“Just Divorce and Stay Friends”

[ryn2]

2 hours ago, Memento1 said:

Maybe you're saying it's still worth it, that even though no one responds, it's being heard and appreciated.

People don’t always react well in the moment to advice or opinions they aren’t ready to hear, but it can still be really helpful later on when it’s had some time to sink in and they’ve had some time to adjust.

 

That doesn’t mean offering advice/opinions can’t come at too high a personal cost, though.

[Philip027]

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Right, yet many times on AVEN folks express that their relationships have everything but the sexual connection. They aren’t looking for a way to get out, but for a way to stay in. That missing sexual element is so vital to many sexuals that it’s not weighing whether or not to leave a bad relationship....

 

The nut to swallow is despite everything else seemingly great, it’s a mismatch that can’t be ignored.

Not sure what else people are supposed to say to those sorts of situations.  They cannot force their partner to start desiring sex, so what else is there to suggest?  Suck it up and stay, even if this "one thing" evidently leaves you discontent or miserable enough to bother to go on an asexuality forum and make a post about it?

 

And has been pointed out above, most people aren't actually into poly arrangements and it cannot be applied as a band-aid.  If it can work for a given couple, great, but I agree with the above sentiment that it's thrown around as a potential solution a little too haphazardly.

 

I mean, it would be great for us aces if we didn't have our mixed relationships fail due to a mismatched sexual element, but it is what it is.  Some of us would rather be realistic than cling to false hopes.

 

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im mostly disappointed that so few individuals who Identify as ace come to this page and offer ideas or support to keep in the relationship. 

Aside from the fact that there often isn't anything else to be said to someone who, when it comes down to it, isn't happy in their relationship (for any reason, not just a missing sexual element)...

 

To be quite honest with you, a number of aces find this section of the forum depressing, because to them it serves as a nagging reminder of how they will ultimately never be good enough for sexual people -- which the vast majority of people are -- including their own partners if they happen to be in mixed relationships themselves.  Even in the cases of mixed couples reaching a form of compromise that enables them to stay together and posting about it on SPF&A, it often involves measures (such as poly) that they personally wouldn't be comfortable with.

[LeChat]

5 hours ago, Ours said:

...im mostly disappointed that so few individuals who Identify as ace come to this page and offer ideas or support to keep in the relationship.

Hi. For me, a couple of reasons why I don't really try to offer any advice in relationship threads is because I've never been in one, myself (I've never dated), and because I don't feel I know how to help "fix" others' relationships; my own relatives' relationships were dysfunctional, and I wasn't able to convince them to listen to each other, calm down, and to stop blaming each other and taking out their marital frustrations out on other family members, like myself, who had nothing to do with their problems or feelings.

 

There's a significant amount of aces who've also never been in a relationship or dated, anyone, too. So, that might be another reason why others don't post advice in relationship threads. It's not, necessarily, that aces don't care; it's just that, some, like me, don't feel they have anything helpful to add or advice to give, due to never having dated or been in a relationship. (It's looking like I'm an aroace.)

 

I wish I had helpful advice to offer for people in relationships, but the best I'm able to do, really, is search, online, and read what advice therapists who work with couples have to give; I don't feel comfortable or confident trying to give advice on something I've never experienced, myself.

[nanogretchen4]

Divorce can be extremely difficult, yeah, especially when there are children involved or one member of the couple is relying on the other as a caretaker. All the more reason to prevent situations where the options will be divorce or a lifetime of misery, resentment, and possibly abuse. One of the best ways to lower the divorce rate is for obviously incompatible couples not to marry. Someone says they have been dating an asexual for less than a year and they think they should break up? Tell them yes, trust that instinct, break up! Someone says they have received the devastating news that their potential spouse is asexual three weeks before the wedding and they want to know if they should go through with the wedding despite obviously being confused and in the denial stage of grief? Hell no they should not go through with the wedding!

 

If both members of an already married mixed orientation couple agree that they are making their marriage work and are reasonably happy on balance, I am happy for them. However, a person's odds of happiness in life are better if they marry someone with a compatible orientation. "You can make it work!" advice might make sense for already married posters who want to avoid divorce. It really doesn't make sense for people who aren't in that situation yet.

[TurnedTurtle]

23 hours ago, Memento1 said:

I've never seen a recommendation here to stay the same and do nothing

So I am not the person you were responding to, but beyond breaking up or opening up, the other approaches I often also see recommended are *work out a compromise, or *become celibate (directed to the sexual partner), the latter sometimes phrased along the lines of "learn to accept your life and relationship as it is, unlikely to ever change," or something like that.  So I guess you are right, I have never seen "do nothing,"  but rather "accept reality."

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, TurnedTurtle said:

So I am not the person you were responding to, but beyond breaking up or opening up, the other approaches I often also see recommended are *work out a compromise, or *become celibate (directed to the sexual partner), the latter sometimes phrased along the lines of "learn to accept your life and relationship as it is, unlikely to ever change," or something like that.  So I guess you are right, I have never seen "do nothing,"  but rather "accept reality."

That is basically all the options... 

 

You can't change incompatibilities. You either live with them, compromise on them or leave for them. 

 

"Do nothing" tends to be more "talk and realize you can't change anything, so just learn to be happy as things are". 

[nanogretchen4]

Also, the alternatives to divorce very rarely lead to both partners actually being happy in the marriage long-term. In reality they function less as divorce prevention tactics and more as divorce delaying tactics. In all likelihood the incompatible spouses will suffer both a period of unhappy marriage, of variable length, and also a divorce. In general, the shorter the period of unhappy marriage, the smaller the total amount of suffering. Sometimes there are circumstances that justify extending the unhappy marriage for a few years. Let's say there is a toddler involved and the parents can't afford childcare, so they need to live together until the child starts school. Or let's say one of the partners is terminally ill. In both cases, circumstances will probably change significantly in a few years. But if there are no minors in the picture and both partners are in reasonably good health, right now might be the least damaging time for the divorce to happen.

[ryn2]

5 hours ago, nanogretchen4 said:

right now might be the least damaging time for the divorce to happen.

Agreed, one of the most difficult things about mine in a variety of ways was/is the fact that ex waited almost a decade to act after deciding for himself that it wasn’t working.  It would have been better to split up then.

[Guest]

47 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

Agreed, one of the most difficult things about mine in a variety of ways was/is the fact that ex waited almost a decade to act after deciding for himself that it wasn’t working.  It would have been better to split up then.

Yeah. Waiting when you know it is over is just... cruel. Especially if you're older. You lose so many vital years. 

[MrDane]

On 7/29/2020 at 7:55 PM, Lara Black said:

I went through a divorce 6-7 years ago. And because I was brought up within this “one guy for life” philosophy, I stayed in that marriage for about 4 years longer than I should have (out of 12 all in all).

 

First of all, for myself I can say that it wasn’t nearly as stressful as is implied by that list. Don’t get me wrong – it wasn’t in any way easy, and I cried for weeks, but I healed.

And now I’m really happy I did it. I’m so much happier than I was and than I could be if I’d stayed.

 

So when I suggest breaking up on AVEN, it’s not given as an easy solution – I suggest it as a necessary evil when I don’t see any possibilities for two people to be happy.

I’m not sure if we have this proverb in English, but in my native language we sometimes say, “It’s better to cut off a cat’s tail in one piece than to be cutting it off bit by bit”. Naturally, neither of these options is painless or even good. But sometimes we find ourselves in a situation with no good choices.

I agree with you @Lara Black and understand the proverb/saying about the cat’s tail. I just want to add that my own experience is that my ace wife didnt realize how much of the tail she had to cut off and I really like her tail and will go ever so far to keep some of her tail. 

[MrDane]

People usually gets over a divorce. Losing a child stays with you as a returning pain.

[Epitaph]

I think part of the issue of divorce is the fact that people get financially tied into it. Or they get vindictive enough to make it a financial and legal battle, because that's all marriage seems to be viewed as these days. I've gone through my bouts of homelessness and aimless wandering. I always figured, if I ever got involved with somebody that far, and divorce came up onto the table, I wouldn't lawer up and start getting picky. I'd just tell them to take all my shit if they wanted it and leave. I can start from zero and I don't particularily care if I drop dead in the process of doing it. Possessions are possessions at the end of the day. Of course there's the emotional factors too. But I've been through my own breakups for various reasons. I restarted from zero every time.

 

It's an earnest shame that it's become such a complicated mess, either because of legal trash or people being dolts. And that says nothing for kids involved either. It's hell for them, pretty much always. I don't think I know any other people that have split up and don't harbor any sort of venom for their exes. I know that I don't for my previous relationships, but then again I acknowledge that what happened in any of them was all my fault, and I accept that.

 

Marriage probably wouldn't be such a problem to break if it didn't have so many financial ties and other ramifications to it.

[ryn2]

2 hours ago, E said:

Marriage probably wouldn't be such a problem to break if it didn't have so many financial ties and other ramifications to it.

*nods*
 

I’ve actually stayed friends with every ex I *wasn’t* married to, even the one I shared a house with and therefore did have to do *some* settling up, and this does feel like a large part of the difference.

[iff]

 This thread had not been active for a long time and is now being locked. If anyone would like to discuss this topic further, feel free to start a new thread about it.

 

Iff, 

Moderator, sexual partners, friends, and allies