her mommy had a boyfriend and my daughter said "Heck no! My mom doesn't even LIKE girls!" Sounds weird, but I don't think I should have to hide it from my child. She loves her mother regardless of my lack of sexuality.

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Kitty Incognito

I have one daughter, who is a product of what I consider my token heterosexual act, which is to say, when I graduated high school, girls in my town got married and had families, and with the pressure of my parents that was what I was encouraged to do. I was with my ex 12 years, and while I loved him and enjoyed the less invasive aspects of a relationship such as holding hands, long talks, snuggling, and things of that nature, the sex I did for him. Literally a 12 year long performance, I rationalized because that's what people who love each other are supposed to do. He knew there was something off about me, towards the end of our relationship he would say things like 'you so frigid', 'are you sure your not a lesbian', etc. etc. I was so tired at that point of living a lie that I didn't even care when we broke up. I felt like a huge burden had been lifted. I have started to talk to my daughter about why I don't have a husband or boyfriends because she is nine and has started to notice that I'm a little different than her friends mom's. She will ask me if I am going to get married someday, and I always tell her no. I try to keep it age appropriate though and we are able to have a few laughs about it. One time someone asked her if her mommy had a boyfriend and my daughter said "Heck no! My mom doesn't even LIKE girls!" Sounds weird, but I don't think I should have to hide it from my child. She loves her mother regardless of my lack of sexuality.

Wow, saying "you're so frigid" and "are you sure your not a lesbian" must be a sexual husband thing.. mine does the same. Ironically, I was far more affectionate and "unfrigid" with him when I wasn't worried that every cuddle would lead to sex. I worry about my daughter too, because I don't want her to think that this is a healthy relationship or that she should be expected to compromise herself for any one.

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I think that we live in a world where people have the assanine presumption that because you are not interested in sex there is something seriously wrong with you as a person. I used to think his reaction was about his perception of my asexuality before I even knew there was something different about me, but now I realize that's not the issue. The issue is; regardless of my sexuality or lack there of, this was a man who felt his masculinity was in question by my behavior and he felt entitled to sex with me because we were in a relationship. To me, those things are not mutually exclusive. Even if your a sexul female, you should not feel obligated to perform because your husband feels threatened in your relationship if you do not have sex with him. My experience is my lack of sexuality is threatening to many people; men, woman, gay, or straight. If it's a straight man, it's his job to conquest me and put me in my place as a woman and show me what I'm missing out on, if it's a lesbian female same issue, if it's a gay man it's SMH your missing out on all this amazing experience or your ashamed to admit that your gay and hiding it or your mentally ill. People cannot wrap their limited minds around the fact that A. I don't like sex B. I don't ever think about it. C. If I participate, it's because I have a strong emotional connection to that person and I don't want to hurt them and D. My life is plenty filled with amazing experiences minus sex. E. I am not ashamed of who I am as a person.

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I don't understand why heterosexuals don't have to feel bad about being heterosexual, homosexuals don't have to feel bad about being homeosexual, but we asexuals...we have serious problems that need to be addressed. Makes no bloody sense.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm not married and never intend to be, I feel guilty though like my parents are missing out.

I do have 3 awesome kids though, they rock my world and are all I need <3

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I was married 26 years and have two sons, 22 and 17. My asexual nature was surely and contribution to the end of the relationship, but so was his narcissistic personality disorder. Just couldn't warm up to the guy.

My son just came out as bisexual this weekend. His father once said to him that he was proud that our son wasn't gay, on the occasion that he learned our son had a girlfriend. Not sure how this news is going to go over!

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Was married 25 yrs the first time. Divorced. Then married again and so far for 12yrs. I really do believe in giving it all u got. I have two grown sons from the first marriage. This marriage may end up different because I have finally come to terms with "who"I really am. So we shall see what happens.........:) it will be interesting!

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TheLastOfSheila

I married young, had been married for 23 years when my husband died. I have four really awesome sons that I love dearly. They have taught me so much. I have not come out to anyone yet, but if I do, they will be the first ones to know. :)

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I've been married for 30 years and have 2 grown sons. My husband and I have not had sex for many years. It seemed like such a chore to me. I finally figured out I was asexual. When I stopped providing him with sex I told him he could have sex with other women as long as he didn't tell me or the boys. Works fine for us.

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ranting ferret

married for a bit over a year now, we dated for nearly 4 though. i just officially put the pieces together of being asexual, and he is sexual. but so far that hasn't come up as an issue. at this point, we both have had to deal with lots of other things that have felt much more difficult than our differing sexualities.

as for kids, no kids. ever. and we're both pretty adamantly in agreement that there will be no kids.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi, newbie here, hope I can add to this thread. I've been married 8 years, and we have an utterly fabulous 7-year-old daughter.



This forum may save my marriage! My wife does the fairly normal and rather understandable thing of interpreting my lack of interest in sex as a lack of interest in her. I don't know that we would go all the way to getting divorced over that, but it makes her unhappy and makes the relationship stressful when it comes up. It drives us apart.



Up to about 48 hours ago, I didn't have any rational way to disagree with her, all I could say was, No, that's not the way it is. But the whole thing makes a whole lot more sense now that I'm acknowledging that I'm on the 'asexuality spectrum'.



I need to do a lot of thinking, and then somehow I need to have The Conversation with her (or perhaps had her The Letter). To be honest, I'm fairly nervous about how she'll react. (The silver lining may be that she's menopausal, so she's tending toward asexuality herself; for the last couple of years it's mostly been the symbolism of the lack of sex that bothers her, it's (apparently) not that she herself is craving sex that I'm not providing.) I hope she takes it well, as I do love her and I want to be closer to her again. Crossing fingers….


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Hi, newbie here, hope I can add to this thread. I've been married 8 years, and we have an utterly fabulous 7-year-old daughter.

This forum may save my marriage! My wife does the fairly normal and rather understandable thing of interpreting my lack of interest in sex as a lack of interest in her. I don't know that we would go all the way to getting divorced over that, but it makes her unhappy and makes the relationship stressful when it comes up. It drives us apart.

Up to about 48 hours ago, I didn't have any rational way to disagree with her, all I could say was, No, that's not the way it is. But the whole thing makes a whole lot more sense now that I'm acknowledging that I'm on the 'asexuality spectrum'.

I need to do a lot of thinking, and then somehow I need to have The Conversation with her (or perhaps had her The Letter). To be honest, I'm fairly nervous about how she'll react. (The silver lining may be that she's menopausal, so she's tending toward asexuality herself; for the last couple of years it's mostly been the symbolism of the lack of sex that bothers her, it's (apparently) not that she herself is craving sex that I'm not providing.) I hope she takes it well, as I do love her and I want to be closer to her again. Crossing fingers….

Until very recently I was in the same boat, only menopause makes my wife want sex more. Since mine isn't the kind who can sit and listen to me explain something without interjecting, I opted for the letter, followed by the conversation. We now have a workable understanding and it has totally changed my life, and I think hers as well. She fully understands I am not rejecting her, I still find her attractive, I still love her, I just needed a different agreement when it came to intimacy. Now I have it. It was a compromise and I'm fine with compromise since I do love her. I hope you are able to work out something that makes both you and your wife happy! =)

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Thanks, WoofPuppy, you're my hero!

I just don't know how she'll react. In my dream world, she goes, OHHHHhhhhhhhhh, that explains everything, let's talk about it over some cake. :-) But I can also envision all sorts of other less pleasant scenarios, where she feels this isn't real, or it's just an excuse, or whatever. Or she feels trapped or sandbagged or... well, whatever

Biggest factor is that I'm still a jumble inside, myself. Suddenly having an explanation for the last 35 years of my life that seems utterly convincing is... REALLY REALLY weird. Half the time I'm walking on air, half the time I'm grieving. And the *other* half of the time I'm skeptical, that this is such a powerful possible explanation that I'm tricking myself into believing it.

Sigh. Sorry for the melodrama. It's hard to think systematically about this, get my thoughts and feelings in order, and I need to do at least some of that before I can approach it with my wife.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just turned 38. My husband and I are both virgins and both hetero-asexual. We've been married for 4 years.

We're childfree so 0 kids, unless cats and dogs count. ;) We love and dote on our furbabies!

Funny thing is that I didn't find out about asexuality and AVEN until around the time we met. Also, how uncanny is it that my husband turned out to be asexual as well? It was an extremely happy coincidence!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have 4 kids with my partner of 8 years. We are not married and I've been holding that off because of the issues with sex we've had over the years.

Now that I may be able to explain my lack of interest in it rationally, and he can stop translating it to a lack of interest in or love for him, we may get a stronger relationship.

It has been difficult because he is very sexually inclined and sees sex as the ultimate expression of love while it's mostly just another chore for me.

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Hi all! New here! I'm 39, married, 4 kids, just recently figured out that I am, indeed, asexual and not just frigid.

Like many of you have mentioned, asexuality wasn't a term in my young adulthood, add to that the pressures of society (especially here in the Midwest) made me think I was the standard hetero except for not liking sex. I just thought it was a duty of me being female.

Looking back, I was asexual then and asexual now. My husband is VERY sexual whereas I don't need nor want it, AT ALL (it makes my skin crawl when my parts are touched sexually). But we do compromise and he is totally ok with that! We were both relieved to find out I am asexual and it's nice to be able to say it out loud.

So happy to be here and meet you all!

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Married 9 years (but together for 20), twin preschoolers. I only found out about asexuality last year, in the wake of discovering that my husband had been having an affair for more than a year. It's becoming more and more clear that this may be my natural orientation, which we are both struggling with (as my husband is highly sexual).

Finding a compromise is really difficult for us right now. We've discussed a "don't ask, don't tell" policy, but then if he's with other people, I don't know if I want to have sex with him also. One of the things that killed me about the affair was that he was with both of us, right? It's not like I had cut him off or anything, we were still having sex maybe once a week.

It might be easier for me to come to terms with a compromise if he hadn't already cheated. The foundation of our relationship to that point was absolute and inherent trust, and that was shattered. So now even when I try, I just can't trust him anymore. So even if I say "okay, you can see other people" I'm still paranoid and resentful.

We're committed to staying together for various reasons (not the least of which is two young children), but our relationship is so fundamentally changed that I'm having trouble seeing a road map for the future now. :(

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We're committed to staying together for various reasons (not the least of which is two young children), but our relationship is so fundamentally changed that I'm having trouble seeing a road map for the future now. :(

I can relate to this very easily. Although my kids are teenagers now the future is still a mystery.

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Autumn Sunrise

Married for 24 years and recently questioning if we should still be married. I am glad I did not discover asexuality until I was much older because I would not have had my 2 amazing teenage sons. No matter what the future brings I would do it the exact same way all over again.

Sounds rather like my situation. I have two daughters and a son, and two grandsons, and I am so happy and grateful to have them, even though my marriage was a disaster and ultimately ended in divorce. There IS light at the end of the tunnel :) And now I'm starting to get used to the idea, I think I'm glad that I'm Ace.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think I'm demi. I got married because he was my best friend and it didn't seem QUITE as scary after 4 years of friendship. First year was really hard - nothing came naturally to me and he had to be so patient. But we made it work. I'm okay with sex now, though I still don't get physical attraction. Or romance. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to explain that I don't see him any differently then any other members of my family - so far close friendship has been enough for him, and I hope it always is.

We've been married almost 6 years and have 2 wonderful kids.

Other than the fact that so much stuff that's important to other people makes no sense to me I'm pretty happy. I think I could get away with no label, but everything I've read about the asexual spectrum feels like it fits.

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Married at 18.. had 2 kiddos with that one. Divorced and remarried at 30..one kiddo with this one. Have been told by both that I have a problem because I don't like sex..and have been accused of having affairs..which led them both to cheat. I am SO relieved to discover that I'm mot the only one who feel like this!

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I couldn't even hold down a relationship, never had a long term relationship, although I wouldn't rule anything out, at 48, I've been single as in not had a relationship since April 1991, so I doubt I'll even end up in a relationship again in my lifetime

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I think I'm still consider a "newly wed"? My husband and I have been married for a year. We were best friends for like...5 years or something? then we dated for like 3 years after that? We've known each other a long time lol We don't have kids and neither of us are sexually active. He is a sexual person, but I'm not. I just have no interest and he's known that from the very beginning. I honestly thought I could change and that I'd want to be "normal" and do what normal couples do when they like each other enough, but it never happened. I broke down multiple times because I just felt so "broken". He always comforted me and told me there was nothing wrong with me and he didn't care.

So yea. Things so far have been pretty good. We're basically just best friends living together and according to the government we're married, which who knows what that's really supposed to mean...without the little piece of paper we'd just be two people of opposite gender living together. Marriage has always seemed so silly to me, but I do want to be with my husband for ever. He is the best person I've ever known and the most understanding and patient guy I've ever dated. Marriage was the only way for us to actually live together due to us being from different countries. If we had been in the same country we probably wouldn't have gotten married.

We don't have any kids and have no plans for any, but we do have fuzzy children. We've got 2 dogs and a cat, I consider them our "babies", they're pretty much like kids, but easier to train, most of the time lol

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2nd marraige of 20+ years. 2 kids from 1st, daughter 30 and son 27. 19 yo son from this one. If I weren't disabled and unable to work, we'd probably been divorced by now. As it is, we struggle to maintain intimacy with cuddles, talks, hugs, and kisses. I'd be willing to have just sex occassionally if I could, but it's not an option - and no way with any of that icky body fluid outside stuff. Just no. I've got too many abandonment issues to open up our relationship; he can't do "casual" sex. Finding out I'm asexual seems to have allowed him to make peace with himself; knowing it's not me rejecting him is a biggie for him. I'd say we're content enough. Sometimes that's just how it is.

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Previously married twice. First marriage lasted 5 years, I hated being married. No kids that time. Second marriage I kind of saw the train wreck coming, but I wanted a family life. Two great kids age 5 and 7. We recently divorced, secretly. Still live together. Yea we are trying to figure that out. We both want to continue our lives exactly as they were, minus the sexual and emotional intimacy problems. The divorce in my opinion is appropriate bc I should not have gotten married. I am not religious, I don't believe in or care about monogamy or the institution of marriage. Whoops. The divorce for him was more appropriate than "cheating" or "swinging", he preferred a cleaner slate. He is trying to figure out how to date as a divorced father who lives with his family. (Yes, family, we are still family, or feel like it.) But we haven't told anybody! Not the kids! It's all about sex! It's adult, and private! Oh the messes we make. But even with the odd mess I am now in, I am very happy, so much more at peace than before, when I just "hated sex I don't know why sorry boo guilty guilty argue fight."

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previously married once to someone that was likely gray ace but didn't know it(same with me at that time). We stayed together for about 7 years and the one time we had sex she got pregnant. After she had our child her sex drive went through the roof(never heard of that before? me neither) and things fell apart between us. She now lives in Colorado with our son. My biggest obstacle is trying to live without my son in my daily life. I only get to call him a couple times a week and half the time she doesn't answer the phone.

I been calling myself an asexual for a couple years now and it never dawned on me to look this up and learn about it until today. Apparently it is a label that they didn't teach me about in medical school even. Only one in history or with celebrity that I ever heard of like this/me was Isaac Newton. Happy to meet you all.

This is my first post! aloha everyone.

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