I think my partner might be Ace. Advice

[Galgalgal]

Hey to all the sexuals on the group. are you happy? And how have you found your compromise. Have you just accepted a sexless relationship. If you are having sex is it good? I feel weird about sex being only to pleasure me for the rest of my life. I have a vibrator. But i don’t want this to be my only sexual outlet for the rest of my life. Have you opened your relationship? How does that work?
 

context: I’ve been in my relationship for 8 years. First year was full of lust and sex and then the sex faded. At first I blamed night shifts and different schedules. But we have had similar schedules for a very long time now. My partner is uncomfortable talking about sex so trying to educate myself and find the right language to open communication. The problem is I love sex and consider it a big part of who I am. It’s led to a lot of unhappiness over the last years. Whilst finding out a reason behind his lack of interest in sex comes with a sense of understanding and relief to know there’s nothing wrong with either of us. how do I decide my boundaries and where I am willing to compromise. I feel like if I stay in the relationship I would be denying myself happiness and would be grieving a loss of part of who I am.  We are seeing a sexologist next week to help us work out or boundaries and communication strategies. There is a lot of love in this relationship but not sure of its future. 
 

 

[Undecided2]

24 minutes ago, Galgalgal said:

Hey to all the sexuals on the group. are you happy? And how have you found your compromise. Have you just accepted a sexless relationship. If you are having sex is it good? I feel weird about sex being only to pleasure me for the rest of my life. I have a vibrator. But i don’t want this to be my only sexual outlet for the rest of my life. Have you opened your relationship? How does that work?

I only recently discovered my wife is asexual and am trying to establish if there is a compromise that works for me. My wife is reluctant to engage in conversations about our relationship so we are not quite in the space you and your partner are. 

 

I couldn't have an open relationship and am very much torn between a sexless relationship or...the end. 

 

I think it's great that you are seeing a professional. I haven't made that much progress yet. 

[Galgalgal]

Yes I’m fairly certain an open relationship is not what I want. Especially because I long for sexual attention. I believe I would become infatuated very easily after a many years with out. 

[Undecided2]

31 minutes ago, Galgalgal said:

Yes I’m fairly certain an open relationship is not what I want. Especially because I long for sexual attention. I believe I would become infatuated very easily after a many years with out. 

For me, I know I want one person's attention and want the emotional bond and I suppose I want that 'making love' aspect. I also don't think I could love two people at once. That's just me. 

 

Sorry if I'm not the most helpful, but I do understand your situation and the difficulties in making a decision between someone you love deeply and your own needs.

[Sarah-Sylvia]

I think it becomes a tough decision for someone sexual, to either look for someone who's a match in terms of sexual intimacy, or to try to make it work with less or no sex. That doesn't mean there can't be intimacy in all the other ways.

Compromise can exist too, but someone asexual may never be able to give the same kind of attention through sex as someone else that's sexual.

[Whomadewho]

5 hours ago, Galgalgal said:

Hey to all the sexuals on the group. are you happy? And how have you found your compromise. Have you just accepted a sexless relationship. If you are having sex is it good? I feel weird about sex being only to pleasure me for the rest of my life. I have a vibrator. But i don’t want this to be my only sexual outlet for the rest of my life. Have you opened your relationship? How does that work?
 

context: I’ve been in my relationship for 8 years. First year was full of lust and sex and then the sex faded. At first I blamed night shifts and different schedules. But we have had similar schedules for a very long time now. My partner is uncomfortable talking about sex so trying to educate myself and find the right language to open communication. The problem is I love sex and consider it a big part of who I am. It’s led to a lot of unhappiness over the last years. Whilst finding out a reason behind his lack of interest in sex comes with a sense of understanding and relief to know there’s nothing wrong with either of us. how do I decide my boundaries and where I am willing to compromise. I feel like if I stay in the relationship I would be denying myself happiness and would be grieving a loss of part of who I am.  We are seeing a sexologist next week to help us work out or boundaries and communication strategies. There is a lot of love in this relationship but not sure of its future. 
 

 

Sexual here, in a LTR, years together trying to figure things out before I found Aven and then everthing made sense.

I also love sex and it is much more that just an act, and personally   don't think a sexual person can be really happy in a relationship if they are not happy with their sexlife. 

We are back having a regular sexlife though, and at the start I was just happy to be getting a bit of regular action again, but feeling no desire from partner is starting to get me down now.  The feeling of sex being just a chore for my partner to get done. I does nothing for her emotionally at all. There is no sexuall chemistry. It makes the relationship feel kind of platonic.

My partner also won"t/doesn't feel comforable talking about sex, she said sex is not something you talk about it is just something you do.

My partner is a lovely person she is attractive and would a lot of the boxes, but that feeling of never being desired from her is missing which makes me unsure of the future.

[TurnedTurtle]

10 hours ago, Galgalgal said:

Hey to all the sexuals on the group. are you happy? And how have you found your compromise. Have you just accepted a sexless relationship. If you are having sex is it good? I feel weird about sex being only to pleasure me for the rest of my life. I have a vibrator. But i don’t want this to be my only sexual outlet for the rest of my life. Have you opened your relationship? How does that work?

I thought I had some "cute" answers to your questions, but the jokes are just not working, nor would they be all that helpful to you. 

 

We tried a sexual compromise after "decades" of drought, but it wasn't really working for either of us (and that is what lead to discovering the concept of asexuality).   We gave consideration to an open relationship, but she couldn't accept it, and for me, having sex with somebody else wouldn't help me express my love for, nor help me feel loved by, my wife -- it would have just pulled me away from her.

 

So that leaves

 

continuing on with the only thing I've really ever known, informed by new knowledge and understanding, and trying to make the best of it

 

or

 

leaving, giving up what has otherwise been a great partnership, dividing assets, and (given other commitments we've made), ending up an old, homeless, unemployed, single man (not without any resources, but still....).

 

Am I happy? Well, I can't say that I'm ecstatic, but I am certainly not so unhappy that option 2 looks better than option 1 ... 

 

[now, when the reality of asexuality first sunk in about two years ago, things were tough, and there was a third, worse, option on the table ...  yeah, it was that bad...]

 

 

[Galgalgal]

Sorry to hear your situations. It feels like it’s an ongoing struggle. It’s so new to me. I’m whilst I’ve been in the relationship for 8 years we don’t have kids. We wanted to buy a house this year and it’s this process that has brought up the need to work out this ongoing problem and brought it to a head. I’m in a position where I want the house and kids but I could leave now pretty easily. I’m only early 30s

[Mountain House]

On 4/15/2021 at 3:59 PM, TurnedTurtle said:

We gave consideration to

@TurnedTurtle, I hadn't come across this until this morning.

 

Respect!

[TurnedTurtle]

@Mountain House Even though I had already come to the conclusion I described above for myself, as long as the option was still on the table -- the door ajar just a bit, as it were, it did let in a sliver of light... When she said she didn't think an open relationship would work for her, it sent me back to the bottom of a dark hole, for a little while anyway.

[uhtred]

I've been married for 30 years to a near asexual woman.  It took me a very very long time to understand what was going on, I had no idea asexuality existed. She still doesn't - thinks she is typical and women only have sex to please men. (really). 

 

I'm not happy. There is some unspoken compromise, but I feel constantly rejected and unloved. I expect she feels constantly pressured (even if I don't say anythign).   Its not a life I recommend

 

Of course each situation is different, and what matters is the level of incompatibility in sexual desire.   What really matters is what matters to  YOU and your partner. 

 

One key question is whether you can enjoy a life with never being sexually desiared?  Are desire, sex, romance and love tied together for you, or can you view them separately - feeling love and romance when sex and desire are limited or absent?

 

feel free to PM 

[RalphEllison]

On 4/15/2021 at 6:58 AM, Galgalgal said:

Hey to all the sexuals on the group. are you happy? And how have you found your compromise. Have you just accepted a sexless relationship. If you are having sex is it good? I feel weird about sex being only to pleasure me for the rest of my life. I have a vibrator. But i don’t want this to be my only sexual outlet for the rest of my life. Have you opened your relationship? How does that work?
 

context: I’ve been in my relationship for 8 years. First year was full of lust and sex and then the sex faded. At first I blamed night shifts and different schedules. But we have had similar schedules for a very long time now. My partner is uncomfortable talking about sex so trying to educate myself and find the right language to open communication. The problem is I love sex and consider it a big part of who I am. It’s led to a lot of unhappiness over the last years. Whilst finding out a reason behind his lack of interest in sex comes with a sense of understanding and relief to know there’s nothing wrong with either of us. how do I decide my boundaries and where I am willing to compromise. I feel like if I stay in the relationship I would be denying myself happiness and would be grieving a loss of part of who I am.  We are seeing a sexologist next week to help us work out or boundaries and communication strategies. There is a lot of love in this relationship but not sure of its future. 

 

Hi @Galgalgal. I'm 63, so maybe 30 years older than you, and that alters my context considerably. My partner and I aren't married but in every meaningful sense of the word we might as well be and she and I have been together almost 23 years. Our sex life was good for so long that I suspect there may be better explanations for the downturn than my partner being asexual, but regardless we face similar challenges and similar choices as you face.    

 

To be honest, if I were in my current circumstances when I was your age I'd have been pretty desperate. As it is, what I need isn't so far from what I have and I can at least imagine a little improvement, and I think I'd be content with that. Not thrilled, but realistically content with let's say more passionate sex maybe 3 times per month. I think I could feel the connection I need from that. As it is we have kind of tepid sex 1-2 times per month and the more passionate kind 4-5 times per year. For me clearly it's more about the emotional quality of the sex than the frequency and the 1-2 times per month with more connection (openly and shamelessly desiring her and being desired) might be enough. 

 

So I have some hope in my case that things can improve, but I feel like I'm walking a razors edge. If things don't improve and we stay where we are, I feel like what sex life we have will soon die. I seem to be all that's keeping it alive, and I'm wearing out. If that happens I would likely stay for the other very significant benefits this relationship still brings me, but that's assuming the relationship doesn't suffer, or doesn't suffer more than it already has. At my age leaving or seeking another partner are neither very appealing nor very realistic, but 3 decades ago I might have moved on already. 

 

I'm sorry that's not a super rosy offering, but it's honest. I see that you're taking some concrete steps to improve things or to get a clearer picture of what's possible, and that's healthy. I hope you find answers that work well for you, however you define well.