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I think, my ACE husband has ruined sex for me?


Mary Lambert

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I’m not trying to set the standard by which all should be judged... just saying everyone is different and life is complicated.  I’m not personally one for eye-for-an-eye justice - all moral issues aside, it invariable makes me feel worse after the brief “so there!” moment of better - but others may feel different.

 

”Any relationship is okay” presumes, at least for me, that both (all) parties are consenting adults who have weighed their options and decided accordingly. 

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6 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

I’m not trying to set the standard by which all should be judged... just saying everyone is different and life is complicated.  I’m not personally one for eye-for-an-eye justice - all moral issues aside, it invariable makes me feel worse after the brief “so there!” moment of better - but others may feel different.

 

”Any relationship is okay” presumes, at least for me, that both (all) parties are consenting adults who have weighed their options and decided accordingly. 

You're missing the point entirely. There is no eye for an eye. No one is doing anything for the purpose of hurting the other or getting revenge. Why do you keep phrasing it that way? My partner can no more happily have sex than I can happily not have sex. Both people are just trying to do what they can to keep themselves afloat without destroying the other person. 

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Oh and... how is it trying to hurt your partner if you're doing something that doesn't affect your partner and that they don't even know about? If I cheat (and I'm not, for the record, but the future is long...), how is it hurting her in any way? It may be limiting her right to have the exact relationship with me that she wants, but that's just reality. I didn't get the relationship with her that I wanted either. 

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41 minutes ago, Skullery Maid said:

Let's say that she's aware I've fucked around a bit and she says sometimes that she understands and is ok with a "don't ask, don't tell" scenario. Let's say that like most people, my partner experiences an acute fear that my hooking up with others will lead me to leave her. Let's say that because of that fear, my partner will openly say that we may not have an open relationship, despite also saying she'd understand if I "cheat." Let's say that, outside of this specific issue, my partner is wildly happy in her life and our relationship.

I’m not sure I would consider this specific scenario cheating.  This is more like a game/arrangement with a set of rules designed to accommodate both parties - the one gets the desired (and broadly consented to, under “don’t ask, don’t tell”) sex on the side, the other gets protection from fear of abandonment.

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5 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

I’m not sure I would consider this specific scenario cheating.  This is more like a game/arrangement with a set of rules designed to accommodate both parties - the one gets the desired (and broadly consented to, under “don’t ask, don’t tell”) sex on the side, the other gets protection from fear of abandonment.

Ok, good, because I agree with that. I guess my point is... I think my scenario is more common than is acknowledged on here. Generally, both partners in these situations are trying to keep their personal integrity without doing something to make their partner leave. Both sides are moving just as... grey. I could be wrong, but I doubt most of the sexuals on this site have partners who actually say "we will never have sex again but you may not cheat." People don't say that. Usually they say something closer to the opposite, like continually saying they'll work on it, promising more sex and then not delivering on it, etc. Honesty is hidden on both sides, but not because of ill motives... quite literally because they love each other. 

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9 hours ago, AussieIsAce said:

look i disagree with you. 

sorry. 

now get over it please. you dont need to keep yapping on at me. 

 

i get you you get me. 

 

k thank you goodnight. 

To be honest, I haven't been visiting or replying to this thread for days because I felt it's gone off topic in general to Mary's point. But I have to come back and say ... you're seriously being rude.

 

If you don't agree, fine. I already said there are things I agree with you about and things I don't, and, as far as I know, I've at the very least been respectful to you (if I haven't, and you've been offended, then that's something you need to tell the person you're talking to. Because how are they ever gunna know if you just throw aggressive words at them?). You know, you've had every opportunity to leave the conversation quietly, and I would have respected that. I also would have just respected a 'I don't agree, but okay. Thanks for sharing'. And left it at that.

 

But 'don't keep yapping at me?' 'k thank you goodnight?'. Grow up. Seriously. That's no way to have a civil debate. 

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1 minute ago, Skullery Maid said:

Oh and... how is it trying to hurt your partner if you're doing something that doesn't affect your partner and that they don't even know about? If I cheat (and I'm not, for the record, but the future is long...), how is it hurting her in any way? It may be limiting her right to have the exact relationship with me that she wants, but that's just reality. I didn't get the relationship with her that I wanted either. 

Under the scenario you described, I don’t think it is (hurting the partner).

 

Where there has been no discussion, or the partner has said it is not okay in any way regardless, the breach of trust prevents emotional intimacy.  There’s also the STD risk if the partner assumes the relationship is exclusive (which probably only applies if the couple kiss/are more physically intimate).

 

To me the discussion as presented makes all the difference.

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1 minute ago, Skullery Maid said:

Ok, good, because I agree with that. I guess my point is... I think my scenario is more common than is acknowledged on here. Generally, both partners in these situations are trying to keep their personal integrity without doing something to make their partner leave. Both sides are moving just as... grey. I could be wrong, but I doubt most of the sexuals on this site who have partners who actually say "we will never have sex again but you may not cheat." People don't say that. Usually they say something closer to the opposite, like continually saying they'll work on it, promising more sex and then not delivering on it, etc. Honesty is hidden on both sides, but not because of I'll motives... quite literally because they love each other. 

I think that’s a perfectly workable

solution. I just don’t know anyone in real life who has done it... everyone I know where one party went outside the relationship for sex is either consentually poly/open (which this would really fall under, but the poly/open people I know have different arrangements) or is in a more stereotypical cheating situation complete with non-consented lies and surprise.

 

...which of course could be because people in the specified arrangement would be by definition unlikely to talk about it.

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2 hours ago, Skullery Maid said:

x

Completely agreed.  Not everyone is able to avoid it, but it sounds like you can and do.

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7 hours ago, James121 said:

So in essence, all the people on this forum arguing that cheating is really terrible it’s because they believe that their partner/spouse is their property!

..it's because it deeply hurts their partner. Doing anything that will knowingly hurt your partner in such a painful way is 'really terrible' :o (and please no one respond something along the lines of 'not having sex hurts your partner' because that's a different thing. We're talking about cheating, not sexual incompatibility).

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7 hours ago, FictoVore. said:

..it's because it deeply hurts their partner. Doing anything that will knowingly hurt your partner in such a painful way is 'really terrible' :o (and please no one respond something along the lines of 'not having sex hurts your partner' because that's a different thing. We're talking about cheating, not sexual incompatibility).

Sexual incompatibility can be addressed with effort. Cheating for the most part is born of an unaddressed sexual incompatibility.

If we class rejection as simply ‘sexual incompatibility, then cheating can be classed as something similar.

People like to believe that cheating happens simply because there are lots of ‘arseholes’ in the world but that is wildly inaccurate. That’s just an easy but pathetically weak excuse to remove blame from anyone but ‘the arsehole cheat’.

I’d be willing to bet my mortgage on the idea that 80-90% of married people who cheat, wouldn’t have done so if they were sexually active once per week with their spouse.

Sexual incompatibility is so often ignored by the person rejecting because they experience no negative emotion from their action (the rejection). Very often, there are also no consequences to their behaviour. It just gets tolerated because society doesn’t accept anyone pressurising anyone for more sex.

So they don’t bother making any effort to address it. Why bother? I’m perfectly fine thanks. Oops, my partner cheated after 10, 15, 20 or 25 years.

Yes it hurts, yes it’s wrong, but what the hell did you expect?

Sexual desire has a part to play in how much sex a couple have but so does willingness to make an effort. 

Why do you think that 99% of woman who are having sex once a month or so with their husbands suddenly, overnight, achieve having sex multiple times per week when trying for a baby? Did they take a magic pill and dramatically increase their drive? No way. They just wanted something so they adjust accordingly so they can get it.

This happens everyday the world over.

My examples here are a little biased in terms of they indicate male cheater and female refused but I do acknowledge that this is definitely not the case in every instance. Far from it.

I can not help but revert back to what I have always said from the start which is simple.

If you reverse the roles of my wife and I and I persistently refused her, I would have every expectation that she would cheat. And I would accept my part in that instead of pretending I was some sort of completely innocent victim.

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On 4/13/2018 at 1:09 AM, James121 said:

It’s not religious to me it religious full stop. You can’t have Christmas is religious to him but not her. Christmas is also religious full stop.

Not all of us are Christians, and you definitely don't have the right to tell anyone else what is and what isn't religious, or what is or isn't marriage, or who's to blame for cheating.  Run your own life; let others run theirs.  Full stop.  

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Telecaster68
20 minutes ago, Sally said:

you definitely don't have the right to tell anyone.... who's to blame for cheating.

Does that apply to all the posts dropping blame exclusively at the cheater's feet too?

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23 minutes ago, Sally said:

Not all of us are Christians, and you definitely don't have the right to tell anyone else what is and what isn't religious, or what is or isn't marriage, or who's to blame for cheating.  Run your own life; let others run theirs.  Full stop.  

 

2 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Does that apply to all the posts dropping blame exclusively at the cheater's feet too?

I don’t think I need to add too much to what tele said. Do as I say not as I do philosophy on here.

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3 hours ago, James121 said:

Sexual incompatibility can be addressed with effort.

The impression I’ve gotten from general reading is that there are many reasons people cheat - and with those many reasons a range of culpability - and what you’ve listed is just one of them, but I haven’t done any serious research so I’m not going to comment further there.

 

What I’m seeing some of the AVEN sexuals post (and what I’m hearing in my own home), though, is that sexual incompatability cannot actually be addressed via effort; that, once the cat is out of the bag and they know their partner is ace (and sometimes even before, when things seem a little odd), no amount of sex helps because the right sort of desire just isn’t there.

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I don’t think a marriage vow should be turned into a vow of celibacy. Unless agreed otherwise beforehand I think regular sex is assumed.  So if one person consistently refuses sex I can’t fault the other for cheating. 

 

Would it be better to leave? I think that depends on the situation. Sometimes cheating may actually do less harm than leaving. 

 

This is is difficult for either side to understand.  The asexual person can’t understand what the sexual is missing. The sexual can’t understand why the asexual would care. 

 

This is of course coming from my bias as sexual. I just can’t understand why someone would want their sexual partner to be celebate. 

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3 hours ago, ryn2 said:

The impression I’ve gotten from general reading is that there are many reasons people cheat - and with those many reasons a range of culpability - and what you’ve listed is just one of them, but I haven’t done any serious research so I’m not going to comment further there.

 

What I’m seeing some of the AVEN sexuals post (and what I’m hearing in my own home), though, is that sexual incompatability cannot actually be addressed via effort; that, once the cat is out of the bag and they know their partner is ace (and sometimes even before, when things seem a little odd), no amount of sex helps because the right sort of desire just isn’t there.

I think when the partner is ace life is more tricky because is not sexual desire mismatch, it’s basically sexual orientation issue. You may as well find out that your spouse is gay.

 

The cat however, should never have been hidden away inside the bag!

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5 minutes ago, uhtred said:

Would it be better to leave? I think that depends on the situation. Sometimes cheating may actually do less harm than leaving. 

In an ideal world many would argue it would be better to leave. But cheating without being caught, does zero damage to people’s feelings and thus this is why people take a punt on it. Not me (yet) as I’m just not brave enough and I’m too loyal. I would find it difficult to look at my wife but, I have completely lost any resentment towards people who cheat if they are in my position. I just think good luck!

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3 hours ago, ryn2 said:

The impression I’ve gotten from general reading is that there are many reasons people cheat

There’s a million and one reasons people cheat. But a million happen once and one happens a million times.

 

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56 minutes ago, James121 said:

The cat however, should never have been hidden away inside the bag!

Agreed, when it’s a known thing, but I doubt I’m the only one who did not know it was even in there.

 

Excepting orientation I am in much the same situation you describe - I’m the one standing to take the financial hit, and the one who funded the majority of what we jointly share today - so I don’t fall into the category of “conveniently swept it aside in the pursuit of other goals.”

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53 minutes ago, James121 said:

There’s a million and one reasons people cheat. But a million happen once and one happens a million times.

 

The impression I got was that it wasn’t “80%-90% cheat because they are getting turned down at home and the remainder cheat for an infinite number of other reasons”; it was spread a lot more broadly and evenly.  Again, though, not something I’ve done any serious research on.

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1 hour ago, uhtred said:

I just can’t understand why someone would want their sexual partner to be celebate. 

Some of it is probably about more than sex.  If the sexual is monogamouslu/monoamorously inclined, bringing in one or more third parties comes with a real risk that the sexual will ultimately “fall for” the third party and end the original relationship anyway.

 

If the ace is monogamous and the sexual has claimed to also be monogamous up until wanting to include the third party, it may feel like a con.

 

Where both parties are poly or poly-accepting from the start it’s probably much less of an issue to include more people...

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1 hour ago, James121 said:

But cheating without being caught, does zero damage to people’s feelings and thus this is why people take a punt on it.

It’s not so much the getting caught that does the damage... it’s the emotional distance caused by being dishonest.

 

Some may argue that most/all emotional intimacy has been lost already and that it’s not doing any *more* harm, and in some cases that may be true.  There really isn’t a relationship at that point though.

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44 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

The impression I got was that it wasn’t “80%-90% cheat because they are getting turned down at home and the remainder cheat for an infinite number of other reasons”; it was spread a lot more broadly and evenly.  Again, though, not something I’ve done any serious research on.

I would agree with those numbers. The cheaters were not born to cheat but they turned to it out of desperation.

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16 minutes ago, James121 said:

I would agree with those numbers. The cheaters were not born to cheat but they turned to it out of desperation.

I said “wasn’t”... someone would need to dig up legit numbers and post them before you’d know if they make sense to you.  I just remember being surprised while reading at how low the percentage of people cheating due to “not enough sex at home” was.

 

If someone is sufficiently motivated to dig up the facts I’d love to see them.  I’m just not that someone. :)

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Mary Lambert
On ‎4‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 3:30 PM, ripley said:

You say you love your husband. You’ve mentioned in past threads that had you known he was ace, you may not have married him. Think about what it was that drew you to him, the things that had you saying yes in the first place. There had to be something or a number of somethings, and if it wasn’t the sex then that obviously shows there’s a lot more at the foundation of what your relationship is built upon. Also think on if you really think another person in the picture would help, considering both your feelings and that of your husbands. I can imagine it would likely be very hard and upsetting for him, what with the emotional and romantic attachments that can come with sex. He might be concerned you’ll eventually leave him for the friend because the friend can provide something that’s important to you that he’s comfortable with giving while your husband isn’t. Although you yourself may know that wouldn’t happen, it doesn’t erase the fear in his own mind.

Dear Ripley, you are so right. You speak as if you lived inside my husband. Everything you say is correct. I so appreciate your concern for my situation. You are a true angel. It is a hard topic isn't it. But life would be boring without hard topics. I have no idea what the future will hold. I have made a commitment to my husband and children, and may live as an ACE myself, but always dream of being with someone else, but I image a lot of people do that anyway. :) The good news is thanks to people like you and this site, I no longer have to live in the dark. Me and my husband, I'll call him Brody, have really made amends and I have such a better understanding of him now and I no longer self destruct. Not knowing was the hardest. I describe this phenomenon as someone who has no sense of smell, but tries to go through life faking it. They do not know what other's are experiencing and think they are fooling everyone. Since they do not know what they are missing, they can't really appreciate what other's get out of the sense of smell. They can concentrate on other things. When asked about it  they give a vague answer. So it took others like yourself who are good communicators to really help me understand this a little better. Many Blessings. 

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Mary Lambert
On ‎4‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 3:40 PM, ripley said:

Uprooting a whole family isn’t ideal, especially when you’re not even really sure if that’s a solution. Yes it might work out in the long run, but on the chance it doesn’t that’s - in this case - four peoples lives that have changed in one way or another. Which is why I say don’t jump too soon, because while I’m all for living for your own happiness, sometimes you do need to think ‘but is this thing that might make me happy really going to guarantee my happiness, or will it just make all involved miserable?’

Yes, I agree, I really can't be happy knowing my family is sad and damaged. 

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Mary Lambert
On ‎4‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 7:16 PM, AussieIsAce said:

ook im not gonna get into why i did give a rats ass if theres a family to deal with all imma say is, Why are you going to be with a man you arent fucking. You cant change him so therefor you will forever not be fucking. you're a sexual woman you like to fuck. so leave him. 

 

He is a man he will survive. 65% of marriages end in divorce your kids will be fine. 

 

you cant just let your happiness be on the back burner. 

 

if you love him youll walk away and not stay in a relationship this isnt helping you grow as a person.

 

you dont want to stay with him for your kids because in the long run youll just hate your kids. 

 

you need to live for yourself. be happy for you can raise your family happily. he was be fine. you can be friends with him. 

 

but go out there and get some sex girl. 

Ha, this was funny. Was it supposed to be? Not really good advice but funny. 

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