Stright sexual in a LTR with a newfound Gray-ace.

[Pardythyme]

Hey there AVEN, I hope you all are having a lovely day. I'm mostly posting just to talk and have a discussion about my situation.

To start things off, I am not Asexual, I'm pretty much Cis straight, But I like to think of my self as pretty Woke ya know? But I still have so much to learn.
I have however been in a fantastic relationship with a lovely person. Lets call them Bean. We have been dating almost a year now (in fact our 1year is on Nov 24th!)

Bean is Gender non-conforming/Non-binary as well as gray Ace. Which im am 100% happy and fine with. But I didn’t know that they were Ace when we started dating. It in fact really only came up in the last few months of our relationship. When we first started dating we were having sex pretty frequently and it was initiated by both party's.  Bean had even talked about fun sexual experiments we could do, toys we should and did buy. So for me Gray ace wasn’t even on the rader at all. This started to steadily decline as we continued dating which happens. Especially since we both have pretty busy life's. But at the time of writing it has been about 3 months since we have had sex of almost any kind. Which was what brought up the talk or gray ace and asexuality in general.

Before this there had been a few spouts of no sex, Bean had told me it lies in a sexual trauma that they had experienced and sometimes go through, and we worked through that together for a long time. I want to be a safe haven for the person I love so I had no trouble working through something. But asexuality or gray ace in this situation isn't something we can work through because its who they are. Cant work through changing who they are as a fundamental person.

Since then i have been reading a lot of books about the topic and am now reaching out to this community to talk to the lovely folks here.

Also if anybody hasn’t read Gender Queer: A memoir by Maia Kobabe it is fantastic. I just finished reading it this morning before writing this post.

 

Here's the thing, I love my partner to bits, But I also desire sex and in this current form of our relationship that isn't something that is going to happen for the foreseeable future or possibly ever again. I have gone through a lot of emotion's during this time, I've felt rejected, ugly and unwanted. It has been a big change for me and im trying to handle it in stride. We have tried to do a few other things, they have been with me while I have masturbated. But that does have diminishing returns on my end.

We have talked about myself possibly finding a secondary partner to have a sexual relationship with. Which doesn’t sound like a terrible Idea. But and now this sounds selfish and I have talked to my partner about this. If I were to have a secondary partner and Bean had decided to also get a secondary partner(which they can totally do) I would be incredibly upset if they were to start having sex with this other person after I have driven myself crazy in silent frustration because of it.

Mostly I'm just looking to talk about this and hear from people that have maybe been in the same situation. I understand this is kind of a thought vomit. Just some days I'm at my wits end.

Thank you all so much.

[Guest]

It's possible they have a low libido or dysphoria is interfering with their desire for sex. Have they described having sexual attraction to you? Grey-sexuals still experience sexual attraction no matter how rare. If they don't then it might be time for they to examine their sexuality.

[brbdogsonfire]

I would totally understand feelings of jealousy if they found another partner they were comfortable having sex with while not with you if sex was not an issue previously but became an issue later on. It would make me question things.

 

BUT, they haven't found another sexual partner based on what you said so worrying about it is literly worrying about a hypothetical what if and that's silly to do based on what's happening.

 

Im in an open relationship technically. My partner is allowed to persue other people if she ever develops sexual interest in someone. Although I am certain this would cause jealousy for me I'd prefer she got the chance to experience a positive sexual experience.

 

So jealousy can occur, and you can beat yourself up over the what if. I see no reason to though unless something comes up, and I would try to understand why they are comfortable with the other person instead of you. Taking positive action to fix the situation is better than doing nothing and being worried about it.

[anisotrophic]

23 hours ago, Pardythyme said:

If I were to have a secondary partner and Bean had decided to also get a secondary partner(which they can totally do) I would be incredibly upset if they were to start having sex with this other person after I have driven myself crazy in silent frustration because of it.

While my initial reaction to "open" was like this, I've become much more accepting and positive of this potential outcome.

I don't know that I'd feel jealous; what little experience I've had with open so far hasn't led to me being jealous (but instead, worrying about the other partner). I've accepted I can't give him this, but if someone else could... it would be nice for him to have that. That said, easy to say such things when it hasn't actually happened.

[Traveler40]

I understand your concern.  If my husband suddenly wanted to step out sexually with someone else, our relationship would end almost as suddenly.

 

Now, you could say that’s hypocritical of me, however I tend to disagree.  The years spent in celibacy and denial would, in effect, end up a complete slap in the face if it turned out he was actually sexual.  
 

I would feel like a fool and be very hurt.  I stay and work at it as I believe there’s understanding.  His stepping out to have sex elsewhere would flip that script in a bad way. 
 

hmmm, I’ve spent years trying to figure it out for the betterment of our future and finally believe the answer hands a sort of resolution where there was none before. A decision by him to do that would devastate all of it really.

[anisotrophic]

32 minutes ago, Traveler40 said:

The years spent in celibacy and denial would, in effect, end up a complete slap in the face if it turned out he was actually sexual.  

I should say that I speak from a very different place. We started open (and that wasn't exercised much, and went forgotten over time, but it was always an idea we were comfortable with). More importantly, I don't feel I had to struggle with a sense of my partner lacking empathy for my own experience. I expect I'd feel as you do in your shoes.

 

@Pardythyme one pattern – not always true – is that sexual partners sometimes don't pursue another partner (or not "right away"). Yet that state of "technically open" can be valuable simply because it takes pressure off both partners. Which I think means "open" isn't purely a "selfish" thing to suggest (as it may take pressure off an ace partner, too).

[Traveler40]

To be clear, I don’t believe this could ever happen in my relationship. Even the idea of it is really shocking actually. Oddly, I’m not a naturally open person sexually. It was the result of the situation that we found ourselves in.
 

If my husband was to decide to step out, I would see all of those years of pain and anguish, and yes, lack of empathy, as baseless and a lie. Wow, just thinking about it pisses me off! I didn’t really expect that strong of a reaction, but there you have it.😬

[Qiana]

I'm currently in a relationship with a sexual male and he wants sex pretty frequently (5-6x a week). I am a demisexual and a graysexual which I've only recently figured out within the past week or so. He did not take it well initially and we took some time to process and we're trying to decide what is going to work best for us. In his defense I also have some sexual trauma history and had been trying to work through that as well in terms of how it translates to my feelings of intimacy which I've figured my trauma is more about me having control over my body and feeling confident in that. But my low sex desire has always been a thing. Once when he asked me what made me feel sexual desire for him I mentioned something about watching him cook or seeing him smile which he pointed out had nothing to do with sex but that's usually when I feel a small twinge of desire is when he's just being himself and I know that i'm connected to him emotionally. I don't have much to offer except that talking about it and deciding together will be key. If you decide you can't handle it you're well within your right to do so but it might be harder on your partner if you just throw in the towel and leave. Not saying you need to feel obligated to stay either. Just saying if you guys decide being together isn't going to work maybe finding a way to mutually agree on that so the split is as amicable as possible. If you're going to work through it you're both gonna have to do some compromising (most likely) and then just be honest about how often you check in with each other about how the compromises are working and how and when that need to be revamped as time goes on.