Some positivity on being with an asexual partner

[Tarfeather]

*sigh* This place really has a problem. Staying here is actually extremely toxic if you want to grow and mature for the better. As soon as I was taking that final step toward learning to accept and love my asexual partner for who she is, I found myself not coming here anymore. Quite simply, I'd suddenly realized what's important in life, and arguing with the people on this site, defending the kind of persona I'd built, was not one of those things.

 

Yeah, basically I was a teenager in their mid-twenties, and now I've taken that first baby step into becoming an adult. I'm back now, but I have very different reasons. If you've been here for a while and know anything about me, you should call it into question. I don't really get along very well with me-from-a-year-ago anymore.

 

 

Okay, to the meat of my message. This coming June, I will have been in a relationship with my asexual partner for 5 years. She has never had any romantic feelings for me. We are completely sexually incompatible, and yet she's the best thing that's happened to me in my life. Our relationship is loving and strong, we are open and honest with each other, can talk about anything, we always know the other person has our back, we consider each other's need and try to help each other out implicitly. We love nose rubbing, hugs and cuddling. She doesn't innately desire sex, she doesn't even really associate with her own biologically female body, yet we've found a kind of intimacy in the form of sexy outfits, undressing and touch that we can both take pleasure in, each of us in our own way.

 

Yes, you could call us "best friends". To me, that would not be inaccurate or devalue the type of our relationship. We call each other partners, because that's how we consider each other, and we don't care what others think. To our respective families, to our shared friends, we appear as boyfriend and girlfriend. It doesn't matter to them what happens in our bedroom, it doesn't matter to them whether a hug we share feels platonic or romantic to us. And outside of those things, we effectively behave like any other romantic / sexual couple out there.

 

In the years I've been on this site, I've received quite a lot of negative feedback on our relationship. Much of it coming from other sexuals in a similar situation, it has ranged from advice to leave my partner and find a "more fulfilling" relationship, over claims that we both would be better off breaking up, up to downright accusations that I'm a bad partner and don't care enough about my other half's needs. A lot of it, I feel, was coming from people who were unable to find other purpose and other kinds of intimacy than sex in their respective (sometimes former) relationships, and were projecting the pain of that (which I by no means discount) onto me and my struggles. None of those claims and accusations have turned out remotely true, nor would they even faze me at this point in our relationship.

 

 

If you're struggling with a similar situation, I want to tell you this: It's possible. It's possible to find meaning, fulfillment and love in a relationship where your sexual needs aren't being met. There's a hefty price to pay for that, you may never be truly and completely happy, you may always feel like something is missing. BUT, it is possible, if that is what you really want, if your love for your partner is something you value over your own happiness. If that's what you want, don't give up easily.

[Grimalkin]

I'm really glad it works for you! Genuinely, I am happy you found happiness, and enjoy your relationship for your best friend.

 

That said, the want for your partner to desire you romantically and sexually isn't a bad thing, and it isn't a matter of "growing up" and out of that. 

 

Some allosexual people, like yourself, can handle a relationship with an aro/ace person.

 

But some people really want to feel actively desired. They don't want to feel like something is missing. And that's not wrong. Heck, I'm that way and I'm asexual!

 

Different strokes, y'know?

[AmyTSUK]

When I was young, my mom always said to me, if you don't want people poking their nose into your business, keep ya mouth shut and don't tell them anything.

If you tell someone something they are going to give you their opinion on it, and opinions are like A-Holes, often full of **** and stink the room out.

 

Something I learned to practice from an early age with a family that would take anything said and twist it against me.

 

So my only real thing to say is congratz to you that you and your partner have made it work.

 

But one thing I will say though, using phrases like the following won't help your cause any:

 

29 minutes ago, Tarfeather said:

It's possible to find meaning, fulfillment and love in a relationship where your sexual needs aren't being met. There's a hefty price to pay for that, you may never be truly and completely happy, you may always feel like something is missing. BUT, it is possible, if that is what you really want, if your love for your partner is something you value over your own happiness. If that's what you want, don't give up easily.

How many times do you hear of men and women being with someone that treat them like **** and when people say: why don't you leave them and find happiness for yourself? then they get the reply, but I love him/her!!!

 

And every day you watch them getting more and more unhappy and depressed and feeling like they ain't worth enough to be happy!!!

 

So if you have used words like that in past then no wonder you got the responses you did.

 

If you had of said something like:

Yes I like sex, but the plus's I get from being with my Asexual partner are so much more than sex could ever give me, and I am truly happy being with her because she is everything to me, the loss of something so minuscule like sex is so worth it.

 

I am sure most people then would probably be behind you 100% and actually want to know more rather than tell you to leave.

 

I wish you lots of hopefully happiness in your relationship

 

Blessed Be

[Tarfeather]

11 minutes ago, Grimalkin said:

I'm really glad it works for you! Genuinely, I am happy you found happiness, and enjoy your relationship for your best friend.

 

That said, the want for your partner to desire you romantically and sexually isn't a bad thing, and it isn't a matter of "growing up" and out of that. 

 

Some allosexual people, like yourself, can handle a relationship with an aro/ace person.

 

But some people really want to feel actively desired. They don't want to feel like something is missing. And that's not wrong. Heck, I'm that way and I'm asexual!

 

Different strokes, y'know?

True, I absolutely agree with that. Don't get me wrong, "growing up" to me doesn't mean you have to give up on the idea of sexual fulfillment, it just means figuring out for yourself what you want, in other words who you are, and not letting anyone else call that into question. If that means breaking up with your asexual partner, because that's not the kind of relationship you're looking for, that's completely fine. You have to make that decision for yourself, though, out of who you are, not out of grief, or pain, or fear of being lonely. In my opinion, it has to be what you really want from your heart, not what you or others tell you would be "rational" or "good for you".

 

My message is directed at those who feel deep down that they want to be with their partner, but are doubting their own judgement.

[Human0id]

tldr

 

 

joking.

 

for me it's typical bullshiting, why do you even care about that??

[anisotrophic]

I don't think a narrative of self-sacrifice is healthy, neither partner should have their (a)sexuality ignored, suppressed, or sacrificed.

To be happy and whole beings, each being happy in their (a)sexuality is really important.

[SithLord]

I agree. While I can't speak for him, I can definitely tell you that my bf has basically removed himself from this site because of all the negative stuff he was hearing about our relationship. It helped him understand when we were having trouble communicating and spurred a lot of discussions (and arguments, thanks AVEN, and thanks barely 20-year old me.) But he doesn't need AVEN anymore. 

 

Our relationship is not perfect. There have been bumps in the road, but both of us still say "I love you." He tells me that he's happy with me. We've been together about 5 and a half years now? Hopefully we'll be together for years to come. 

 

This site needs some positivity sometimes. It doesn't work out for everyone, but it's not impossible. 

[James121]

I’ve read the original post and that’s great. Good for you guys! Let’s talk again in 15 years because I have serious serious doubts that if things continue as they are and if/when you meet other people in a social or workplace setting or wherever who will clearly offer you the full package, that you will feel exactly the same.

 

I’ll just take a snippet of what you have wrote that justifies my doubts regarding  your relationship....

 

14 hours ago, Tarfeather said:

projecting the pain of that (which I by no means discount) onto me and my struggles.

 

14 hours ago, Tarfeather said:

Yes, you could call us "best friends".

 

14 hours ago, Tarfeather said:

If you're struggling with a similar situation,

 

14 hours ago, Tarfeather said:

There's a hefty price to pay for that, you may never be truly and completely happy, you may always feel like something is missing. 

 

14 hours ago, Tarfeather said:

if your love for your partner is something you value over your own happiness. 

 

Just for the record. If you drive down a road and come across a road closure and annoyingly have to turn around a travel miles back to the nearest turn off, do you think you may warn other motorists who are heading down towards the closure as they pass you or just let them find out for themselves? I believe that’s probably all the sexual are trying to do for you. Warn you of the road closure.

[Paula @ BH]

WARNING - This Reply Remarks Upon Sexual Interactions - although not in detail

 

Dear Tarfeather,

 

Your post makes me wonder, whom else should be one's best friend be than one's 1:1 long-term partner, if one is in such a long-term 1:1 relationship?

 

And I recall noticing how many heterosexual couples find that "for richer, for poorer, for better or worse, in sickness and in health" really only meant "for richer, for better, and in health" when their partner falls ill.   Looking at the divorce statistics, lots of them seem to think like that.

 

I have lived long enough to see (hetero)sexual couples discover that one of them no longer wants sexual intimacy (e.g. from having Crohn's Disease, Ulcerative Colitis, Fibromyalgia, a Complete Hysterectomy, etc) or develops what is called Erectile Dysfunction (e.g. from hormone treatment for Benign Enlargement of the Prostate as well as from circulatory problems) and to watch how they do - and don't - manage to deal with the situation.  It has seemed prima facie surreal that a gyneromanic asexual woman finds herself giving advice to heterosexual friends on such occasions, but I have a clarity which comes from having had to think about the meanings and multi-layering of relationships, rather than blundering into them following sexual desire 'just like eveyone else'.  And I do have relevant qualifications, I suppose.

 

And one may have noticed that, as people age, they cease to resemble the 'ideal of beauty' for their sex.  My being asexual allowed megradually  to find, in two instances, a woman significantly  older than me very attractive indeed - I came to love her mind and her soul, i.e. her personality -  and to want to spend my time with her and for us to throw in our lots together (and n.b. the only other person with whom I have had a significant 1:1 same-sex relationship was rather younger than me, so no, it isn't about my needing an older woman, nor only older women finding me suitable 🙂 .... nothing 'mother-daughter' about it, sorry  - LoL - definitely 'devotion within Classical friendship' developing over time in the case of the two relationships which endured for decades, and I don't do 'maternal' myself).

 

What seem to me to underlie the resilience and longevity of all the enduring relationships that I have seen is that the parties love each other far more for things other than sexual attractiveness - they have (i) a shared world view, (ii) shared ethics, and (iii) a willingness to do, unasked, more to meet the need of that person, their best friend,  than they would were that need their own.  Truly, 'you can toast your bread' on such relationships, but I think that they are not common.

 

Time will tell indeed, but I fear the implication of your remarking - even now and even still - upon how your doing without something so very important to you that you mention it above, and that it features - for persons sexual - as a physiological-level need in Abraham Maslow's 'Hieracrchy of Human Needs'.

 

Perhaps life will take some or all of that need from you in due course, or make less viable for you any phallocentric understanding of sexuality which you might have today.  Imagining what you would feel and do then might help you now to feel less sense of sacrifice.

 

If you and your partner were still together under such circumstances, your partner's asexuality might help you not to feel indequate, as unfortunately so many heterosexual men seem to when such a circumstance occurs - sadly, as if their worth in their own eyes depended mainly on their genitals' 'performing' to their own expectations ......

 

I wish you both well, and I hope that you will become ever less conscious of what it is that you are not having, and ever more conscious of being glad lovingly to spare your partner what your partner does not want. 

 

I'd say much the same if one of you were vegan and the other omnivorous, too.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

 

Paula

 

[Guest]

One thing to remember about Tar's situation over many others is that it is not a monogamous arrangement. So not really "stuck" celibate forever. Many replies assume monogamy. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Serran said:

One thing to remember about Tar's situation over many others is that it is not a monogamous arrangement. So not really "stuck" celibate forever. 

True. But even monos aren't "stuck celibate forever". They can choose to leave. If they make the choice not to leave, they have chosen celibacy. It was never forced on them.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Mysticus Insanus said:

True. But even monos aren't "stuck celibate forever". They can choose to leave. If they make the choice not to leave, they have chosen celibacy. It was never forced on them.

I agree (hence the quotation marks around stuck). But, many people get bitter cause they feel stuck, which is where most the negativity comes from. And the options become, in their minds, cheat or be miserable because they feel as if they cant take the leave option for various reasons. 

[anisotrophic]

17 minutes ago, Serran said:

One thing to remember about Tar's situation over many others is that it is not a monogamous arrangement. So not really "stuck" celibate forever. Many replies assume monogamy. 

That's a pretty important detail!

 

I tend to think this option -- even when it goes unexercised -- means that sexuality isn't sacrificed or suppressed in the relationship. It's just not something the sexual is prioritizing.

[SithLord]

11 hours ago, Serran said:

I agree (hence the quotation marks around stuck). But, many people get bitter cause they feel stuck, which is where most the negativity comes from. And the options become, in their minds, cheat or be miserable because they feel as if they cant take the leave option for various reasons. 

I agree. My bf has expressed frustration with the idea of being stuck and our "open" (he doesn't exercise it, but it technically is) relationship helps him feel better. I think that's why open or poly relationships are suggested for ace/non-ace relationships.

 

However I should always add the disclaimer that this doesn't work for everyone. Some people are hardcore monoamorous and that's not an option for them. 

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

Well if the relationship is working to the happiness of both parties then it's to be celebrated.

I know a few aces who are happy for their sexual partner to pursue physical relationships outside of their own relationship and aren't jealous or angry about this.

So- sending you and your other halfvall the best @Tarfeather!

[Xstatic]

I get where you're coming from.  When I first found AVEN I was initially ecstatic to find such a huge wealth of information and insight.  Then I started to feel weary because it seemed like the more I read, the more the posts were telling me that my relationship was destined to fail.

 

But then I found a few other people like me who seem like they are happy in their relationships.

 

And you know what?  I've already been married twice to other sexuals and neither of those worked out so what the heck am I worried about?  If it works, that's great.  If it doesn't, so be it.  But at least I tried.

 

Being with an aro/ace can be confusing and it certainly is challenging.  But I still choose to be with him and he chooses to be with me.  I accept that for now we are content with each other.  I hold no expectations for the future.  Just live in the moment, and love in the moment.