I'm not Asexual but my girlfriend is

[crystal123]

Me and my girlfriend have been together for nearly a year and she has just told me she's asexual. At the beginning of the relationship we were very sexual with each other, multiple times a day. Within the last week she has said she's never been into sex and only initially enjoyed it because I enjoyed it. Now she is saying she doesn't want it again. I am a very sexual person and need it in a relationship to feel valued and attractive, but also for the intimacy it provides. I've even cried to her saying that I'm sorry she doesn't find me attractive anymore before she told me that she was asexual. Do you think that this relationship won't work in the long run? Is there any advice anyone has for us to be able to come to a compromise? 

[Liara]

You already know the answer : she doesn't want sex. You need sex, you need to feel desired, to feel that unique thing which exists only with sex.

She will never change, you will never change.

[uhtred]

Sorry you are in this situation.

 

In brief - no, it probably won't work in the long run. She isn't really interested in sex, you are a very sexual person.   That is a huge gap to try to bridge - neither of you is "wrong" but its a pretty basic incompatibility.

 

It might be possible to compromise,  find sex outside of the relationship etc, but with a relationship less than a year, my recommendation is that you both find someone more compatible.  The longer you stay together, the more difficult it will become to end it

 

 

[Olallieberry]

37 minutes ago, crystal123 said:

Do you think that this relationship won't work in the long run?

How old are you?

 

It takes a lot of emotional maturity on both sides for this to work. That maturity probably includes past experiences of breakups, whether they were amicable ones, heartbreaking, or toxic ones.

 

And that maturity definitely includes both partners learning to overcome toxic patterns like taking things personally when the issue isn't a personal one, making things personal as a defense mechanism, and like defensiveness, projection, blaming, failing to own one's own feelings and allowing the other partner to own theirs, failing to hear, failing to speak, and failing to make any effort.

 

It's a very, very rare person who doesn't have some of those patterns. People usually only overcome them by recognizing that they have them and recognizing that they have to let them go and/or overcome them in order to avoid unwanted consequences, like further pain for oneself or like causing undeserved and unnecessary pain to their partner.

 

We can't prevent them from hurting, but some hurts are honest and blameless, while I'm talking about the kinds of hurts which happen as the result of someone hurting someone else in order to defend their own self against a present or anticipated hurt.

 

Which doesn't work, by the way. Deflecting bullshit onto someone else doesn't actually have any protective value for one's own self. One can hurt now and get past it, or one can hurt later and cling to it.

Maturity teaches these lessons, though they don't come without honesty, introspection and effort at any stage of maturity. And they don't come without experiencing some suffering first - or even during and after. But learning these lessons keeps one's karma clean and sets one up for the fairest possible outcomes in difficult interpersonal situations.

[Olallieberry]

 

55 minutes ago, crystal123 said:

Is there any advice anyone has for us to be able to come to a compromise? 

The two of you will have to figure it out, but we can say that there are four options. Different couples wind up choosing different ones, or, even changing among them over time.

 

You two have already explored the first half of this list, and you're presently hoping to avoid the last one. Though, that isn't to say that there might not be more to discover within those first couple of items:

 

1. Sexual compromise on the asexual partner's part.

2. Celibacy on the sexual partner's part (this is also a compromise.)

3. Other sexual partners (open relationship of some kind.)

4. Breakup.

 

Every couple is different. (Among all the sexual/asexual mis-matched couples.)

 

For some, they have found a way to make the first compromise work, because the asexual partner is willing AND because the sexual partner doesn't mind that the asexual partner really isn't into it and is only participating in a performative way for the sexual partner's sake.

 

For some, the sexual partner accepts celibacy because getting any sex anywhere at all ever in their whole life isn't important enough to them to do something different.

 

For some, the couple manages to agree to non-monogamy in some way or another. This could be fully consensual, it could be "don't ask don't tell," it could in fact even be outright lying and cheating, though that isn't normally what AVEN considers an option, because it leaves one person's agency out of the decision making and the agreement.

 

For some, it doesn't last and the relationship fails. Even this can come in unexpected forms, like for example continued cohabiting and coparenting while legally separated or divorced. That's an outlyer situation and you're not married, but I'm just illustrating some of the "outside the box" forms the new kind of relationship can take if the couple can't remain a couple anymore.