Please help! Ace spouse. I don’t know where to begin but I will try to make sense

[ZeroSince67]

Hi, I am 42 cis male demi. I have been married to my cis female partner since 2010. 
 

long story short, I needed a circumcision several years ago to remove a painful growth on my foreskin caused from scar tissue from my dad butting a cigarette on my penis when I was 8. My dad sexually abused me with the support of my narcissist mother who noticed the sex with him was better after he had his way with me starting at least since I was 5. 
 

My wife and I had pledged to start trying for children after I was healed up. However, I kept getting infections which kept delaying things. I was slowly bleeding for months and unable to sit up long enough to drive. When I would look down at my penis I would see the slow healing and feel absolutely mutilated and  completely undesirable. I asked my wife that while I of course still wanted children (we bought a crib and an uppababy stroller and car seat), I needed her to make me feel like she wanted me for more than my sperm. 
 

Sex with her was always infrequent and though I have a very high sex drive, I knew she loved me and it was something I was ready to live with because she was such a great emotional support. However, after I was finally cleared to resume sex 7 months after surgery, she tapped me on the shoulder for sex indicating that she was ovulating…

 

I said that wasn’t what I asked for and she agreed to. That this made me feel like my body was just someone else’s toy for their personal gain. She apologized and said she would try again.

 

a month later I get another tap on the shoulder telling me she’s ovulating and I got upset reminding her that this wasn’t our deal. She apologized again…then did it the next two times she was ovulating. 
 

The last time I was so hurt but I did want children so I decided to stomp on my feelings and do the deed. At this point we hadn’t had sex in almost 2 years. I climbed on top of her and as I was about to penetrate, she physically recoiled and had the most disgusted look on her face. I looked at myself in the nearby mirror and I never felt less attractive in my life. I got upset, went to the shower and cried.

 

That was the last time we would attempt to have sex. For a few years I felt like I could get on with a celibate masturbatory life becayse again, she was an excellent emotional support. However, at the beginning of the year something triggered me enough to convince me that I needed therapy and could no longer avoid it. 
 

What initially came out of that is that I am demisexual, which is apparently rarer in cis men. It became clear that my only options were to ask for an open marriage or get divorced. Despite all the resentment and body image issues she gave me that I had less of before, I chose to ask for an open marriage, which she initially agreed to…and made me feel guilty about every day with our common friends that she told believing this was some midlife crisis of mine and I just wanted a license to cheat. We had had a dead bedroom for over 10 years and I had multiple opportunities to cheat and never did because I loved my wife and valued my vows. 
 

It was at this time that my wife came out to me as asexual. I was not upset by it. Infect I felt the opposite—understanding and love. This was a legitimate reason why she never seemed to want me. I could accept that and support that and love her for it, even as she told me that every time we had sex she was less consenting and trying to make me happy. That was hard to hear. Very hard. Considering my own abuse, I had several nauseous days and nights hating myself for what I had caused to go on inside her, even if I didn’t know.

 

But things were about to get complicated…

 

I had started to talk to someone back East near where we were moving. My wife said this made her feel uncomfortable because I had known this woman previously and that she had expressed interest in the past when I said no so it felt almost planned. That wasn’t the case. A friend of mine broke my confidence and actually let her know that I was available. I did not solicit her. However, my wife is my wife and that relationship was always the most important so I ceased communicating with this woman. 
 

At the same time however, my wife began talking to someone and it hurt me a great deal. This was a person who she had emotionally cheated on me with very early on in our relationship. I asked her how this was any different if not worse than Stacey (the woman above). She said it was worse but that her being ace meant that her available pool was much smaller. I reluctantly accepted that…until she later said she felt grey ace with this person (they are AMAB enby) and proceeded buying toys and stockings and lingerie and leather and kink gear that she would make me feel like a sexual deviant for ever suggesting to use with her—my wife. 
 

We separated and after a couple of months I could accept all that (even if I didn’t want to know or see anything about it)…then she hit me with considering pursuing a threesome with this person and someone they will meet together. They are pan so no idea what identity or orientation they are considering but it doesn’t really matter. She had always made it clear with me that the mere suggestion of a threesome from me to her would lead to our divorce. 
 

I asked my wife how a threesome jived with being grey ace and she said that it turned on her partner so that turned her on. 
 

I am doubly concerned that she is being used and may not actually be ace at all—that she was just revolted by me and my body which triggers multiple traumas in my now diagnosed C-PTSD. 
 

I am asking this community to please help me make sense of all this. My family are dead. Our common friends are not speaking to me based on hearing a heavily filtered account of what was going on with us wherein she made no mention to her sexual identity. I never bothered to make my own friends outside of our common circle. I never saw the point. Leaving her is not an option. It’s not just her, it’s her family, it’s my entire support network, that right now, heavily medicated and on stress leave, I need and can’t use. 
 

Does any of this make sense or am I just a hideous chud? Because every day just hurts more and more. Please help

[RileyA]

It makes perfect sense. It sounds like you're incompatible and she isn't interested in upping the intimacy between you. I'd trust her actions and decide if that is the type of partner I want until the end of our lives.

[ZeroSince67]

4 hours ago, RileyA said:

It makes perfect sense. It sounds like you're incompatible and she isn't interested in upping the intimacy between you. I'd trust her actions and decide if that is the type of partner I want until the end of our lives.

I’m not asking for an intimate relationship at this point. I just want my wife and best friend. Without getting into it, I’ve decided to go celibate. As a demi, I can’t separate the physical/sexual from the emotional so it’s for the best that I just abstain. I’m just not fated to being completely fulfilled. So I’ll take emotional stability. I accept it…it’s just getting harder and harder to not feel rejected 

[RileyA]

10 minutes ago, ZeroSince67 said:

I’m not asking for an intimate relationship at this point. I just want my wife and best friend. Without getting into it, I’ve decided to go celibate. As a demi, I can’t separate the physical/sexual from the emotional so it’s for the best that I just abstain. I’m just not fated to being completely fulfilled. So I’ll take emotional stability. I accept it…it’s just getting harder and harder to not feel rejected 

 

I hope you can find peace and joy with that

[ZeroSince67]

33 minutes ago, RileyA said:

 

I hope you can find peace and joy with that

I’m settling for peace. My tenuous mental health has gone into the deep end the last few months. 
 

At every point in my life when I’ve attained simultaneous physical and emotional fulfillment, something traumatic has happened to deny me that complete fulfillment. I accept that I can’t have both and recognize that I am better off strictly emotionally supported than pursuing physical relationships as they just leave me feeling alienated from my own body. 
 

I was born from shit. I understand my limitations.