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To our asexual partners this is why we want and need sex!


Mietsiekat

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Maybe there comes a time when you no longer should try to understand it, but just accept it. Because that's the way it is, and constantly questioning won't change it.

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Down in Texas

Maybe there comes a time when you no longer should try to understand it, but just accept it. Because that's the way it is, and constantly questioning won't change it.

Sally, you can accept something and still not understand it. If you read my post you will see that I acknowleged just that by saying that the rolls are now reversed.

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I would like to start by saying it has taken me two days to read all of the post on this thread before replying. I would also like to acknowledge that I am a sexual female married to a Gray-A (by his own definition). I speak only from my own experience with my Gray-A. I do not wish to infer any of his likes or dislikes to any other person. Above all I wish this to be very clear.

I think the whole thread missed the most important part of this topic. I have highlighted the section that I feel is the most important part of Mietiekat original post.

To MY understanding of what Mietiekat is really looking for is an explanation as to why things changes so drastically from what she understood her husband to be, either before marriage or during the early stages of marriage until it dropped off to almost nothing? What I feel her big question is what changed? Why was it so GOOD, I met my husband and he showed me how beautiful it could be if and when someone handles you with care. Then with our warning, it turned on its head and came to a screeching halt or a drastic reduction to what she had come to expect as normal sexual behavior in her marriage. What I see her asking is if it was so good and the frequency was there once why cant it return to just a portion of what it once was? I can understand that question because it happened to me also.

I have posted on many threads in this section of AVEN For Sexual Partners, Friends and Allies and anyone that has read my post will know that I am saying the same thing here. Once I married it was as if my husband turn a switch and became someone I didnt really know, he was not the same person I dated he did not act the same nor did he communicate as openly as he had before we married. It was as if I had married a completely different person. It took me 38+years to finally find the answers here on AVEN, and a lot of arguments with some to finally get to the place that I am today. If you had told me two years ago that I would end up basically Celibate I would have told you I would Never be, yet here I am today almost wishing I were. After learning just exactly what all is involved with the thoughts and lack of thoughts that are a defining part of MY Gray A I have to admit that sex is no longer the thrill that it once was and I am not sure it ever will be again. Unfortunately that leaves me in a relationship that though is LOVING and deeply committed lacks the one factor that I once felt was the GREATEST and most fulfilling part of a marriage. Can you go on YES but it has taken years of heartache and finally the realization that I am the only one that can truly change in order for it to go forward without the everyday heartache of feeling rejected. I have always known that my husband Loves me. I have never questioned his love only his way of showing it that I had expected from his action prior to marriage and during the early stages of marriage even if I was the one initiating all of the sex we ever had. In the beginning he may have turned me down but when we did have sex it was good. The thing that brought me here was when the sex became difficult for him to even allow for it to happen and he could offer no explanation.

It was then while looking for answers that I finally found AVEN and things started to make sense. Yet even with them making sense I had trouble understanding why they worked for so many years and now suddenly no longer worked. It is this that I still struggle with the most. If he enjoyed sex enough in the beginning for sex to be what it was, why cant it still be that way? I think for us SEXUALS that this sudden change is the hardest thing for us to understand! This is where the compromising becomes an issue and where others that have never had this level of participation and seemingly with equal enthusiasm and apparent enjoyment what makes the sudden change occur and once it does why is it so hard to meet part way back to what was once NORMAL between us?

Oh my...when I read this...I dont think I have words...

I am the younger you Down in Texas...

I constantly ask where is the man I fell in love with, where is the man I married?? And who the hell are you and what did you do with my husband??

I feel like I dont know him and never did.

There is nothing more that I can add to this...

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Maybe there comes a time when you no longer should try to understand it, but just accept it. Because that's the way it is, and constantly questioning won't change it.

Sally, you can accept something and still not understand it. If you read my post you will see that I acknowleged just that by saying that the rolls are now reversed.

I wasn't making that comment to you, Down. I have read all your posts.! Since many of them are repeats, I've read them many times! :lol:

What I was trying to emphasize, perhaps not well, is that acceptance should probably end the attempt at understanding, because it's really impossible to really understand feelings you don't have. That goes for both sexuals and asexuals.

There's also something that Lady Girl mentioned some time ago: the constant repetition of stories of relationship pain and anguish -- when those relationships are still active -- may indeed prevent complete acceptance. If someone decides to stay in the relationship for whatever reason, it just doesn't help to keep that internal and external conversation going.

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Sally, with me I am more of a understanding than accepting person. I may understand you 100% but it takes me so much time to accept something new when I am used to the old... I know that's a big fault of mine, but I hate change, the unknown and anything that is out of routine. I am by no means saying that I understand my husband 100%, actually his mind is a complete mystery to me, but I try my best to and one moment I feel like I am getting to understand and the next I am more confused than before. Like today I feel it's okay I can do this and tomorrow I am like there is no way I am doing this, I am packing my bags and filing for divorce, then he comes home, kisses me like he used to and the whole thing just starts all over again!

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What I meant by "acceptance" is accepting that things are as they are, and the person you're in the relationship with is the person they are, not the person you wish they were. Acceptance doesn't mean that you have to be in the relationship with that person for the rest of your life, or even for the next week. After accepting the reality of the relationship and the person, you can always choose to not be in it/with them. Acceptance of reality, then decision-making.

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Okay yes that makes sense..."now we understand each other :)" laughs...

I think my husband doesnt really accept that this is 'reality', and until the day he can honestly say he does, only then I will be able to. He identifies with but says I classed him as such, and he is not, and things will change. So i think a little hope keeps me from acceptance and then decisions.

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What I was trying to emphasize, perhaps not well, is that acceptance should probably end the attempt at understanding, because it's really impossible to really understand feelings you don't have. That goes for both sexuals and asexuals.

Honestly, I think asexuality itself isn't hard to understand. I don't have sexual desire for everyone in my life, so not having a sexual desire for someone is something I can understand. But there are many psychological and rational things about my partner that I still don't understand, and there's really no reason to give up on learning more. Stuff like "If you're aro/ace then why do you want to be in a relationship?", "Why were you okay with sexual stuff in the beginning of our relationship?" and so on. I think Down In Texas and others are also talking about these psychological kind of things, not about the asexual orientation in itself.

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On the question of why someone would suddenly change their actions, I can imagine lots of cases where this happens even though there wasn't some sudden change in the person's underlying being. Someone might slowly realize that they're in a situation that is detrimental and at some point decide to stop putting themselves in that situation. Or maybe even the experience is like this, slowly becoming less pleasing until the quantitative change becomes a qualitative one and they suddenly find themselves experiencing it as lacking something essential.

It just struck me that being really focused on understanding things might be based on a desire to be able to have influence on them, because that's a prerequisite to taking meaningful actions to change a situation. Someone emphasized accepting the situation, and that might be important in one where you can have no meaningful change over someone being asexual, where attempts to get back what was before will only be attempts to go against someone's basic nature and agency.

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On the question of why someone would suddenly change their actions, I can imagine lots of cases where this happens even though there wasn't some sudden change in the person's underlying being. Someone might slowly realize that they're in a situation that is detrimental and at some point decide to stop putting themselves in that situation. Or maybe even the experience is like this, slowly becoming less pleasing until the quantitative change becomes a qualitative one and they suddenly find themselves experiencing it as lacking something essential.It just struck me that being really focused on understanding things might be based on a desire to be able to have influence on them, because that's a prerequisite to taking meaningful actions to change a situation. Someone emphasized accepting the situation, and that might be important in one where you can have no meaningful change over someone being asexual, where attempts to get back what was before will only be attempts to go against someone's basic nature and agency.

Could we then also add that it has something to do with the chase before marriage and proving yourself where as afterwards your focus kind of shifts to other things rather than a unpleasant situation type of thing?

I also think for some this could be why they try to understand so they can try change a situation, but for myself it is more about finding the reason behind it that could give me better clarity to help myself move forward, and also to help my husband and the relationship as a whole. If he tells me he feels that I attack or blame him when I bring it up in a certain way I will try to stop, not only to take pressure off him, but to help the other aspects of our relationship. If I dont understand why he feels this way how will I know that I have to change in that way? For me better understanding can make me a better wife. Just doent work as well when one partner turns into a mute :-)

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I also think for some this could be why they try to understand so they can try change a situation, but for myself it is more about finding the reason behind it that could give me better clarity to help myself move forward, and also to help my husband and the relationship as a whole. If he tells me he feels that I attack or blame him when I bring it up in a certain way I will try to stop, not only to take pressure off him, but to help the other aspects of our relationship. If I dont understand why he feels this way how will I know that I have to change in that way? For me better understanding can make me a better wife. Just doent work as well when one partner turns into a mute :-)

It's kind of tricky when one partner already feels like they are letting you down...I repeatedly asked my husband things or tried to tell him my feelings when I already had the answers. When I accepted the fact that my husband doesn't want and never will want sexual interaction, it occurred to me that being a better wife meant not making him talk about something that just caused hurt feelings for both of us.

My husband doesn't want to talk about it because no matter how nice I am about it, it is something that he can't change...it's simply how he feels. And honestly, we have talked it to death. For me, there came a time when living had to replace talking.

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It just struck me that being really focused on understanding things might be based on a desire to be able to have influence on them, because that's a prerequisite to taking meaningful actions to change a situation. [...]

Could we then also add that it has something to do with the chase before marriage and proving yourself where as afterwards your focus kind of shifts to other things rather than a unpleasant situation type of thing?

Oh right, in the beginning the two people don't know each other as well so preconceptions about expectations would be stronger than later. Over time each person non-verbally asks what is actually necessary and ceasing doing things that aren't pleasing to oneself is one way of carrying this out.

I also think for some this could be why they try to understand so they can try change a situation, but for myself it is more about finding the reason behind it that could give me better clarity to help myself move forward, and also to help my husband and the relationship as a whole. [...]

Yeah, I realized after I posted that understanding something is also important to be able to accept and build on something, to be sure that there aren't other things going on that might make things worse etc. That it's not just about wanting influence over someone.

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Ooh, this is a touchy subject.

Alright, so I identify as sex-repulsed asexual. For me, I literally cannot put myself in a sexual situation without being so grossed out that I feel sick. It's not that I don't "allow" sex in my relationship... it's just physically impossible for me to go through with sex. I am also a non-libidoist, which means I have no sex drive. Nothing "turns me on". Nothing makes me feel aroused or sexual. It's not that I'm underestimating my partner's sexual needs, it's just that I really can't fulfil them myself. Maybe in the future I will loosen up a bit, and maybe I'll be able to give my partner pleasure. As of now, though, I don't think I could do it.

You also mentioned that being in a platonic relationship is the same as a sexless relationship. That's really not true.... I have a few very close friends but to me, they are ONLY friends. I'm not physically or aesthetically or romantically attracted to them (and by physical attraction I do NOT mean sexual attraction). I would like to be in a romantic relationship. I would kiss someone, I would cuddle with someone, I would hold hands with someone, and I might even go as far as making out with someone. I do NOT desire that with my friends at all, in fact, I don't like to be touched by them. Having a romantic partner is like having one extra special person in your life. You can have other friends, but with a romantic partner, I would definitely desire more physical contact (besides sex).

I hope I could clear those things up!!!

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Down in Texas

Ooh, this is a touchy subject.

Alright, so I identify as sex-repulsed asexual. For me, I literally cannot put myself in a sexual situation without being so grossed out that I feel sick. It's not that I don't "allow" sex in my relationship... it's just physically impossible for me to go through with sex. I am also a non-libidoist, which means I have no sex drive. Nothing "turns me on". Nothing makes me feel aroused or sexual. It's not that I'm underestimating my partner's sexual needs, it's just that I really can't fulfil them myself. Maybe in the future I will loosen up a bit, and maybe I'll be able to give my partner pleasure. As of now, though, I don't think I could do it.

You also mentioned that being in a platonic relationship is the same as a sexless relationship. That's really not true.... I have a few very close friends but to me, they are ONLY friends. I'm not physically or aesthetically or romantically attracted to them (and by physical attraction I do NOT mean sexual attraction). I would like to be in a romantic relationship. I would kiss someone, I would cuddle with someone, I would hold hands with someone, and I might even go as far as making out with someone. I do NOT desire that with my friends at all, in fact, I don't like to be touched by them. Having a romantic partner is like having one extra special person in your life. You can have other friends, but with a romantic partner, I would definitely desire more physical contact (besides sex).

I hope I could clear those things up!!!

You have every right to your likes and dislikes and I in no way judge you for them. However I would suggest that before getting into a long term relationship that you discuss your likes and dislikes to minimize any possible hurt to you or your possible partner in the future. I wish you nothing but joy in any relationship you may be a part of, Everyone deserves happiness and I do mean EVERYONE .

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