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Older married asexuals?


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Just want to know if there are any older asexuals that have been married for a while and maybe just recently realized they were asexual? How are you dealing with it and have you told your partner yet? If so how did it go? If not what is holding you back? 

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35 minutes ago, AmIAce said:

Just want to know if there are any older asexuals that have been married for a while and maybe just recently realized they were asexual? How are you dealing with it and have you told your partner yet? If so how did it go? If not what is holding you back? 

Hi @AmIAce,

 

I am 54 and I discovered I was ‘ace’ last year. I will have been married 31 years later this year.

 

To be honest I am dealing with it well because it doesn’t change who I am or the relationship I have with my wife. What it does do is answer a lot of questions and explain things. I feel more at peace with myself than ever before.

 

No, I haven’t told my wife. We’ve had our issues and problems down the years because of our ‘sexless’ marriage but we’ve both come through it and out the other side so to speak and are still together. I think, in our own way, we’ve both come to terms with our relationship and have made peace with it. My wife is the happiest I’ve seen her in a long, long time.

 

So what’s to be gained by letting her know I’m ‘ace’? Nothing that I can see. She’s happy. I’m happy. Why risk upsetting that happiness by digging up things from our past that have been buried, and buried deep?

 

That’s the short version. I joined AVEN in October last year and created a topic ‘53 and I think I’m asexual’ which I used to help me work things though in my own mind.

 

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@sh1965 thanks for the reply and the link! I wish I could just not ever say anything but I have a feeling it will need to come out eventually. 

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@AmIAce, you’re welcome. I think if we’d talked about sex, or our lack of sex during our marriage, I may have told her but given it’s not something we’ve spoken about, not telling her seemed for the best. In many ways I think we’re happier and closer now than ever before and I’m not going to mess with that. Maybe it’s a gender thing. At the risk of stereotyping, men tend to keep things to themselves whereas women like to talk about things. Ultimately I think it depends on the dynamic and how your spouse is likely to react but I guess that’s not that easy to predict. I know of at least two female aces on here who when they told their husband they were ace it didn’t go so well...

 

I assume you’re internally debating whether to tell your husband or not...

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@sh1965 i think it’s harder when there is an expectation of sex because that’s what has been done and that part of the marriage starts dwindling down. As I’ve gotten older I’ve done less giving in and more rejecting because, frankly, it wears me out. The problem is that my husband is the exact opposite, he wants more and more and the more I reject the more he thinks something else is going on, maybe I’m cheating or whatnot. And those accusations are mentally painful, because I don’t have a desire for sex at all and as a sexual person he just cannot understand that. I just don’t see it going well if/when I do get around to telling him. I’m not sure he’ll believe it and I’m not sure what he’ll say. 

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@AnnaAce I've been married for 11 years and found out about asexuality about 5 years ago. For us, it helped things tremendously. She was having issues of not feeling wanted and really loved, but all of a sudden things made sense. It did takes us a couple years to really figure out how we needed to do things in the bedroom, but we have gotten to a good compromise for us both now. 

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Hello, 

 

I finally figured out I am ace last month. What a relief... I think. 🙂  

 

I am very grateful for all of the people who have shared their stories here. It really helped me to make sense of things. Seeing myself in their words was really affirming and made me feel less like an alien. 

 

I’ve been telling him “I am broken” and “my hormones levels are messed up” to explain my lack of libido the last few years.

I am 54, he is 67. We have been married for 27 years.   I have always been a people pleaser. Sex was always for his benefit.

Last year I finally decided I am done having sex. So done!!

 

AnnaAce, to answer your question,   since i’ve discovered I’m ace, I didn’t exactly tell him.  I showed him the book “The Invisible Orientation, An Introduction to Asexuality “ and I suggested he could learn something from reading it. He declined. 

We have a long history of not talking about anything real. But eventually I’ll probably just tell him.

 

Have you told your significant other yet?

 

sh1965, I really enjoyed reading your posts last night. I understand why you don’t want to tell your wife. My worry for her is that she may have felt rejected or unattractive, especially early in your marriage.  It might help her to put the pieces together if she knew. She could have her own ‘ah ha moment’  Just a thought. I do respect your decision..

 

On the the bright side of being asexual, having an affair is out of the question!

 

altho, an emotional affair is a whole new post...

 

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23 hours ago, Ohsuzanne said:

sh1965, I really enjoyed reading your posts last night. I understand why you don’t want to tell your wife. My worry for her is that she may have felt rejected or unattractive, especially early in your marriage.  It might help her to put the pieces together if she knew. She could have her own ‘ah ha moment’  Just a thought. I do respect your decision..

That's exactly what happened with my wife and I. Things made sense, and we started working things out to figure what that really means for our relationship. Luckily, we have freely talked about everything from what we want with sex to how much trouble going to the bathroom can be since we first met, so broaching the subject was a non issue. She's actually the one who found AVEN and told me I should look further into it.

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  • 4 months later...
IntrovertPolyglot

I've been married for 11 years, didn't find it asexuality was even a thing until a few years ago and assumed at first that it couldn't apply to me because I'm married. It took a while but I've been comfortable now with the label for a year or so. I don't think I'll ever tell my husband, because I'm worried he'd feel like the marriage up til now has been "fake", although that's not the case. He's already willing to stick with things I'm comfortable doing and not doing the things that would be a problem for me, so I don't see what would be gained. It helps that neither of us had a lot of relationship experience before we got married, so we're not measuring ourselves against expectations from other relationships. 

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I am 54 and am just now discovering that I may be asexual. I wasn’t even aware of the term until now. The internet is a great tool, otherwise, I would never know. I have been married to my third husband for almost 13 years. I have never really enjoyed sex and never comfortable talking about it. Sex is more of a chore to me, one I come to hate more and more as I get older. I have told myself I will never date or marry again after him. I have always thought I was broken or that something was wrong with me. My husband and I have discussed this. I have told him it’s not him, it’s me. Never sure as to why or what to do about it. I always thought it was low libido or issues with my medical condition or medications. When bringing it up with my doctor, it is suggested to try lubricants, different positions, or go to sex counseling. That would make me more sad and discouraged. I told my husband,  I don't want to be fixed. I do not enjoy sex, and don’t want to be forced to do or enjoy something that I don’t feel anything for. I do it to please him and his needs. I have felt this way for years, even in my other two marriages, but could never explain why. After recently googling people who don’t like sex or something similar, I came across the term “Asexual” and AVEN. I began reading about it, and it all seems to make sense. While it is still new to me, overwhelming to navigate through this site, it is a relief or weight off my shoulders to have a clearer answer, to know there isn’t anything wrong with me, and there are others like me. I have shared some of this with my husband, and now to figure out a better way to make it all work with compromises so we both can be happy.

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My wife and i have not had sex for 7 yrs. She would like to ,somehow i just have no interest. She is gone alot with busy things to do, if she has looked elsewhere shes been discreate, things are very amicable between us. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've been married 10 years and I realized I was ace about 3 years ago. It explained a lot to me. I told my husband right away and asked him if he eve suspected there was something different about me. Because I always hated sex and we even didnt have sex until 2.5 yrs after we were married. He said no, he just thought I was shy. Haha, which is what I thought too. It seems ridiculous to me now that neither of us realized. Our relationship hasnt changed though because we already worked out a compromise that worked for us. It just puts it in the right context. 

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I'm 36, have been married for 11 years and have two children 6 and 3. I only realized I was Ace about a year ago. Before that I just thought there was something wrong with me. I didn't realize asexual was a thing until I was doing research for the GSA group at the school I work for. 

 

Anyways, I talked to my husband a couple weeks ago about it. We were out for drinks, which helped. He said it made sense because we have always struggled with sex in our relationship and his biggest problem has always been my disinterest and never initiating. Since we talked he has been on work travel so I haven't been able to talk to him further about it. I'm nervous. I don't know if I should bring it up again, or wait until he does. I don't know if anything else even needs to be said. We joked around a bit, I told him he should join that dating site for married people to hook up and he just looked at me like I lost my head. 

 

I don't know. I just want him to be happy.

 

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This is my first post on AVEN! I’m 44 and will be celebrating 20 years of marriage next month. We have three children. I realized I was an aromantic asexual just a few years ago. I feel a little dumb that it took me so long to figure it out.  I’ve never enjoyed sex, and I guess I saw it as my “wifely duty”. But the last few years I’ve really become adverse to it. My husband has a very high sex drive, and without sex he gets very depressed. I reached the point where the thought of continuing to have sex for the rest of my life was making me depressed and contemplating divorce. My husband doesn’t want a divorce, and is against the idea of seeing someone else on the side. We came to the agreement that we would have sex once a week, but that just makes me dread Saturdays.  I never told him how much I hate being touched because I know he’ll feel that our whole marriage is a lie. I do love him very much and that is the only reason I’ve kept my feelings to myself. I really don’t think I can continue on the way things are though. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! 

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AceMissBehaving

@SuzerA it’s a tough situation but not an uncommon one. I’m in a similar situation with hoping to be able to meet a once a week goal. We have kept it fairly fluid, so while it’s a goal, we don’t have a set schedule. It sounds like having an set time means that you spend the run up dreading it, which I imagine increases anxiety, and makes it harder to get into a space to make it work. Might it be possible to make it less regimented, at least to start?

 

For me I find I need time to “recharge” so to speak because sex tends to start to feel especially draining if there’s too much. Other forms of closeness without the expectation of sex help me gain back my ability to be intimate in a sexual way, but without that recharge I just eventually feel burned out and depressed.

 

Also perhaps seeking out an ace friendly couples councilor might be helpful to navigate and negotiate the new boundaries post coming out.

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49 years old, married for 10 years, no kids. Figured out I was ace a month ago (it came up as a side journey as part of therapy).  I have not told my wife. We don’t have sex very often 2-3 times a year—at her request). I am very comfortable with PDA, hand holding, kissing, cuddling etc.  But sex with her is, for me just about trying to give her the best experience I can. I’m pretty sure we will talk about it, she is a psychologist herself, and I think she will know something is up, particularly after I figure out my own specifics

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I'm 36 and with my second husband for eleven years now. I've never been a very sexual creature and felt like the lack of romantic connection with my husband (either of them) was my fault. So two years ago I offered to try poly with him. Boy did that backfire. He is very into poly and I feel like I've lost what little romantic connection I had with him. Which is really strange because I discovered that asexual was a "thing" this year and heavily identify with it, though am finding I'm an emotional sponge. Now I'm kind of finding myself wondering if I can find an asexual man who is looking for a romantic, asexual connection like I am. Finding this site has been a big help in not feeling completely alone though.

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@AceMissBehaving we did try not having a schedule, but then every time he’d touch me, even in passing, I’d be afraid it was going to lead to sex, so I started avoiding being alone with him which understandably upset him. Scheduling a day seemed like a good compromise, and gave me time to mentally “prepare”, but I’m finding It has gone from a chore on my to-do list to something I dread.

 

I think the main problem is I can only handle so much physical contact in a day, and having three kids requires so much casual physical contact that I have no tolerance left at the end of the day for being touched by my husband. Before we had kids I think it wasn’t as stressful because the physical contact with others was much more limited. Do you think this is something an ace friendly counselor could help with. I’m afraid a counselor would just recommend ways to try to get me interested in sex and I’m pretty sure that’s not going to work. Lol. 

 

I realize that getting married and having kids was a huge mistake and now, 20 years later I haven’t got a clue what to do about it. At least now I know it’s not just me. I just wish I’d have recognized what I was when I was younger, instead of trying to shove myself into a box of everyone else’s ideals. 

 

P.S. thanks for the reply!

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AceMissBehaving
54 minutes ago, SuzerA said:

@AceMissBehaving we did try not having a schedule, but then every time he’d touch me, even in passing, I’d be afraid it was going to lead to sex, so I started avoiding being alone with him which understandably upset him. Scheduling a day seemed like a good compromise, and gave me time to mentally “prepare”, but I’m finding It has gone from a chore on my to-do list to something I dread.
 

I know both those feelings, and it can be hard to a work around. We had a long spell with lots of physical affection, but zero sex, which helped me work through my anxiety around touch. I think if the two of you can find away to build closeness back up without pressure for sex it might help some. The more pressure there is for sex at least in my experience, the harder it becomes and the more adverse I start to feel. It sounds like having a schedule is possibly increasing the pressure and making things worse for you.
 

Quote

I think the main problem is I can only handle so much physical contact in a day, and having three kids requires so much casual physical contact that I have no tolerance left at the end of the day for being touched by my husband. Before we had kids I think it wasn’t as stressful because the physical contact with others was much more limited. Do you think this is something an ace friendly counselor could help with. I’m afraid a counselor would just recommend ways to try to get me interested in sex and I’m pretty sure that’s not going to work. Lol. 
 

I think of you can find a good one it could. My husband recently started seeing a therapist within the last month, at some point we plan to do couples therapy with them, but he’s currently working some things out with them one on one. I was incredibly nervous at first with those same concerns. When he spoke to her this last week about my asexuality and how it affects him, she asked questions about wether I was sex repulsed, indifferent etc saying that is something that will very much determine the kind of advice she might offer. I’m seeing it as a good sign, as well as a sign that there are some good ones out there that aren’t going to put everything in making the  asexual partner get into sex. The one he started seeing specifically mentioned being poly, kink and LGBTQ+ even if you aren’t needing advice on areas other than asexuality, finding someone with knowledge about unconventional relationship models might increase the chance of someone being more progressive and ace friendly 

 

Quote

 

I realize that getting married and having kids was a huge mistake and now, 20 years later I haven’t got a clue what to do about it. At least now I know it’s not just me. I just wish I’d have recognized what I was when I was younger, instead of trying to shove myself into a box of everyone else’s ideals. 

 

P.S. thanks for the reply!

I love my husband and the life we’ve built together, but it’s hard not to sometimes think  about what things would have been like if I’d known sooner. 
 

while we can’t change anything about the past, at least we know now and can figure out ways to shape our futures, it would have been nice to have had all this insight sooner, but I’m glad to at least have it now. I sometimes feel so sad thinking of all the ace people who went their entire lives never knowing this part of themselves.

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  • 3 weeks later...

^^ this.

I can identify with pretty much all of the above.  Married for 25 years, kids, found out about asexuality very late (2 years ago) while searching for answers on how to improve my marriage.  The alien feeling, never having the desire to initiate,  feeling of sex being a chore but also my "duty"...

I told him very soon after having my realization and didn't really think it through.  I was so relieved that nothing was wrong with me,  I may have come across as a bit insensitive towards his feelings about the issue.  while I was elated, he went through the classic stages of grief. at first I thought it was instant acceptance,  but just took a while to sink in. We had denial about the existence of asexuality, anger about our marriage "being a lie", depression that he may never be desired, bargaining and at the same time rejection of any show of love, more depression as a result... we have slowly reached the acceptance stage. Talks about divorce happened several times, but I think we finally reached the great friendship stage our relationship was once based on.  We don't share the same bed anymore, because of uncomfortable feelings on both sides. him not wanting to act on his physical desires when I'm "in reach", me being able to fall asleep peacefully without the constant worry of having to perform when I'd much rather be sleeping. 

We still have sex every once in a while,  maybe once a month or so when I can tell he's really desperate (he does a lot of chores around the house as well, so its only fair to return the favor) and our social life has been more individualized to help with our personal development. I'm okay with him looking to fill his needs elsewhere,  he hasn't made use of it yet though. 

Here was my story first joining this forum:

 

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Mine is not exactly the profile of the description, but my experience for what is worth:

 

39 years old with partner of 8 years. Identified as asexual 10 years ago, now decided to drop all labels. Discussed asexuality with partner as soon as I met him. He could identify as asexual if he wanted, as he has quite a low sex drive compared to other accounts of sexual people I've seen here. But he's not really convinced of the usefulness or harmlessness of the identity, or labels (my personal story with near clinical depression is an example of why labels can be dangerous - see my other posts).

 

In general, it works for us. Sex is unfrequent (5 or 4 times a year, maybe?). Partner seemed to be frustrated at one point, because I never initiate, and I only do it to please him, and he obviously notices, but he seems to have adjusted to that now and initiates less, and does not seem frustrated by the lack of. Hence why I feel he could identify as asexual himself if he wanted. We travel a lot together and enjoy physical activities together, maybe this is why sex is second plan for us. I enjoy intimacy but sex is painful, and I am still figuring out what my tolerance boundaries are, and whether I need to approach this from a medical point of view or from a creative point of view (there's a great thread here about ideas on how to have more comfortable sex without necessarily involving PIV sex, which I think is great).

 

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Yes, married, open and polyamorous.  Since I never initiated sex (beyond the first couple years of marriage) my husband thought I fell out of love with him.  For years he carried that pain around.  I didn't know that I was graysexual back then, I just called it a low libido.   In the last 5 years we've had the best communication of our lives, opening up honestly about how our needs and desires have evolved.  Instead of divorcing, we decided not to send a shock wave through our very close family, and we both truly love each other.   He just wants a LOT more sex than I do.  That's the only area of incompatibility.  (If he were ace or gray, we'd have the best marriage on earth!)   So... he met a lady who loves sex as much as he does, and we call her his "girlfriend."  She's divorced, and isn't looking for any commitments.  We are all 3 very comfortable with the situation, as it relieves me from any pressure and duty to perform.  I'm so happy for him, and for her.  I don't feel jealous, but sometimes I get lonely when he's with her for a weekend.   Wait, I take that back.  I do feel jealous in the sense that it's so much easier for sexual people to find other sexual people.  The chances of finding my dream guy (hetero-romantic, asexual or graysexual, who is OK with me being married) will be somewhat miraculous.  But hey, I believe in miracles, so...

 

 

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On 10/27/2019 at 11:51 PM, AceMissBehaving said:

I think if the two of you can find away to build closeness back up without pressure for sex it might help some. The more pressure there is for sex at least in my experience, the harder it becomes and the more adverse I start to feel. It sounds like having a schedule is possibly increasing the pressure and making things worse for you.

I feel the same way. My husband and I have only been married for 5 years, and I've been aware of my asexuality for only the past year. We have a weekly date night, with no pressure for sex, and an agreement to have some form of sexual contact at least once a week. The date night is our way to build closeness with each other without making me uncomfortably aware of any expectation for sex.

On 10/27/2019 at 11:51 PM, AceMissBehaving said:

I love my husband and the life we’ve built together, but it’s hard not to sometimes think  about what things would have been like if I’d known sooner. 

I also wonder whether I would have gotten married at all if I'd known beforehand, but I've always wanted to have a lifelong companion, and my husband is exactly that kind of partner. I'm really lucky he's accepted my asexuality and has educated himself about it. We're trying to make sure we're both getting what we need, and we're not there, yet, but we're working on it.

On 10/27/2019 at 10:46 PM, SuzerA said:

I think the main problem is I can only handle so much physical contact in a day, and having three kids requires so much casual physical contact that I have no tolerance left at the end of the day for being touched by my husband.

I'm not a super touchy feely person, and I think that's played into my decision against having children. I'd probably be in the exact same boat as you are - not wanting to have any more physical contact by the end of the day, which would leave my husband out in the cold. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
LeafingBooksTea

I can identify with some of the above too.

 

I am 49, married for going on 15 years, 12 year old child, and I have identified as ace for about 5 years, but only to my spouse. Earlier in our marriage, my husband began communicating with another woman. They did not have intercourse, but the relationship was sexual in nature. We both went to counseling, separately and together, and realized that it was a complete breakdown in communication that lead to his other relationship. He was certain, because I no longer seemed interested in sex, (I was never interested in sex, but we had it more often prior to that point) that it meant I no longer cared about him. Me fighting for our marriage finally convinced him that wasn’t true. Though I couldn’t have called it asexuality at the time, we did begin talking about my ”low libido” and as long as we continued communicating things got better. 

 

It is not ideal, and there are other issues related to his medical and mental issues (he has clinical depression) that create their own difficulties. But we definitely communicate more often and things are less likely to fester and become arguments. I would like to think that being able to finally label my orientation has helped us. 

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On 4/19/2019 at 4:37 AM, AnnaAce said:

@sh1965 i think it’s harder when there is an expectation of sex because that’s what has been done and that part of the marriage starts dwindling down. As I’ve gotten older I’ve done less giving in and more rejecting because, frankly, it wears me out. The problem is that my husband is the exact opposite, he wants more and more and the more I reject the more he thinks something else is going on, maybe I’m cheating or whatnot. And those accusations are mentally painful, because I don’t have a desire for sex at all and as a sexual person he just cannot understand that. I just don’t see it going well if/when I do get around to telling him. I’m not sure he’ll believe it and I’m not sure what he’ll say. 

I am sorry you are going through the painful accusations. I went through the same before I knew about asexuality. I could not understand where the accusations came from. We had a huge fight and broke up. I later found out about asexuality and everything makes sense now. I now understand all allosexuals think lack of desire implies cheating. I am relieved there is nothing wrong with me. 

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  • 1 year later...

I'm 46 and have been married for 15 years. Since I am romantic and associated having sex with being loved in my teens (thanks to the hyper-sexualization of girls and women in the US), I didn't seem that different early on in relationships. In my early 20's, within a year of my first serious relationship I became pregnant, so my aversion to sex was easily blamed on having first one then three small children. There were other major problems in the relationship that made for easy explanations for my sex aversion and led to the end of that marriage.

 

The first year with my current husband seemed lovely. I was in love, ever the romantic, but the 'sexual issues'  began. I was always looking (and finding) reasons for my 'lack of sex drive.' Understandably, I didn't want to be broken. My life was stressful in so many ways. And when we had a child together we had the go-to newborn excuse (plus 3 school age children and finishing a degree excuses). Despite the 'excuses', by this time I was sure something was wrong with me, that I was broken. I love my husband so much- why didn't I want to have sex with him? Around this time, my husband and I started talking about consent and negotiating our sexual relationship. We've done a lot of talking and renegotiating. When I came across the concept of asexuality four or five years ago, it was a big relief. I realized nothing was wrong with me, and many things about my experience made so much more sense.

 

 Though we love each other and my husband makes a concerted effort to respect my sexuality, my sense of loveableness has and continues to be a challenging theme. I suspect it will be an ongoing conversation in my marriage and life until my time on this earth is done.

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  • 6 months later...
LoveTheorist

Those of you, above, who were looking for friends or connections to other married aces, did you find what you were looking for? And did it work within your marriages (poly or otherwise)?

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  • 1 month later...
On 2/5/2020 at 11:58 PM, KathyHoh said:

I am sorry you are going through the painful accusations. I went through the same before I knew about asexuality. I could not understand where the accusations came from. We had a huge fight and broke up. I later found out about asexuality and everything makes sense now. I now understand all allosexuals think lack of desire implies cheating. I am relieved there is nothing wrong with me. 

I went through the same thing. My husband told me he felt we were drifting apart. Which made no sense to me since we were closer than ever. I finally asked if this was about sex?  He said yes, and admitted that he thought, if I wasn’t getting relief from him sexually I must be getting it somewhere else. And he had thought this off and on through the years. 11 years married one kid, I’m 40 years old currently.  It was such a punch in the stomach. We have never had a booming sex life. My “low sex drive “ I called it, and his own issues, it was our norm, even before marriage.  But our relationship has mostly been solid.  I didn’t know how I could trust him again.  Being accused of cheating hurt so much. It’s like he didn’t see me. 

The accusation was a physical hurt I’ve never felt. I work my ass off for our small family and don’t even know where I’d find the time to pursue an outside relationship. 
.  I was trying to find a fix for my lack of interest when I came across the term asexuality.  It all made sense. Every past relationship and intimate encounter all clicked into place. 
We now talk a lot. And have worked out our own agreement after taking sex off the table for a large amount of time.   That was a huge relief. And gave me time to heal from the hurt of his accusation. But the funny thing was that after I learned I was on asexual spectrum the hurt lifted immediately. His feelings made more sense and so did mine. It was easier to trust him again.
Our lack of communication played a huge role in all this. I’m now constantly checking in on him to make sure he’s not internalizing things. We talk about sex and needs. He sees his own counselor now. I’m very greatful.  There are a lot of men I know who would do none of this. But I did marry him knowing that he wasn’t like others. I married him thinking sex would not be an issue since he has his own issues around it, but I never though it would come to this. So in the end I’m very greatfull for my discovery and for him. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

In my early 40s. My wife and I have been together for almost 20 years. We knew we wanted to be together forever almost immediately and that still hasn’t changed, but sex has always been the biggest problem in our marriage. 

I’m demisexual and I enjoy having sex with her, but I also have a very low libido. Her sex drive vastly outpaced mine and early in the relationship, she took control in the bedroom. There were times when I turned her down, usually because it was late and I was tired, or some scenario was pushing me outside of my comfort zone. She was frustrated early on by my libido never keeping up with hers, but we still had sex often and everything worked, even if it wasn’t ideal. 

 

About a year ago, I discovered asexuality which I thought described my low libido at first, then I found out about demisexuality which was a much better fit for my scenario and the low libido was unrelated to my sexuality itself. I discussed with my wife and she was very supportive, but I have largely dropped the ball since then. 
 

I haven’t put in the work toward learning what this means, both for me and for us and it all came to a head today. I’ve not been a good communicator with her and only very recently I’ve been trying to improve on that. I told her today that I don’t need sex to be a part of our marriage. I said it bluntly and poorly and it really hurt her. I’ve since tried to explain that I do still want to have sex with her and that I enjoy having sex with her, but it’s just not a necessary component of our marriage for me. She’s been saying for a long time that there’s little to no connection when we have sex and that it’s largely mechanical, so while there was an aspect of “that explains so much” for her, there was also an aspect of “I’ve been saying sex is mechanics for HOW LONG and you’re only just now telling me this???”
 

I’m hoping that signing up with Aven and making this post is the first step down the road of me putting in the work, because my wife definitely deserves it. I’m at a low point right now after our day-long argument that we keep coming back to and I’m hoping that someone out there has experience or advice on what a happy ending looks like and how to get there 

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