If he’s grey, I’m a rainbow

[InProgress]

I was telling my best friend yesterday that reading up on all of this sexuality/asexuality stuff has given me more clarity on my own sexuality. Has anyone else experienced that?

 

For example, I have always been bi-curious, but seeing how I have been with my husband since I was 15, I’ve never had an opportunity to explore that beyond fantasy. I have also come to the conclusions a long time ago that I think I am capable of falling in love with someone no matter their gender and that I can love more than one person at a time, add pan and poly to the mix. I have always been very open minded about these things but unable to act on them. I didn’t really feel I needed to. Trying to figure out this one relationship has kept me busy enough, but now in exploring my husband’s “stuff” and strongly suspecting he’s in the grey area of asexuality, I’m actually thinking more about my own “stuff.” 

 

Before a few days ago, I didn’t even really know there are 4 kinds of attraction. Now that I know, I know that I am high on the sensual attraction side. I love pleasant scents, touch, taste, and even have a thing for sound. Certain pieces of music send pleasant shivers down my spine exactly as if someone were kissing my neck.

 

Things are becoming clearer to me that where my husband is very likely grey with no to low interest and energy, I am vividly colorful, energetic, and passionate. I’m beginning to see that that the discomfort I have felt all these many years hasn’t only been due to his lack of interest and desire for me, but also probably that I’ve had to repress my own desires to even get close to meeting him where he’s at. And I guess that means that one of the things I’ll need to answer going forward is whether or not I can continue to do that and if not, how to experience all that I want to in this life either with my husband’s blessing or having to divorce.

 

The feeling I have always had, but it was hard to articulate when I’d talk to other people because I couldn’t openly talk about our sex life, was the word “mismatch” - and as it turns out, that’s exactly what it’s been.

[Guest]

It's hard to navigate highly different sex drives. It's even harder to navigate poly/mono, I think. Combine the two, the odds aren't that good.

 

But, it's possible he could be poly or mono flexible at least. You can discuss it with him. See how he feels. But, please research poly before you discuss - it's a complicated matter and involves multiple people (not just you and your husband, but your future partners and possibly his own). There are a lot of books on the issue. Ethical slut, more than two, etc. You'll find it is as complicated as sexuality. And there are a lot of guidelines on making it work when you first transition out of mono.

 

There is nothing wrong with being different than each other. And if you feel you need to explore your own stuff, then please do ask for it. Who knows, you might find you love it. Or you might find it's not really for you to be poly or with women. But, the question will probably bother you til you try. My cousin tried bottling up her interests and ended up cheating, which hurt her marriage more than just talking about it. 

[Marlow1]

I am Demisexual and my partner is Allosexual. A few years ago a lot of things happened that lead to my partner wondering if I still cared for her. I had no idea about any of this at the time, and by the time my partner worked out a way to explain it all to me she was already severely affected

 

Before all this happened, I thought my partners sexuality was similar to mine, and she thought the same about me. We had never heard of Demisexual, nor a few other things that go on for me (please see my profile and past posts if you want to know more). Anyway, long story short, all the worry that my partner had, and all the investigating she was doing to try to work all this out,  lead to her developing very distressing thoughts. And in turn, this lead to her becoming hypersexual, and experiencing further intrusive thoughts, and on and on, to the point that this all made her very poorly

 

Now, in your post you are not saying that you are sad about your own thoughts, you seem happy and for this reason I am not certain that anything here I am saying applies to you. But what I want you to know is that since finding AVEN, finding out about my Aphantasia, and seeing a relationship therapist, my partner and I are back on song now. In fact we are stronger than ever

 

I could warble all day about all this but the one thing that I definately did not understand about my partner was the role that being sexually desired means for her. I am Demisexual and so I do desire her sexually, but for me this seemed so unimportant, compared to the romantic, intellectual, friendship love I have for her.

 

It still seems rather crazy to me when she says that all those things are needed for a relationship to be a success, but the desirability is so much more important

 

She has spent a lot of time figuring out how to understand me, and communicate with me and such, but like I have mentioned for a time for her the whole relationship thing became an obsession. But now that I am putting a lot more effort in to appreciate her sexuality, and particularly now expressing my desire, instead of just saying 'but I do desire you'. Now that I have figured this all out better her hypersexual thinking has died down and she is a lot happier.

 

I think my behaviour back then came across as me taking her for granted. And if I am honest I was a little. But now we have both worked hard with this we both see it was a lot more than just this. 

 

Working on the communication has helped more than anything. Since doing so we have both realised that we use the same words but within the context in which we are speaking often what we are saying can mean very different things. AVEN has provided the language we needed to get these things sorted out