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Think my bf may be asexual, unsure if there can be compromise


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47 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

The other reading of your situation is that he understood perfectly well how important it was to you, but while he could get away with lip service and half-assed efforts with no further consequences, he had no reason to put the effort in. Once you eject him from the bedroom, he had consequences.

 

This seems a far more coherent explanation to me than some breathtaking obtuseness on one particular subject from a normally intelligent person. It might not be a conscious thing on his part, but if it quacks like a duck...

It is possible. I have accused him of it in moments of anger and he has consistently replied with regret and feeling guilty for not doing more. That said, he does plenty of other things he could get away with not doing because he knows I like them, (or I don't like them and would like him to handle it) 😛 

 

That combined with there being enough "levels of cluelessness" going on...

 

What to say. I like him and am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. I am not at all unbiased here...

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By "levels of cluelessness" @Telecaster68I mean different inability to get it.

 

For eg:

Knowing I like sex and he was indifferent - we are just different people.

I really like and want frequent sex - has a strong preference to do what she likes

That it made me feel hurt and unloved that he still didn't care - aghast. Instant remorse. Promise to do more

Still frustrated - oops. forgot

Still frustrated - didn't realize how frequent

What the fuck you fall alseep - I was really tired

Frustrated - I was sleepy. Didn't want to fall asleep during.

What. The. Fuck. Let's drop sex - No! I WANT to do this for you. I'll try better.

Dafuq. Fell asleep again. - Couldn't control. Just happened. I'll try to not expend all my energy during the day.

And so on....

 

It is possible that he tried to get away with the bare minimum. But I also frankly see it as an echo of my difficulty understanding that he simply wasn't interested in sex. And in spite of knowing something was off all through, his explanations, various things not working, his TELLING me that he didn't think any of it would work, it took me 3 years and an explicit statement of asexuality to understand that he really didn't and would not seek sex for himself. And another 9 months to come to terms with it.

 

The way I see it, I'm in no position to throw stones.

 

Edit: Unlike what you went through with your wife, before we realized asexuality was a thing, he had never refused to try. He had explored different ideas, felt intimidated, backed off, tried again.... over and over. There has NEVER been the slightest desire to deny me and I have never felt rejected as a person or blamed for wanting too much sex, etc. He accepted me as I am, tried to meet my needs the best he could. Sure, sometimes not all that interestedly, other times with a more determined effort. Sure he wasn't very motivated often. But how can I do any less than accept him as he is? Including the understandable laziness about sex? 

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7 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Or, here's another way to frame it.

 

Imagine our partners (well, ex in my case...) were the recipients of a very handsome monthly allowance, as long as they remembered to perform some incomprehensible arcane ritual involving pentagrams and weird spells, one that they had no connection to, but understood it was a requirement of getting their allowance. The donor of the allowance however finds the rituals full of meaning.

 

Do you think they'd forget, because they didn't understand why the rituals were important to the donor?

Logic is excellent, except our partners would definitely forget to do it without the allowance. And at least mine doesn't see sex as rewarding. In that sense, I don't give him anything at all in return for it apart from enjoying it myself.

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14 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Do you think they'd forget, because they didn't understand why the rituals were important to the donor?

One key difference here is that the donor has found a way to make it extrinsically and directly rewarding to both of them, whereas in the sex example it’s directly rewarding to one partner and only indirectly rewarding (“I like seeing my partner happy more than I like seeing them sad”) for the other.

 

I went through something similar to this with my ex for ages.  He consistently forgot so many things he was supposed to do for me and always had to be reminded, and yet never once forgot to go to a meeting/uphold a commitment for his volunteer organization.

 

The other thing is... I still suspect at least some people (n/i anamikanon’s partner, which may be some of the difference) who say they are indifferent to sex with their partner are actually on the averse side of neutral.  That makes doing it more difficult, and adds a sense of resentment that wouldn’t be there in someone truly indifferent.

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Just now, Telecaster68 said:

The allowance is analogous to 'happy partner therefore happy relationship', not sex itself.

By "I don't give him anything" I meant anything I wouldn't otherwise give. He is able to make me happy often in different ways. Sex is one. So it took him a while to understand that this was a specific and important way for me and even more than being able to make me happy over fifty things, the lack of it could make me sad.

 

I suspect on some level he understood it all through too, which is how he never outright rejected sex between us. There was pure gold opportunity when he came out as ace. There have been countless opportunities as a part of our conversations. And now that I am no longer attracted to him by default, he doesn't even have to say it. If he doesn't initiate, I won't expect it and it will never happen and I'll even be fine! But he still makes an effort to be sexual with me, because he sees it as an important aspect of me.

 

That said, I don't think it is as simple for him as deciding and acting - even though he doesn't mind sex for the most part. There is a certain bandwidth. He has to be mentally available.

 

But I guess the difference here is also why you split with your wife in spite of considerable efforts, while me with all my short tempered glory am still with him. Because your wife didn't accept you as you were (separate from being able to meet your needs), while mine has never wanted me to be anything other than exactly who and how I am. The forced suppression of my sexuality due to his asexuality has always been a matter of regret for him. He definitely cares and wants me to be sexually happy.

 

I also see that in how supportive he is about my efforts to find another partner. He really wants me to have that joy - this has never been in doubt. And he is actively interested in me being contented and happy. As much as I want. And he will give it as much as he is able.

 

I dare say, even as frustrated as you were, if you thought your wife genuinely hurt that her inability to have sex limited your joy, or she kept trying to the best of her ability.... you'd be with her too. It is her indifference that drove you away.

 

I don't really count these slips and inabilities around sex as malintent. There is no evidence of him bearing me the slightest ill-will in any manner.

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8 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

So to circle back to the original argument, it does come down to the asexual just doesn't care enough, rather than they're forgetting or not understanding?

Not understanding is certainly a factor.  It’s difficult to truly comprehend how much meaning something has to someone when you don’t feel at all comparably yourself.

 

In terms of “caring enough,” there are some things we care about naturally and others we only care about for someone else/because failure to will get us punished.  The latter take a lot more effort because we have to constantly remind ourselves we care about them.  It’s conscious and forced.

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For example, if I started feeling horny for him again, instead of his once in two months occasional initiating when he's really relaxed and feeling close, he would happily attempt to have sex with me several times a week. Some days he'd succeed, other days he'd fail. Sex would probably be simply stimulating me. But he would definitely attempt. And has in the past. Several times.

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7 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

In terms of “caring enough,” there are some things we care about naturally and others we only care about for someone else/because failure to will get us punished.  The latter take a lot more effort because we have to constantly remind ourselves we care about them.  It’s conscious and forced.

Another component of this may be how strongly (and in what manner) any given person is motivated by bringing joy to others in general.  Someone for whom *that* is a natural thing is going to find secondary caring about things bring joy easier than someone who’s doing it because partners are supposed to.

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Just now, Telecaster68 said:

But this post kicking him out of your bedroom - ie when it's clear there will be consequences.

That was more me being unable to accept him in my sexual space. I wanted the space to myself to masturbate or whatever and not with him around. I was getting irritated by my bedroom space itself being rendered asexual. I no longer wanted to have sex with him, and I no longer saw him in a sexual manner, so was uncomfortable masturbating around him. 

 

Maybe that served as consequences, but frankly, we've not really had that much sex after that, so if it was consequences, he called my bluff 😛 And I'm ok.

 

I guess attraction doesn't go away totally. Sex with him is still very loving and special, but becomes a more "casual sex" kind of a thing. Not a relationship priority. Happens if it does, or no expectations. Whatever.

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It is more complicated than that. But the separate bedrooms was more about relationship clarity than as punishment or consequences. I had stopped expecting regular sex way before that, because I no longer feel comfortable expecting sex from him. If he offers it, I still enjoy it. A one off thing. Very special, loving. But not a "sexual relationship" or anything implying a future pattern. Strictly in the moment.

 

Edit: When I kicked him out, the inconsistency was irritating me. I hadn't been hung up about him offering sex almost from the minute he said "asexual" but his promises from good intentions and inability to fulfill from reality was getting on my nerves. I didn't expect him to offer sex, but if he offered, I did expect him to come through, and he has difficulty with that. I offered a platonic relationship, he didn't want that. To him it was and remains important that if I am sexual, I don't sacrifice that for him. And being my partner in the full sense of the word is something he really wants. And confusion night after night with me wondering whether or not we had sex was shredding my nerves. So the separate bedroom sort of forced clarity on when we slept together and whether sex was on the cards or not.

 

Now I've sort of accepted that he will do what he will, and go with the flow.

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20 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Bringing joy, or mitigating their pain? And either way, if it's not a thing you feel ought to be part of a marriage, the only marriage you're going to be happy in is one where neither partner cares about bringing pleasure to their partner, which doesn't sound like much of a marriage to me.

That’s part of what I was trying to say above, though.  Things we (the universal we) do because we think we ought to come at greater cost and less reliability than things we just love doing.

 

In a sense they require caring more, and are simultaneously less rewarding.

 

That’s a recipe for failure over time.

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28 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

it's clear there will be consequences.

Consequences are hard to recognize when they’re more like water dripping on limestone and less like a guillotine.  Often by the time both partners recognize there 1) need to be and 2) are consequences an awful lot of - sometimes too much - damage has been done.

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24 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

But they weren't. @anamikanon had spelled it out multiple times. They'd pointed at the guillotine consistently.

Sorry, I should have quoted better... I was referring back to your “happy partner, happy relationship” post earlier on where (it sounded to me as though you saying) the loss of what had been a happy relationship is the direct motivator for the ace partner.

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I guess I’m missing something here.  If we’re speaking strictly of anamikanon, which I wasn’t, the stated consequences were “you have to go sleep in your own room” with some past evidence that being exiled from the bedroom could also eventually mean the relationship faded to platonic.  In the (current) end there didn’t turn out to be lasting consequences as, after a breather, anamikanon’s partner is largely back in the bedroom but the sexual part of the relationship hasn’t changed.

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What I meant more broadly, though, is that couples often don’t see individual turn-downs as Things With Consequences until a lot of damage has been done.

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6 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

Natural consequences, then.

If you insist.

 

Not very strong consequences if you consider that within a few weeks I was like "to hell with it" I don't want sex from him, but I can enjoy it. If he can arouse me, I can enjoy it. Let's move this show on. And we were right back in bed with each other.

 

As far as "consequences" go, was pretty mild.

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I tend to see these things more as what we need to do in the moment rather than our reactions to another. For example, he was inconsistent then, he is inconsistent now. If this were a consequence of his behavior, it would be similar in both times. But then my need was to know where I stood clearly. So I kicked him out because I couldn't stand the constant guesswork. Now I've accepted that he is how he is, and have stopped fussing the details given that I am cool with him not offering sex. If he offers, ok. If he doesn't, ok. If he offers and forgets, ok. If he starts and gets distracted.... um... sort of I can handle it or yank him back 😛 My need for what I want from him has gone right back to sleeping all tangled up. So he's back in my bed.

 

Not sure if that makes sense, but a reactive perspective sort of gives too much power to another, while our reality is actually more about us in the moment. And in looking to someone else for change - someone who feels neither our need nor our motivation and is outside our sphere of control (we can only control our own actions) - we remain dependent on disinterested gods of fate or something. Then we will have to sulk a lot more.

 

Might as well fix what we can and smile more. Ask for separate bedrooms if it isn't working. Beg him to come back if you miss him. Keeping it simple.

 

Got a bit excessively melodramatic there, but you get the idea.

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For what it is worth, he too appreciated the clarity because I was acting extremely congruent to what I needed rather than judging him (which is always not as accurate) and for him, sex with me now is like a tool to express his love by doing something for me, rather than something he must do to keep me happy. It freed him from the over-promising also that used to set him up for the under-delivering once he saw that I genuinely was fine without needing maintenance sex, and he could set a frequency to what worked for him or not at all. Voila magic. No more inconsistency. The default is a no, and the exception is a very clear yes. No more confusion.

 

I imagine being responsible for another person's happiness must have got tedious for him too, though he didn't complain.

 

I can't imagine being in his position. I don't have the kind of temperament it would take to regularly offer sex I wasn't interested in to someone. No matter how much I loved them.

 

Can you honestly put a hand on your heart and say that it is a bad deal to have your ace willingly and joyously devote a bedtime to pleasuring you say once in a month or two, and you know that if you asked them spontaneously, they'd likely say yes? To know that even if they don't enjoy sex, they are enjoying doing this for you?

 

I'd have given a limb for that this time last year. It worked because I honestly put MY needs on the table. Not allowed myself to act only in consequence to what he did. I did what I had to do. I dated people, I did that crazy lust thing... I did what I felt I needed to do.

 

I love him so much, but I still call that separation of bedrooms phase "kicking him out" because it was such an honestly irritated action. Just go. Go to your room. Leave me alone.

 

If it were a consequence.... and he offered me daily sex.... means I can't find me a sexual partner that can scorch the sheets off the bed if I needed that? After offering all that, he would deserve the consequence of a partner searching a "real" sexual partner? You see how such thinking can cause paralysis? If I need a sexual partner, I will discuss with him and proceed. It is not a consequence of what he did or is or anything. It is MY need.

 

Now I am overexplaining. The difference seems subtle, but if you see it, you absolutely can't mistake it. And it is very freeing and powerful.

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18 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

it simply is the case that whatever was going on with her was more urgent and direct to her than anything I needed. 

Can you honestly say that wasn't the case with you, also?  That's kind of a general human situation.

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To take that point further, it is possible I am in a contented kind of phase right now and may feel frustration tomorrow. I may then resume asking for sex or ask him to sleep in his room again. I may get in a hypersexual phase and want sex every day, maybe several times a day and masturbate after that. It won't be a consequence of his asexuality or low frequency in offering, it will be what I need then.

 

What he does is his need. When he newly discovered he was asexual, his need was to refuse sex to explore and discover that side of him. When he realized the refusals hurt me badly, his need was to agree to sex he didn't mind, as an expression of love for me. When he thought I was sexually frustrated, his need was to offer me a lot of sex - need to meet my need kind of thing (whether he actually could or not). When I stopped feeling attracted to him, his need was to ensure he wasn't excluded from an important aspect of intimacy from me. When he is tied, his need is to sleep. And so on.

 

We are two INDIVIDUALS acting true to what we need in the moment. Were his refusals to have sex a consequence of me liking sex? Of course not. He refused sex because he is asexual and he had just discovered there was nothing wrong with him, he simply didn't want sex and he was celebrating being fine without sex.

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2 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

The judgement I'm making here is that if your own issues lead you too behaviours that almost no-one would find tolerable in a relationship, like, 'no touching' for instance, it's unreasonable to expect anyone other than a tiny minority of people to want to be in a relationship with you. You could flip it round, and say that since I have an urgent and direct need to have physical contact with someone I'm in a relationship with and it would be unreasonable to expect anyone who wanted no physical contact to want to be in a relationship with me. 

If one person in a relationship needs lot of touch and the other needs to NOT be touched, by all means that’s got the potential to be insurmountable.  It’s also got the potential to leave both people in a state where they may really struggle to get past their own concerns and into a place where they can rationally assess the problem, approach their partner, and lovingly state that they know it sucks for them.  The hurdle becomes higher every time they try and are met with anger, or with a complaint that saying so is meaningless if it’s not followed by compromise, or by the unwelcome assumption it means willingness to compromise.

 

Regarding expectations, though, both people in your scenario first  need to realize they’re somehow not just wide of the center but actually really unusual.  After that they need to study others for a while to get the sense that they’re unusual in a way that many other people will find intolerable.  Only after all of that, which requires more self-awareness, observation, and interpretation than some have the skills and/or energy for, are they in a position to realize their dating pool is really small.

 

And if someone does date them and marry them, they may reasonably think they’ve found a person who considers the whole package good enough.

 

2 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

we end up sympathising with genocidal maniacs because they had a migraine.

Do you mean feeling bad for them when they have health issues, or excusing their bigotry and murder because they have health issues?

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5 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

I don't think someone wanting touch to be an intrinsic part of their relationship is in the least unusual.

I said “both” because you said it could be flipped around to say the same (you have a limited set of compatible people) could be said of a partner who has a direct and urgent need for touch.    Maybe I misunderstood you.

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11 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Everybody has 'stuff'/issues. They don't excuse everything. They might make some things understandable and able to be sympathised with, but they don't give anyone a morality-free pass.

Agreed, but people with the same stuff/issues may find them more relatable.

 

I wonder if some of what happens here is caused by confusing one response (“I totally get how they could have done/said/thought that”) with the other (“the existence of this condition/preference/etc. wipes all their bad behavior away”).

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55 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

But I don't think it can be flipped around.

So why did you say it could be?  :)

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56 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

You're going to ask for evidence, and I can't quote any research.

No, I’m not that invested.  I was just responding to your statement as it stood - that people at both ends of the touch bell curve would face similar challenges, especially in relationships together.

 

A lot of people have been posting about touch recently.  There doesn’t seem to be a strong correlation between touch and sexuality, in that a lot of ace posters here seem to enjoy touch in general.

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Just now, Telecaster68 said:

You can flip it round as a premise to make a point about compatibility.

Which is what I was responding to.

 

1 minute ago, Telecaster68 said:

But you can't flip that not wanting touch is as common as wanting touch because I'm pretty sure it's not true.

There seems to be a large middle ground in touch that doesn’t exist in sex.  Touch (both touching and being touched) seems more like a true spectrum.

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1 minute ago, Telecaster68 said:

Which bears out my point that not wanting touch is really rare. I'm talking about things like hugs when you're upset, curling up on the sofa to watch TV, spooning in bed, that kind of stuff.

I wasn’t saying that wanting touch was rare.  I was just responding to the idea of a couple where one person is touch-averse and the other has an unusually high need for touch.

 

I’m 100% a “leave me alone!” person when I’m upset or unwell but I know plenty of others feel differently.

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Just now, Telecaster68 said:

the toucher is unusual too.

The way you described the touch-needing partner, and the way you said the scenario

could be flipped around, made me think that partner had a far-end-of-the-spectrum need for touch that exceeded what’s more typical.  I wasn’t talking about any and everyone who wants or needs touch.

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2 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

I don't think 'direct, urgent' need for touch is unusually high.

Well, that’s why I said maybe I misunderstood your post a while back.  If you weren’t describing two extremes my comments don’t apply.

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Again, wasn’t disputing that.  You described what I (apparently mistakenly) thought was a couple at opposite extremes, and my comments were all based on that.

 

Touch seems to be one of those things like helping people in general, where we tend to (unconsciously) try to help/treat others the way we’d want to be helped/treated and sometimes that backfires.

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