@GalaGirl - a
detailed timeline for you ;-)
-1987 first date
-1989 move in together -- looking back now, I can recognize her asexuality even back then -- never initiating, starfishing, just going along with it because she knew that's what guys wanted, etc... She was my first (and so far my only); she had had sex with a bf the year before I met her.
-1992 I finish grad school and got a job
-1993 we move closer to job, W gets a job, we buy a house, and get married.
-1998 son born -- this, when we were actively trying to get pregnant, really was the only time W had much interest in sex
-2003 I came across a book title "The Sex-Starved Marriage" and asked W to read it with me and discuss -- she did not want to talk about it.
-2006ish, tired of the rejection, I largely stopped trying to initiate and took care of things myself (even more). I still paid attention to the cryptic symbols she used on the family calendar to keep track of her menstrual cycle and would try to use that information to my advantage. Sometimes I would get lucky if a) I remembered and got the timing right, b) everything else was going well, and c) the moon was in the right phase (or whatever other random factor might have been at play....). So we're down to having sex somewhere between 2 times a year to once every two years....
-2011 W and I took over the management of her family's (seasonal summer) business in another state while maintaining our residence and my "day job", splitting our time a lot. A lot of commuting for me in the spring and fall every year. We make a good team in the business, with complimentary skill sets.
-2016 son goes off to college (first semester on another continent!) - so empty nest syndrome kicking in for W
-late 2016 into 2017, W starts new (seasonal winter) job with a new charismatic boss (OM), meets new friends associated with him, etc... Clearly a lot of distance had opened up between W and me by this time, she has subsequently said she felt like we were just roommates...
- spring 2017 something triggers me to ask if she is having an affair with OM, she says no, so I say "so you are not sleeping with him, then?" she leans in to me and says "we have become very close, but I am
not going there" (i.e. the bedroom). I think you're not going there with me either, so what's the diff... rugsweep
- fall 2017 I'm pre-occupied dealing with my mother's situation (getting her into nursing home, arranging for medicaid, cleaning out her house and trying to give it back to the reverse mortgage company)
- winter 2018 my mother dies, and now I have her insolvent estate to deal with....
- late july 2018 something else triggers me to start digging in to what's going on with W. I find some e-mails that are pretty suspect but not smoking guns, join an internet support group for people experiencing infidelity, and finally get to make a trip back home from summer job to a) meet with divorce attorney, b) get detailed phone logs from provider, c) meet with the local private investigator (raises eyebrows at phone logs, but really not much he could do for me, besides he knows the OM so conflict of interest), d) borrow the book "NOT just friends" from the library, and e) meet with a friend of mine who knows both W and OM. Three years ago today (August 5) I confront her about her relationship with OM. I did talk to OM's wife to get her perspective as well; she explained that OM was indeed a charismatic person who talks to a lot of people; she had see all the communications between them; she did think that the first season W and he might have been too close, but she had no concerns about the second season... this was largely consistent with everything else I had been able to gather.
- fall 2018/spring 2019, we are working on reconciliation, I am seeing a psychologist for individual counseling, reading books, getting support online. We had a lot of talks, and I think some epiphanies for both of us about the other and where were coming from. On my list for W was that we try having sex again. I would ask her hours in advance, she would agree (or not), and then we'ld do it when the time came, about once every two weeks (or so). It was pretty perfunctory. There were times when she might start humping me harder and I would think, oh wait, maybe she is actually getting something out of this, I need to hold out longer -- but in reality I think she was just trying to get it over and done with sooner. In a discussion on another forum about the difference between merely having sex and making love, I had used the word "asexual" to describe her without knowing it was a thing -- further research lead me to the AVEN site and the community there of sexual partners of asexuals. Sex with W was now off the table, we'ld tried it, it was very hard for her. While I am not sure she has actually declared herself as asexual (she doesn't need a label, she knows who she is), she
has agreed that ours is indeed a mixed-orientation marriage.
- summer 2019 as I learned more about asexuality, all the "hopium" that I had been on for the last couple decades (that somehow things would magically get better and we could have a vibrant sex life) all drained away, and I became very depressed - my life sucked, divorce would suck worse, and committing suicide was the suckiest option but an option none-the-less.
- fall 2019 I rescued an old dog and he was what I needed to get me out of my funk, he really bonded with me.
- end of winter 2020 before covid really got going, there was an event where W said something to me with clear contempt in her voice. In that moment I knew I needed to leave; I couldn't sleep and spent the night looking at real estate. As I was looking at apartments, I realized none of them would take my dog (and where would I set up my woodworking tools?), so I started to look at houses, old fixer-uppers on some acreage, and I started to imagine making a new life for myself. This new vision of a not so bad alternative gave me the strength to step back from the precipice and talk to W about our options going forward. But then covid changed everything.
- spring 2020 We were all thrust suddenly into working and learning remotely, but we had an amazing experience with a bunch college students (our son and his friends) living with us in quarantine to finish their senior year together. We were very worried about our business(es) and whether we would be able to open at all (so I put in for PPP funding), but eventually we were able to open and ultimately flourished -- it was on one of our best years ever.
- fall 2020 my "day job" went back to work in person, but needing to reduce staff, they offered an attractive early retirement package. I put in for it, waiting to hear -- our long term plan had been that when I retired, we would move to our summer business place and build a new home there (replacing an old one). Then W's father (with whom I was very close) died, and so W has been dealing with his estate (much more complicated than my mothers, but she will inherit the business that we run together, among other things). Ultimately, I was offered the retirement package effective June 25, 2021. W thought we should sell our house there while the market was hot, so late fall and early winter were devoted to preparing the house for sale. Unfortunately, my dear old dog, my buddy, died at the end of January, just before our house went live on the market. The house sold quickly for a good offer, respecting our timeline (June 1 closing date), so we went to work moving, taking a truck load over pretty much every weekend (we had been in that house for 28 years, so it was a lot of work).
- I am still contemplating my options for making our mixed orientation marriage work (I say
my options because I'm the one who is not being satisfied in the situation) -- compromise sex is off the table (see above), I continue to live a celibate life (unsatisfied), I divorce her (which now, given the commitments made, would leave me as a lonely old unemployed homeless person...), or we open up the marriage. At some point W said that she didn't think an opening up would work for her, and I shared that I had concluded that opening up would not (by itself) help me (directly) with being able to express my love for her (you know, physically), or feel loved by her; further I worried that having a physical relationship with someone else would pull me away from W.
- Taking opening up off the table, too, leaves me with two choices - continued celibacy (unsatisfactory) or divorce (would suck) -- I love her, I love the businesses we've built together, we get along well, we work well together, we compliment each other (skill-wise, etc..), I love this place and the joint friends we have -- but I just want to be touched, to feel loved, to have an intimate connection -- with someone (her so much more than anyone, but she's just not up to it <cry>). Physical touch, not necessarily sex, seems to be my primary love language.
- I don't like the options. But I have to take action to make change happen, it won't happen magically by itself. Thus I asked if we could reconsider the idea of opening up. This is when she responded "you keep bringing this up, you must really want it, so just go ahead..." It's not the enthusiastic consent that I read about as being a necessary pre-requisite for successfully opening up.
