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Advice for reaching out to asexual spouse


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alloLovingAnAce

Hello. I'm an allosexual husband married to a wonderful woman (twenty years, together for 25) who believe to be asexual. I found AVEN a few months ago. It's been amazing to find a community that can help make sense of so many of our experiences. I've been reading all kinds of posts to get a better understanding of asexuality, allo/asexual relationships, and if this might help us chart a course forward.

 

I really want to have a conversation about asexuality with my wife. For allo members who suggested that their partners look into asexuality, what worked and what didn't? For asexual members, how would you have preferred to be approached about this? I would really like to be as supportive/positive as possible and avoid being unintentionally hurtful.

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Sarah-Sylvia

Welcome @alloLovingAnAce:)

It's great that you want to reach out and be able to talk about asexuality with your wife.

 

Only one set of thoughts from someone gray-ace, and I'm more open than maybe most people so if it were me I would be fine to talk on it if the subject was broughtup, but just would like to know my partner is open to understand including how it applies in my case, and of course is lovely when feeling supported.


Example would be sitting down and saying something like 'I was wondering if we could talk about asexuality'. And then maybe ask how much she knows or has looked into it, and then simply talk openly about what sexuality is to her. Very important to listen a lot, so questions are good. Your own thoughts and feelings matter too, though probably good at first to listen and try to understand best you can.

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nanogretchen4

If your wife does not self identify as asexual or is not ready to come out as asexual, you can't slap a label on her or drag her out of the closet.

 

It's important to know why you want to discuss asexuality with your wife. The two main reasons are that your wife seems worried and confused about her own sexuality and you want to help her, or you are dissatisfied with your sex life and you think getting your wife to self identify as asexual will somehow lead to a solution. 

 

If your wife does not know that asexuality exists, letting her know that it's a thing could indeed be very helpful to her. Potentially this could give her a community and a useful framework for understanding her lived experiences. However, the asexual label is for her to self identify with, or not. It is not for you to say whether she is asexual or not. So don't have a big solemn talk about asexuality where you announce that you think she is asexual. Instead, just casually drop enough information about asexuality that she can follow up in her own time if she chooses. For example: "Hey, Honey, have you ever heard of asexuality?" (If she says no...) "I just heard someone say the word the other day, so I looked it up online. I knew some people are attracted to the opposite sex and some people are attracted to their own sex and some people are attracted to all sexes, but it turns out there's another orientation called asexuality where people aren't sexually attracted to anyone. Wild, right? There's a website called AVEN that a bunch of asexuals post on." And leave it at that. This gives her a word and a website that she can search online, plus a general idea of what asexuality is. Your work is done and the rest is up to her.

 

Now, if the real reason that you want to have this talk is because your relationship is not currently meeting your needs, that is a whole different talk. In that case, it is not necessary for her to self identify as asexual. In fact it is not necessary for you to mention asexuality at all in a conversation about your needs. If there is a major gap in libido or sexual desire in your relationship, the options are the same regardless of your wife's label.

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alloLovingAnAce

Thank you, @nanogretchen4! This was exactly the type of response I needed to see. Being so new to this, I think I'm focusing my thoughts through this new-to-me conceptual lens more than I should be.

 

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If there is a major gap in libido or sexual desire in your relationship, the options are the same regardless of your wife's label.

You're absolutely right. I can start the conversation about navigating both of our needs in a positive and validating way. I think I definitely still need to do a lot of work separating relationship concepts that I've been conflating as being part of a larger "emotional picture."

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Mountain House

My best recollection:

 

My wife and I were caught in a cycle in which through frustration I would blow up in the middle of the night. We knew it but couldn't stop it. This YouTube video kind of depicts how that goes. Along with trying to fix our sexual incompatibility (for years), we were trying to kill the damn cycle. I research. It's what I do. December 2019 I was, again, hitting up the internet to find the one thing I need to do to break the cycle and typed a search string that was unique (don't remember what it was) and AVEN popped up and down that rabbit hole I went.

My world crashed and there's a lot of journey to talk about there but for your question - I asked to talk about our sex life during the day (freaky!) and showed her AVEN. I told her that I didn't think she was broken but that we should make an effort to discover our authentic selves and disregard what others think we are supposed to be.

 

It took her probably 6 months to decide that she is grey-ace. 

 

It took me equally as long to really get that, as per the advice of @nanogretchen4, my problem is really a me thing and not a her thing.

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intheshadowoferos

For my husband and I: we had been discussing going back to therapy to work on our relationship, and he knew I was beginning to look for a suitable therapist. That’s when I happened upon Asexuality. I then began reading everything I could get my hands on. As I read I notated everything with questions and ideas how it relates to us. Then when  we happened to be away for a week on a road trip I told him what I had found and how I thought it applied to him, and to us. I then asked him to read the same books I had, and we discussed them. He said he didn’t that l at that time that he was ace, but could see how I would come to that conclusion. I found  us a therapist and within a couple of months we had our first appt. We still both read quite a bit on the subject (although I am running out of material). Long story- short: yes, he is asexual, he also has ADHD. We are learning how to communicate and navigate through our life together. I am working on my self esteem, and we are figuring out how to be close without being physical and do it so that we are both feeling cared for and happy.

good luck. 
 

the first book I handed his was The Invisible Orientation 

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