Female in a hetero marriage, asexual and in love with same sex friend

SH-2600 · ‎18-07-2020

I need to talk and get this all out of my head. I have been in a hetero relationship for 29 years and have known nothing else. I loved my husband but have never been in love. I have always thought of myself as being close to asexual, but strongly felt that this was something I needed to fix, that “normal” people want to have sex. I require a close intimate emotional connection to even consider physical/sexual intimacy. My husband and I have always managed this quite well, and although our relationship is not as conventional as some, we definitely had a good close partnership up until the last 2-3 years. We have 2 children in their late teens. This year, things seem to have shifted a lot. We have drifted from each other a bit and our friendship that underpinned our relationship has started to erode. He is struggling with work, life, sense of purpose and says he is unhappy and lonely. Adding to this, I am now questioning my sexual identity again. There is a woman who is the only woman I have ever had romantic thoughts about. She has been in and out of my life over the years, for a range of reasons to do with both of us, mental health issues, distance, readiness for emotional intimacy etc. this year however, after the death of a very close friend of mine, she has come back into my life and we have grown incredibly close. We saw each other recently for the first time in 6 years. We are both now ready for an emotionally intimate friendship and we spent 3 days together talking and getting closer. I am in love with her. She loves me very deeply but it is entirely platonic from her perspective. She is married to a man who has taken a significant amount of her mental health from her and from her kids, but she loves him and will never leave him. She seems to have flicked a switch in me and I know for sure that I want to be with her, but that is not something that will ever happen. I also have my primary relationship with my husband that is falling apart. I am feeling overwhelmed since coming home from the time with my friend, everything is so pale in comparison to being with her. Rightly though, she has switched her focus back to her life, and I am finding that incredibly difficult. I am also wondering if this year is a year for any big decisions because it has been a shocker on all levels. I am afraid to run from the life that my husband and I have built and I am afraid of continuing to deny myself and who I am. I am struggling. SH

smallwolf · ‎18-07-2020

Hi and welcome to beyond blue.

I have found this is a good place to get things out of my mind as well. It allows me to look at things more objectively and in this space get some feedback from others. And this is a space where users are non-judgemental and support each other.

so, I am just a mere male ... who might ask too many questions. If you can put up with then I might walk with this journey with you while you are here, and learn from you.

Am I correct is assuming the marriage with your husband has a foundation based on friendship? And issues within you are both experiencing within the marriage is also raising questions about yourself. Is this correct?

Based on how you described your husband it sounds like you might also be trying to support him emotionally in the issues he is dealing with.

And recently you are come back into contact with another person in your life with whom you have become very close to. It sounds like you are supports for ner (each other? even though it might not sounds like that) - which makes you are trusting and caring person. She has now returned to her family, and a sense of loss in you and your situation.

if you went to sleep to night with your problems neatly packed away in a box on your bedside table. And then in the middle of the night, something magical happened and all the problems you had disappeared. In the morning when you wake up then... what would be different? how would you notice it in the environment? how would others notice it in you?

You have a very interesting story to tell. I hope you will come back and chat some more.

Listening to you,

Tim

SH-2600 · ‎19-07-2020

Hi Tim

Thank you so much for your caring response. I would love it if you stayed with me for a bit. Please ask questions because thinking about how I answer your questions helps me to pin down what I need to focus on.

My marriage was always based on a strong emotional connection and friendship. We had physical intimacy and enough sexual intimacy to get by, given my asexuality. The last 2 or 3 years we have drifted away from each other and have been living separate inner lives and all intimacy has ceased. He is also having his own troubles and I am wondering if he is experiencing some depression. I have convinced him today that we need to seek some relationship counselling. At the very least I want to fix our friendship, because we will need that if we split and the kids will need us to have that too. I would like for him to realise that he should maybe seek some individual counselling as well. Honestly, I am not doing a very good job of supporting him.

My withdrawal from him has been largely due to questions about my attraction to women, or one woman at least. I am drawn to good women, on an emotional and intellectual level but I am not sure if I have a broader attraction beyond my friend. I am incapable of considering physical/sexual intimacy without emotional intimacy, so it is hard to know. I can live with just being friends with her, I think, as when we are emotionally present with each other, we both feel so loved, safe, nurtured and nourished. She struggles to carve out space for our friendship in her everyday life, for a range of reasons and I find this difficult. We live in different States now, so that is also challenging.

So, if I woke up tomorrow and everything was resolved, I would not be confused. I would understand whether I am attracted to one woman, or whether there could be other women, and whether my marriage fits in with any of that, or not. I would know whether my asexuality was with men and women, or whether really I am just not into men. My relationship with my husband would be stable and secure whether we are together or apart. My friend would be able to focus on her own well-being which would include me playing a bigger part in her life, even just as friends. I would not feel all of this grief at the loss of my imagined and beautiful life with my friend.

I do get the sense that my best life would be lived with a woman, but life is more complex than that and we have to tweak it a bit.

SH

smallwolf · ‎19-07-2020

Sometimes it can be difficult to be supporting another person and living your own life as well. My parents are elderly and dad has Parkinsons. There was a time when dad was particularily low and mum was supporting him. She could get frustrated at times with things he did. The partner can also have problems as a side-effect. Their GP would also ask mum how she is coping.

There is so much in your posts to unpack!

In your first post you said you loved (past tense) your husband and not in love. And you refer to friendship with your husband and wanting to fix that.

(If you read between the lines of what I about to say you will find out more about me than ...) Anyway, my favourite colour is grey which is also described as without emotion. I never get/got excited about thing - the big events. My wife and I have 2 kids in their late teens as well - one in yr 12, and one out of school. Marriage is not like I see in TV shows or movies. I have spoke about all of this with my psychologist.

There are many forms of love and not just Eros. There is also Philia and Pragma. So you be in love but a different type of love. Can you have a friendship with the female and be married?

How do you define or describe love?

What is stopping you from being a closer friend to your friend? (An email or phone call, etc.) This question could also apply to your husband?

I guess I am a fan of Rumi (you can google the name) and a quote attributed to him -

There’s a field somewhere beyond all doubt and wrong doing.I’ll meet you there.

Life is indeed complex. You may find the answers you are looking for. Be kind and give yourself time. I see it as a marathon vs a 100m dash. Or a journey over time.

Tim

SH-2600 · ‎19-07-2020

You ask some good questions, again, Tim. I am sorry to hear about your Dad, it is tough adding a chronic and degenerative illness into a relationship. I hope both of your parents are coping. My eldest child is in Yr12 too. It is a tough year for that cohort of kiddos.

I used past tense to describe my love for my husband, I do still love him. It feels like a bit of a stretched and threadbare love right now, for both of us. The relationship is strained. I would say that my marriage has definitely been based on philia or pragma love, a companiable type of love. I would say that successful relationships are negotiated and navigated to make them good enough. I don’t mean that as a negative thing, it is about a compromise and coming to a mutual arrangement. Love is grey.

You have asked a very big question that I do not have the answer for, “can I have a friendship with my female friend and stay married?” I think if I did that I would need to commit to my husband as my primary relationship, stop looking outwards toward women and wondering. I don’t know if I can do that. And right now I am very much in love with someone else, which is not fair on my husband and amounts to infidelity.

I text my friend most days and we speak semi-regularly on the phone. When she is with me she is different, she drops her guard and her survival and coping mechanisms are switched off, she breathes. Back in her life she is in a different space and she becomes much harder to reach and draw out. She loves me deeply and she wants closeness. she is working hard on it, but her capacity to give herself to an emotionally close friendship is reduced in the context of her life. I loved that Rumi quote, in fact it reminded me so clearly of the space she and I create when we are together. My love for her is different to the love I feel for my husband. I am working hard to suppress any hope for a life with her and I am trying to get my love for her to settle into something manageable in the long term, but it is really hard. I hurts actually.

I am working on improving my relationship with my husband, and trying to manage my love for my friend.I don’t need to pin a label on myself, other than asexual, yet, but the idea of being with a woman who I have a strong connection with is beginning to feel right for me.

I have been completely honest with my friend. I have not yet discussed any of this with my husband. He deserves some honesty from me, but I am afraid to have that conversation.

SH

smallwolf · ‎20-07-2020

Again, anything I ask here please do not feel you have to answer...

It seems you are a little conflicted on what to do - despite your feelings for another person it sounds like you have a strong sense of loyalty to marriage and commitment to your husband vs a feeling there could be something else that is nagging at your mind and you are looking for the answers.

The "what if" type questions are the worst - at least for me. I think that if I did this back then or similar, things would be much different. But then where would I be now? Would I be in the same position, worse off, or ?? Perhaps it is easier to accept whatever happened in the past and use that experience to inform the decisions we make now. Even if this does refer to the conversation a conversation with our partner.

(I thought my wife would get worried or whatever when I told her about suicidal thoughts. If she was worried, it was not visible. For me, that conversation lifted a weight off me that had been holding me back.)

You said that you have not discussed this with your husband and he deserves some honesty.

What is "this" you have not discussed? Is it the asexual part? Or another person you have an emotional connection with? Or something else?

Does your husband know about your asexuality?

I have tended to start these conversations with "I need to talk to you about how I am feeling or what my mind tells me...." and use "I" statements. "It does not matter whether the thoughts are right or wrong". I guess it sounds like a disclaimer. Of course, how much I (or you) then divulge is a choice.

Please tell me if I am wrong... is it possible the loss of connection with your husband has been taken up by the other woman?

I think I have rambled enough for one night. And I hope some of what I have said made sense.

Tim

Esti67 · ‎21-07-2020

Hey SH,

My apologies, I hadnt read your thread and replied on another. You have said something that has resonated with me - I feel I would be living my best life with a woman. That is how I have felt for the last 20 years!!! Its only in the last 2 that I was brave enough to action it. Glad I did but the cost was huge. I am now however living my best life with a woman. The fear of completely destroying my very stable world, losing my kids and my best friend nearly stopped me, but feeling so unfulfilled (especially sexually) and not being able to identify as a lesbian was terrible. I was miserable and living a life that felt very vanilla and very wrong. I have now met many people, found some new friends, and lost a couple (not many ) and am reconciling with my daughter.

I think you need to be really sure about taking the leap, many people don't and thats ok, its your life and you know yourself best .

Just out of curiosity, have you ever been in love with other women, or had a crush of some sort ?Sometimes this stuff comes from nowhere, for others there have been little clues along the way

J

SH-2600 · ‎21-07-2020

Hi Tim.

I am conflicted. I am working through it though.

I find myself wishing hard that my friend felt the same way. I have loved her for a long time even with gaps in contact with her. But I need to get over that, and keep her in my life because her close friendship has to be the next best thing. I am working on that with her.

The 2 big issues for my marriage are the deterioration of our relationship/friendship and my rising feeling of being attracted to women. It could be that I sought what I was losing with him, with my friend. That maybe I used her as a replacement. I have two other close friends though and I am not attracted to them. My husband also has close friends outside of the marriage. So our relationship has always co-existed with other friendships. I feel a bit wishy washy when I talk about my attraction to women. I am afraid to use the term lesbian, because so many women fought and sacrificed for that right, to be who they are. I don’t want to use it flippantly, because that feels disrespectful. But, I can’t explore that while I am in love with my friend or while I am married.

Either decision I make is full of risks and potential regrets. Either way will mean some big personal shifts for me and either denying the feelings I am having for other women or losing the life we have built over 30 years and the security that comes with that. I don’t want to be that person who is dishonest and unfaithful.

My husband knows about my asexuality, he doesn’t know that I am attracted to women.

My husband and I have a relationship counselling appointment in 2 weeks, so I have a bit of time to work through some things myself.

It sounds like you and your wife have some good communication that has helped you and strengthened your relationship. It is definitely hard work and scary sometimes.

SH

smallwolf · ‎21-07-2020

Reflection can be a good thing ... you have a couple of weeks to work out what is important to you.

As much as I would like to agree with you regarding my wife and myself do not consider myself successful in the communication. Unless pressed, it is easy to shut down a conversation with a grunt which to her means I am grumpy and don't want to talk about it etc.

I am wondering out loud... if one relationship is deteriorating, would that mean one might look elsewhere or find something elsewhere and I not saying intentionally. Just thinking out loud.

However the part that is interesting in your post is (denying your) feelings vs the life you have built. And what would happen in each case down the road. If you stay married would you regret that decision later on? If you followed your feelings how would feel about the security?

And then there is the question about compromise and finding some way forward. Because of my lack of understanding with asexuality (and I have read a little) wondering what type of love you see with the other woman, if you were to use one of the Greek forms of love.

On reading... I wonder what stuff you might have read, whether books, material online or other. There are also organisations in Australia you could talk to to get more information.

And I would not worry about feeling "wishy washy" as this is something new to you that you are exploring and trying to find the answers because as you said there are risks and regrets. At the same time you do not want to put a label on yourself that might not be.

If you allow me to be a little blunt... you are a person first with feelings, needs etc. I suspect your husband would be aware of the deteriorating relationship? And if not would be an opportunity to talk to him about that, if not during counselling in 2 weeks. As a person we all (?) want some sort of a connection with someone else? (Working for 15+ years from home with little outside contact, that is something I am certain of!)

Hope you got something out of my random thoughts.

Tim

SH-2600 · ‎24-07-2020

Hi Esti

I am really sorry that I had somehow missed your reply on this thread. I am so very grateful for your thoughts. I admire you for taking the step to live your best life and I am so glad that it is coming together for you.

The fear of disrupting our comfortable and stable life (although that life needs a bit of work at the moment) is what is holding me back and also the relationship I so badly want to be in with my friend is not an option. Leaving and seeking my best life is so uncertain. I would also need to manage my intense feelings for my friend before I could even consider another relationship. Plus I would need to change the circles in which I hang out to make it more likely to develop friendships with other women, opening myself up to a potential lesbian relationship.

You talk about being unfulfilled in your relationship with your husband and living a life that felt vanilla. I can really relate to those feelings. I feel like I am full of holes sometimes, like there are pieces missing. I describe myself as asexual and have for a long time as an explanation for the way I am in my relationship with my husband, but I now I wonder if I am just not that sexually interested in men. I have never been in love with another woman, although in hindsight, I have been in love with my friend for about 10 years. I have tried to find signs from my earlier life that I was into women. There was nothing in my teens, absolutely nothing. I guess all I can say is that I was never sexually attracted to other women, but there were times in my 20s and even in my 30s when I would develop an admiration, for want of a better word, for a strong and intelligent women. I would be so afraid and shy around these women that I could barely speak to them! There was no attraction though. My friend really did flick that switch for me though, and I am romantically, intellectually and emotionally in love with her. I also am attracted to her sexually. The idea of the softness of a woman is really appealing to me now. I think I would feel very tentative in any physical and sexual relationship with her or any other woman, but I really want to slowly explore that side of me. I don’t know if I am brave enough to do it, though, not under the circumstances I am in. I don’t even know how I would start to be honest.

Your experiences are so valuable when thinking about what I will do. Thank you so much for sharing them.

SH