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Just now, PaganUnicorn said:

Why?

Because kissing, spooning, cuddling, changing in front of each other, walking around in towels, etc made them sexually frustrated if they knew sex was not gonna be a thing for a while. So, I had to treat them kind of like a room mate til sex was back on the table. 

 

With my wife I can say no sex right now, then come in wearing a towel and climb onto her on bed and kiss her passionately and nothing is expected cause I said no sex. Shes not upset. And we have fun and are close and enjoy the acts for themselves. And she can kiss my neck and grope me and I just tease her about being a tease, I dont get upset with her. 

 

Its so relaxed and pressure free... and omg its the thing that turns me on. Not having to do anything more than what I want makes me want her. It is what was always missing. 

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9 minutes ago, PaganUnicorn said:

@Serran Ive been told by men that if they dont keep their gfs sexually satisfied they are afraid they would leave or fall out of love with them. Do you think that might have been the case with your exes?

No. They just didnt see most physical affection as more than just a lead up to sex... so a deep kiss and no sex = teasing. Cuddling without sex = whats the point ? 

 

My last ex was so bad about it. He didnt want to share a bed. He didnt like kissing. He found cuddling boring. He found touch mostly bad. Except as a sex thing. So... sex happening ? Hours of touch OK as long as sex is end result. Sex not on table ? Go in other room, dont want you. 

 

Only the last ex knew I wasnt sexually satisfied. Cause I told him sex was blah in general. I had no libido, so didnt masturbate either. He took me not caring about sex as a whatever, ill get mine then and started putting blankets or pillows over my head during to avoid seeing me look bored, so i started sneaking my tablet and headphones in and listening to music during and he never even noticed. 

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Just now, PaganUnicorn said:

@Serran Were those relationships ever "good" (read: affectionate) at any point?

Yeah... 

 

If sex was regular (varied by person - last ex wanted daily, most were OK with couple times a week), they cuddled and kissed and did all the normal couple stuff. And they did it all before sex was a thing in the relationship. If sex was off the table all that stuff was just a teasing frustration and not to be done. If a no was said they got hurt and rejected and didnt want to be around me. If I wanted a week or more off sex, I better stay at arms length, or have one annoyed partner at being teased and told no. 

 

Basically, their sexual needs eliminated my ability to get non-sexual affection, which made it a chore and expected obligation and the affection bits unfulfilling. 

 

My wife actually turned me down this latest visit because she wanted to have non-sexual affection for a bit before anything sexual happened between us after not seeing each other for a while. Huge difference. 

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1 hour ago, anisotrophic said:

Someone who is asexual is not going to know that others find it meaningful when that meaningfulness is so absent in media and discussions.

*nods enthusiastically*

 

I have never heard a real, live person mention that, except here on AVEN.

 

Also, with the exception of my current job I have worked in male-dominated workplaces.  My degree is in what was at the time a heavily male field, and most of my close friends have been men or gender-nonconforming women...  so I dealt with both aspects of the below despite being female:

 

1 hour ago, anisotrophic said:

I think ace men are especially unlikely to have someone they can talk to about the meaningfulness of sex, for cultural reasons. And ace women deal with a cultural narrative/issue that women are naturally less probe to want sex (so it's normal to have trouble with desire, just be patient and etc)

 

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1 hour ago, Serran said:

If sex was regular (varied by person - last ex wanted daily, most were OK with couple times a week), they cuddled and kissed and did all the normal couple stuff.

I had a couple of exes (not the most recent, really) who were like this.  One in particular was a really nice guy if he was getting sex once or twice a day but quickly turned nasty (and blamed it on not having sex to chemically regulate his mood) if that wasn’t happening... even if I was sick or whatever.  When someone cut him off for more than a few days he started lining up his next partner.

 

ETA:  by nice v. nasty I don’t mean sexually... if he was satiated he was great company, wanted to go out and do things together, was very sweet and affectionate.  If he was not satiated he would yell and throw things and occasionally even punch or kick holes in walls.  He never attacked me physically but was often verbally abusive if not satiated.

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(I learned a lot of that late in the game from comparing notes with a few of his many exes, and with the girl he ultimately left me for... and then married... and then left)

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16 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

I had a couple of exes (not the most recent, really) who were like this.  One in particular was a really nice guy if he was getting sex once or twice a day but quickly turned nasty (and blamed it on not having sex to chemically regulate his mood) if that wasn’t happening... even if I was sick or whatever.  When someone cut him off for more than a few days he started lining up his next partner.

 

ETA:  by nice v. nasty I don’t mean sexually... if he was satiated he was great company, wanted to go out and do things together, was very sweet and affectionate.  If he was not satiated he would yell and throw things and occasionally even punch or kick holes in walls.  He never attacked me physically but was often verbally abusive if not satiated.

I compared my last ex when he went without sex more than a few days with a smoker trying to quit... irritable, angry and just not at all fun to be around. He said he couldnt focus and even cardboard cutouts started looking appealing if he went a week without... or we tried going down to 3 times a week... 

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anisotrophic

Um... ew. The stories of the expression of sexuality by these guys sounds repulsive to me.

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3 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

I don't find it to be absent at all. Particularly over two or three decades and in a relationship where one partner is trying to communicate their misery to the other (which, ryn and Serran's situations aside is generally what happens after sex disappears completely and the asexual partner doesn't think it's a problem, going from posts on AVEN and other places).

Weird that the quote showed up as me, since it wasn’t me that posted it.

 

“Media” is a pretty broad term.  When we’ve discussed it in the past, it’s been clear that - if you mean movies and TV shows (which are not the types of media I first think of when someone says “portrayed in the media”) - you and I don’t watch the same things.  Based on the types of movies and shows we have watched, it’s possible the portrayals of sex we’ve seen are different.  It’s also possible we see the same thing and interpret it differently, based on gender,  orientation, or nationality, but iirc we were not able to test that theory because we were barely able to come up with any examples in common (and none we’d seen recently enough to be sure we remembered them accurately).

 

I can’t speak to possible differences in portrayal between the UK and the US, too, but there could be some.

 

As we’ve said before, we seem to often have the “communicator” in any given relationship here on AVEN (regardless of orientation).  It would be interesting to hear from the various ace and sexual partners (of the AVENites), to see if the messages they took away were the same ones we think we’ve communicated.

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anisotrophic

@Telecaster68 I originally wrote that.

 

In the cultural context of sexual harassment and assault, and sex-sells advertising/media, and pornography that so frequently relies on degradation and entitlement, and the language of "scoring" and getting to "bases", and the feminist call for destigmatization of women seeking sex for pleasure... All these speak to sex as an activity born not of love, but of pleasure and achievement.

 

Of course these things are true, too. In contrast, I think the narrative of sex as love is largely relegated to the realm of romance novels and romantic fantasy. It is associated with saccharine idealism of what love means -- and as those idealisms are fantasies, I think people mistakenly set aside the romantic value of sex (and are unconscious of it) when they learn to approach love more realistically.

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16 minutes ago, anisotrophic said:

In contrast, I think the narrative of sex as love is largely relegated to the realm of romance novels and romantic fantasy.

Agreed.  At least in the US, too, the romance genre is widely portrayed as “escapist fluff” that is devoid of value and utterly unrealistic... so it’s not surprising (to me, at least) that people don’t take it seriously.

 

It’s genre I normally skip because 1) I typically can’t relate to the female characters at all and 2) it’s overwhelmingly het, which I don’t enjoy in “relationship stories” where the relationship is the main story.

 

It may also be noteworthy that, when I did last read it a lot (as a teen), self-inserting or even just imagining the characters as real made me literally nauseated to the point that it had me questioning whether or not I should continue in my relationship.  It wasn’t the details of the sex; it was something in the tone, in the way the narrator, who was usually the woman, described her thoughts and feelings about her partner that I found uncomfortable to the point of revolting.

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15 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

They're not a hive mind, but by definition, they tend to have a cluster of commonish factors, in a bell-curve kind of way. That particular comment was in a particular context, which you've removed.

Sally does have a point, though.  You (among others, and justifiably) don’t like it when asexual posters lump sexual people into one amorphous thing, or when asexual people explain how sexual people experience, understand, or feel about sex and sexuality... even when their observations are based on quotes from other sexuals.  That’s all justifiable because the only guaranteed thing all sexual people have in common is that they intrinsically want partnered sex.  Beyond that, they vary across the human spectrum.  Certain individuals have more than that in common - e.g., many sexual posters here are or have been in mixed-orientation relationships, have realized that, and have sought out information about mixed relationships and/or asexuality - but others may have little or nothing in common beyond that shared intrinsic desire.  That’s even true within the realm of sexuality, where libido and preferences (among other things) vary widely.

 

The same is true of asexuals.  The only thing they share by definition is a lack of that intrinsic want of partnered sex.  Like sexuals, they show a wide variation in libido and sexual preferences.  Some asexuals - especially those who are sex-repulsed, and/or aromantic - may stand out fairly clearly from the sexual people around them; others do not.  That’s in part because sexual orientation isn’t about how you behave, it’s about why you behave that way.

 

Maybe it’s not what you mean at all, but from the receiving end it sometimes feels like you have a mental image of “all asexuals.”  When someone states that their own experience is different from what you picture, you debate the veracity of what they’re saying and then end up considering them edge cases, not textbook ace, etc.

 

Just as is true with sexual people, there isn’t a textbook ace.  There’s a lot of variety.

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(It’s that lumping together that gets people going.  E.g., Tele, it sounds like you and sparkly have some similar relationship experiences.  Statements of personal experience - “I can’t believe my wife/husband genuinely didn’t realize we had completely different expectations about and experiences with sex, given everything I’ve said over the past 20 years!!” “I know!!  I can’t believe mine either!” - are completely different than general statements like “I can’t believe asexuals genuinely don’t realize they have completely different expectations about and experiences with sex than sexual people do.”)

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Today was one of those days where I woke up in the morning and looked at my boyfriend as he was sleeping, and my brain started spiraling in circles with all of these thoughts and questions. The thoughts and questions were all pretty much the same. What do you think of me currently? How do you view our relationship currently? How happy are you?  What can I do to make you feel happy?  How much do you really care about me?  Are you still content or are you just here because I want you to be?

 

Why do I have these thoughts in my head at 6:30 in the morning?  I go to sleep and everything is great.  But then that doubt monster creeps in.  That codependent, low self-esteem, fear of abandonment monster.

 

I want to wake him up and ask him questions.  Get some sort of affirmation.  But I get scared that I won't like the answers, and I roll over and cry for a few minutes.  Cry until I can push that doubt monster back down.  He's so good, why can't I just be content with what I have and why can't I be okay with the concept that he might not be there forever?  I still have a long ways to go in finding my independence.  Dating an aro has definitely made me challenge myself.  I have to be okay with lack of verbal affirmation.  Some days it's hard (like today), but overall I think it's good for my mental health and development.

 

This isn't relevant to anything, I just needed to get that off of my chest.

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18 hours ago, anisotrophic said:

@Telecaster68 I originally wrote that.

 

In the cultural context of sexual harassment and assault, and sex-sells advertising/media, and pornography that so frequently relies on degradation and entitlement, and the language of "scoring" and getting to "bases", and the feminist call for destigmatization of women seeking sex for pleasure... All these speak to sex as an activity born not of love, but of pleasure and achievement.

 

Of course these things are true, too. In contrast, I think the narrative of sex as love is largely relegated to the realm of romance novels and romantic fantasy. It is associated with saccharine idealism of what love means -- and as those idealisms are fantasies, I think people mistakenly set aside the romantic value of sex (and are unconscious of it) when they learn to approach love more realistically.

I think there is a very wide range.  Lots of stories have a romantic component, and for most sexuals, sex is assumed in romance even if it isn't specifically shown.  Maybe sexuals interpret romantic / sexual interactions in movies where asexuals may not see them.   

 

 

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2 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

And you and Serran have been doing exactly the same from the other side.

I specifically said that I was pointing out that it can happen, not defending particular individuals.

 

My original points in raising it at all were that 1) anger, especially in the long term, hurts the person experiencing it rather than the subject of it, and 2) especially for people who have not yet decided whether or not to break up, assuming someone lied without confirming that’s what actually happened is going to make moving past the current impasse harder than it might need to be.

 

I do think (especially when people don’t know about asexuality at all, but I still see younger romantic aces expressing confusion about it regularly) it’s easy to mistake romantic crushes and feelings for “what everyone feels.”  Maybe it’s different where you live but here people - men, especially, and they were the bulk of my friends and colleagues from 18 to 51 - tend not to talk about their feelings in any detail.  Even when people (here, where I live) are cut off completely, they don’t talk about the things the sexual (or asexual, for that matter) people on AVEN bring up.  They talk about how their partner must be having an affair, and about how to catch them at it.  What @anisotrophic mentioned earlier about the tone of sex’s portrayal being about performance and achievement is very accurate here (where I live).  There is also a lot of possessiveness.

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2 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

going for distracting ad hominems, which is what just happened.

I’m actually genuinely interested in your thoughts on what I shared about seeking out sex for different reasons but, ironically, that was one of the few posts you didn’t respond to.

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On 5/15/2019 at 1:26 PM, Telecaster68 said:

I honestly find it hard to believe that someone doesn't join the dots about never liking sex and conclude that 30 years of thinking it's a set of discrete reasons like stress, time, illness, feeling full, tired, lacking privacy may not be entirely accurate.

 

It's like me coming up with a series of unrelated reasons why this week I don't want to go to a football match, while maintaining in general, I do like football. For thirty years... I'm fairly certain I'd start concluding I can't actually like football matches or I'd find a way to actually go to one.

 

ETA: add to that, if I had a bunch of friends who kept urging me to come to the match with them every week, I can absolutely see I might claim tiredness, being busy, etc. rather than 'fess up. In which case I'd be lying.

 

I think this line of thinking is why a lot of sexual are very suspicious about the 'I just didn't know I didn't like sex' defence.

 

On 5/15/2019 at 1:41 PM, Telecaster68 said:

I honestly find that lack of self-insight staggering. If your partner had, after years of trying to initiate a couple of times a week, announced they had no idea they liked sex, would you find it easy to believe?

 

On 5/15/2019 at 2:04 PM, Telecaster68 said:

Yeah, I wouldn't expect anyone to alight on 'asexuality' until the last few years, but I would expect them to notice a pattern, even if they couldn't give it a name. You may not know the word or concept of 'haemophilia' but surely you'd notice if your blood never clotted?

These were some of the posts (two full posts; the third is a relevant excerpt only) I was thinking about.  Perhaps you meant them specifically about me, but they came up in a discussion about sparkly’s partner and sparkly agreed in general terms as well.

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Think people are taking comments a bit personally. 

 

I doubt someone who has the norm experience of sexuality can ever really get how confusing it can be to have a more rare sexual experience. It is kind of like neurotypicals trying to understand how hard reading social cues and body language is... you can kinda try to intellectually accept it, but its such a natural thing for people to do that they cant really understand the experience of being incapable of seeing it. Or people finding my complete inability to see things in my mind so alien, I cant even properly explain how I think to people cause they use pictures and I have this vague concept idea thing instead. 

 

So it can be easy to say "but you think about it and notice what you like and dislike"... and yeah now I have felt sexual attraction I can notice likes and dislikes. I feel it. I get why people may find not being able to do that confusing, if they feel it even more strongly than I do. 

 

When I felt no sexual attraction and had a complete abscence of sexuality? I was questioning but I had no reference point beyond words used to explain things. So, orgasm for example - you get really wet, it feels intense and your muscles spasm. So I always ended a session and when asked if I had, I would go over that checklist. Arousal - heartbeat increase, wetness, can have sex without pain.. check, check. Attraction - want to be close and touch and kiss and be with them, check, check. 

 

I didnt even realize really the mental / emotional aspect that I was missing existed. I thought I just hated the feeling of being sexually stimulated. Until I felt that anyway. Even after being on AVEN so long, I didnt really get what the missing bit was. Its a huge missing component. And if I had felt that to start ? I would have been able to tell like / dislike easily, instead of struggling to figure it out intellectually, I could have just felt what felt right and wrong like i can now. It would have come naturally. I wouldnt have been trying to find out if I experience all the "right" feelings during sex. I wouldnt have needed lists and articles ans talking to probably around 100 people over the years trying to figure it out. 

 

So meh. No need to take people finding it confusing personally. It would come very naturally to many people to realize they arent into it. The lack of sexual feelings while feeling other things makes it not come naturally to others. And some dislike it strongly enough it still is easy to figure out. Different experiences, some hard to understand. 

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On 5/16/2019 at 11:13 AM, Telecaster68 said:

Also, Ryn is saying she just didn't know her attitude to sex was different to most other people's. I can't understand how this could happen either.

 

On 5/16/2019 at 11:22 AM, Sparkly said:

I soooo much agree with you. My theory is that after a certain time asexuals do realize their lack of sexual interest is not a temporary thing. But they suppress the reality and keep it only to themselves (at least in a case of my husband).

Beg to differ on the “not around” part.

 

Only you know whether you meant I’m a unicorn or were speaking more broadly.  A couple of other posters responded as though you were speaking more broadly as well, but in the end no one really knows but you.

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I kind of feel like I have to step in this ‘generalization’ discussion but I believe certain generalization must be applied, then we would not have groups like sexuals or asexuals. They do fit in some general criteria. And I understand finding sexual orientation can be challenging and it can consume a lot of time to come to some conclusion or realization. Although sometimes, I believe, the problem might be in acceptance, or I should say self-acceptance. If there is 20 years lasting pattern of asexuality (even though one does not have to know the name), then is it really confusion about the orientation or the refusal to accept it? I am just brainstorming, don’t tear me apart :) . 

 

(I should say I am torn between the dilemma [=not accepting the fact he is asexual] and withholding the information from me with my husband. He still can not open and talk fully about the incompatibility we have so all I can is just assume. I wonder if I ever find the truth about his case. Which is, of course, another problem between us - I want to talk about it and he does not.)

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1 hour ago, Sparkly said:

If there is 20 years lasting pattern of asexuality (even though one does not have to know the name), then is it really confusion about the orientation or the refusal to accept it

I can’t speak for your partner but, for me, I:

* am in my mid-50’s

* have been in five relationships lasting three or more years each, and also had sex one or more times with numerous other people

* was most recently in a 20-year relationship

* first learned that asexuality (not just the word; the entire concept) was a thing that didn’t just include people who have never had sex in their lives in 2012

* realized the term might apply to me, but then decided it didn’t, in 2014 or so

* didn’t really “get” the difference between my “want” for partnered sex (which was purely transactional) and sexuals’ want for partnered sex until I arrived here about a year and a half ago

 

Even when my relationship ended I was not certain I was ace.  My ex has significant ED and is a very poor communicator (from my perspective, and he agreed).

 

So, it’s certainly possible.  Other people here recount similar stories, but they are by no means the only stories.

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1 hour ago, Sparkly said:

Which is, of course, another problem between us - I want to talk about it and he does not.

This is a very common observation among the mixed-relationship partners here whose relationships are struggling.  What doesn’t vary - it’s the partner who wants to talk/is more comfortable talking who posts here.  What does vary - whether that partner is the sexual partner (e.g., you) or the ace partner (e.g., me).  Most, if not all, of the successful mixed relationships people describe here are between couples who communicate well.

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12 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

So this piling onto 'Tele's saying things about all asexuals' is really starting to piss me off. I'm not, and to be very specific, I think Sally is being deliberately obtuse and disingenuous in starting it, and normally ad hominems are used by people who wish they could refute a point but can't, because it's right.

 

That's insulting me, Tele.  Stop it.  

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@ryn2 I understand your point, although did not you feel like things were not quite mainstream for you? I am not trying to be annoying, I just want to understand. Of course, I have my only experience (I mean with an asexual) is with my husband so I have a tendency to relate everything to his and my situation even though I am aware everybody is unique. Where I am coming from about the lack of acceptance is that for example, when he was chatting with his male friends, he was very talkative and open about sex, he was saying all those joke and stuff with a sexual undertone which always made my blood boiling since he was never affectionate with me (and with his previous partners). All the talks we had were also pointing the same direction - a denial. 

 

And the fact he does not want to talk to me much worries me a lot because I can see that we are disconnecting more and more. He will be all fun and joking and talking about everything BUT our relationship. All he says is that he does not want me to leave. And that he understands that I want to. The rest is just one big silence or me talking. Sigh.... 

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I joke with people with sexual undertones. So does my wife. Its not serious and we have zero sexual interest in those people and often zero interest in the activities being joked about (like PiV, anal, etc). Jokes are just that.. jokes. I find it an odd concept that jokes between friends has anything to do with actual sexual interests. The things we are honestly into we dont joke about usually, at least not in public. 

 

But he does need to discuss things with you to decide what to do with your future. 

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3 hours ago, Sparkly said:

did not you feel like things were not quite mainstream for you?

No, I had no reason to feel like things were different for me than they were for other women.  I still wouldn’t, if it weren’t for talking with people here on AVEN.

 

3 hours ago, Sparkly said:

when he was chatting with his male friends, he was very talkative and open about sex, he was saying all those joke and stuff with a sexual undertone 

I worked (until five years ago) in various heavily-male-dominated workplaces and had many male friends.  I can and did hold my own with sexual innuendo and banter.  Talking about sex does not make me uncomfortable and I have no problem “getting the joke.”

 

The “not talking” part is what I meant by my post about (non-)communicative partners above. That’s characteristic of troubled relationships (from what people report here) but not specifically of aces.  In my long, recently-failed relationship it was my (sexual) husband who was uncomfortable talking about sex and relationships in general.

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1 hour ago, Telecaster68 said:

Really? It's unlike you to dish it out but not take it, Sally.

 

So general comments aren't okay, but neither are specifics. Can I say anything at all?

You can not personally insult individual people, which you did to me, calling me deliberately obtuse and disingenous.  You can also not make generalities about whole groups of people, like asexuals, which a number of people besides me have mentioned.  Those are both contained in AVEN's ToS.  If you can't hew to those rules, neither I nor anyone else can help you.  

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10 hours ago, ryn2 said:

This is a very common observation among the mixed-relationship partners here whose relationships are struggling.  What doesn’t vary - it’s the partner who wants to talk/is more comfortable talking who posts here.  What does vary - whether that partner is the sexual partner (e.g., you) or the ace partner (e.g., me).  Most, if not all, of the successful mixed relationships people describe here are between couples who communicate well.

Yeah, this seems like a pretty solid observation.  But also, although my partner and I are openly communicative, I've learned that he doesn't like to dwell on one issue for very long.  I could sit here and chat for weeks.  He would have definitely moved on by now.  That's why I've developed a system of checking in roughly monthly regarding our sexuality and general love life (or lack thereof).

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Please remain civil and avoid making too personal comments about other members. 

 

Iff,

Moderator, sexual partners, friends and allies

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