A Couple Questions

[ViolinFreak]

I'm a sexual girl in a relationship with an ace guy. We're both pretty young (18) and this is the first major relationship for either of us, although I've dated around before. As part of this, he doesn't really know what he's comfortable with in terms of physical intimacy, and our default has kind of become no contact at all. I initiated cuddling a few days ago and he was fine with it, but he isn't ready for anything else. I guess my question is whether other sexuals in mixed relationships feel like they're asking about it too often or wanting/asking for too much? I know this is pretty much the only way for us to find an agreement, but I dislike asking if he's ready for ____ all the time when I know the answer's going to be no, and I don't want to pressure him into anything.

Another question for sexuals - how do you handle the bad days? Most of the time I'm totally fine with the situation, but every so often I crash and just really want to be touched. I'd tell him, but I don't want to make him uncomfortable and there isn't really anything he can do about it but feel guilty.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance ^_^

[Seraph's Embrace]

As a demisexual who's been in a long-distance relationship with an asexual girl (which was likewise our first major relationship), I can hopefully offer some experiences that you'll find useful. In the early days of my relationship, it was actually my partner who instigated anything beyond cuddling. I originally insisted on avoiding anything more intimate on her behalf, but she eventually persuaded me that she actively wanted to push those boundaries - rather than asking whether she was ready for intimacy, I spent more time checking whether she was genuinely comfortable with the intimacy which we already had. With that said, I've experienced something similar to you in the later stages of our relationship - when she stopped feeling comfortable with forms of intimacy that I'd become used to, it was extremely difficult to avoid being pushy and asking questions that she wouldn't feel happy saying either yes or no. It's something that can be uncomfortable and difficult to handle appropriately, so you're far from alone, but you'll often find that it's worthwhile for the sake of the person that you care about.

When it comes to communicating with your partner, I feel that keeping each other fully informed about how you're feeling is the lifeblood of a sexual/asexual relationship - it's obviously extremely important for any form of relationship, but any communication barriers are going to show much sooner when they start butting heads with anything related to sexual intimacy. It's worth taking a step back and working out exactly what needs or desires you're experiencing at the moment - are you looking for tactile stimulation (in a similar sense to cuddling stuffed toys), emotional intimacy, sensual or sexual stimulation (which isn't something to feel guilty or ashamed about) or something else entirely (which shouldn't exclude any combination of the above). In my relationship, I eventually worked out that many of my impulses were related to providing gratification for my partner - I basically wanted to feel good by making my partner feel good, something entirely non-sexual that ended up getting intertwined with sexual intimacy while being fundamentally separate.

Rather than asking, "How can we compromise on my desire for intimacy?", you can rephrase the question to "How can we meet my desire to feel as though I'm making my partner happy?" or "How can we meet my desire for skin-to-skin contact with my partner?" Some of those questions will be difficult to answer, but others will become much easier once you unpick what needs you actually want to meet - the same ideas apply to understanding exactly what boundaries might influence the ways you would answer those questions. As a demisexual, my experiences might not line up perfectly with yours, but learning to understand exactly what you're feeling and how to effectively manage those feelings is something that's helped me well beyond the scope of my relationship.

You obviously know your partner better than I do, so I can't tell you whether discussing your desires with your partner would be the right decision, but my own experiences have led me to believe that explaining your desires to your partner is the right way to go. If your partner knows that you have a general desire to be cuddled, then he can push his boundaries and test out cuddles any time he feels comfortable and secure in doing so - by letting him know what you're feeling, he can ask those questions for himself and decide what he feels comfortable with. Actively pressuring him into something that he's uncomfortable with is entirely different, but explaining your feelings is something that I would strongly support.

As something similar enough for the sake of comparison, I'm an introvert that can easily experience sensory overload from overlapping noises - I generally dislike being in crowded environments and need plenty of downtime at the end of the game to 'release the steam' that I've generated by filtering out background noises as part of my day-to-day life. I can still enjoy social events in a crowded environment, but that depends on how I've been managing my stress levels recently and how I happen to be feeling on that occasion. If my friends asked me out to a party on Saturday night, they might catch me on an occasion when I'm feeling ready for that, but there's a much greater chance that it won't be a suitable occasion - unless I've planned around that occasion (by avoiding highly stimulating environments leading up the occasion and planning in some downtime before the event), attending the party would be an excruciating experience and I'd feel uncomfortable at both attending the party and rejecting their offer.

On the other hand, if my friends told me that they go partying every Saturday night and that I'm free to join them whenever I feel comfortable, then I'm free to evaluate each Saturday night on a case-by-case basis and decide that, on this particular Saturday, I feel comfortable with attending a party - as long as I build my plans around that occasion and make the decision to attend for myself, then I can genuinely enjoy a situation that I wouldn't enjoy if you caught me out at some random point in the week. It doesn't mean that I'm a person who always enjoys parties, or that I'll want to attend another party next Saturday or even within the next year - it means that on that specific occasion, I felt comfortable with attending and made a decision that made both myself and my friends happy. If you choose another form of social encounter (such as a midnight rave), I might tell you that it'll never be a suitable occasion - while I might actively enjoy some high-stimulation events under specific circumstances, there are other events that simply aren't an option for someone with my underlying dispositions.

By discussing these things with people in my social group (since I've learned to express these sort of things clearly as part of my coping mechanism for sensory overload), I'm able to identify what opportunities are available if I'm feeling in a suitable mood and generally reach the best conclusion on how to socialize with my friends. In the same general way, opening those sort of discussions with your partner allow you both to make informed decisions and (hopefully) enjoy each other's company to the greatest possible extent.

Looping back around to handling the bad days, I generally found methods of redirecting my desires and cravings into more accessible avenues once I'd worked out exactly what desires I wanted to fulfill - family members and stuffed animals are both a serviceable method of patching over cuddle urges (depending on exactly what's driving those cuddle urges), while setting aside a notepad for stream-of-consciousness writing and generally pouring any thoughts, feelings and frustrations onto paper was something that I found extremely useful for getting most problems out of my system. Libido is something that can be dealt with in the usual manner (to avoid any TMI), but just remembering to keep on top of things makes the related problems easier to deal with. Generally speaking, the issues that were hardest to manage were the ones that I didn't correctly identify until far too late - setting aside time for introspection is probably the most important part of handling the bad days.

Of course, these are all general tools for handling any sort of problems in life - they just happen to be especially relevant in these sort of relationships. Mixed relationships can have exactly the same potential for happiness as other relationships (provided that your needs aren't mutually exclusive), but they can punish communication barriers very heavily - something that causes just as many problems in sexual/sexual relationships. I haven't been in a situation where my needs are mutually exclusive to my partner's needs, so I can't provide any personal advice for those sort of circumstances (and I'm very conscious that other people reading this post will have been in those circumstances) - the rest of the time, I like to believe that mixed relationships don't require anything that shouldn't be already be present in any meaningful relationship. Understanding each other's needs and finding ways to be mutually happy is just as important in a mixed relationship as a close friendship or a working relationship - the only difference is the ways and extent to which that'll be tested.

That's my two cents, anyway (or maybe twenty cents). I hope that it helps :)