I’m Asexual, He’s Polyamorous. Can We Make This Relationship Work?

Hi Doctor NerdLove,
I’ve been reading your advice for a while and I’m hoping you can help me sort out my love life and a tangle of emotions.
I am a 33 year old asexual woman. I am dating a 30 year old man who is not asexual. We have been together for 2 years. When we first began dating I was very upfront with him that sex was not on the table and he said that he had a very low interest in sex and was fine with that.

Overall the relationship is great. He’s thoughtful, smart, funny, and responsible. This is the healthiest and best relationship I’ve ever been in. So what’s the problem? Boyfriend’s sex drive isn’t as low as either of us realized. We talked about opening up the relationship and I was comfortable with him having a friends-with-benefits situation and thus getting his sexual needs met outside the relationship. It’s been nearly a year since we came to that agreement and he hasn’t found anyone. He came to me, and discussed opening the relationship up further and having a full polyamorous relationship where he would have me as his primary partner and then have a secondary partner. I told him I wasn’t comfortable with that and he backed off. However, during the conversation I asked him why he would want to have a sexual and romantic relationship with someone while maintaining only a romantic one with me. He told me it’s because he feels so comfortable talking to me and he doesn’t believe that he can find a partner that he is a) sexually compatible with b) romantically compatible/share life goals with c) is a good communicator. (He’s had problems in past relationships with his partners having poor communication skills and leading to issues.) I pushed him on what would happen if he found someone who met all three of his criteria and he was adamant that he wouldn’t.

So now I’m left feeling a lot of emotions that I don’t know what to do with. I’m resentful that he is not as content dating an asexual as he first implied. I’m upset that I feel like he’s just settling for me because I fulfill two of his requirements. I feel insecure that I’m just a placeholder until he finds someone that fulfills all of them. I feel broken because if I was just normal this wouldn’t even be a problem. I also feel desperate to keep this relationship because it’s so hard dating as an asexual and I really don’t want to go back into the dating pool. I also worry that I’m being overly sensitive. I suffer from anxiety, so maybe my boyfriend just worded things poorly and now I’m spiraling for no reason.

I want to close the relationship, but I don’t know how. I also don’t even know if it will help because I don’t want my boyfriend to feel resentful. How do I have a conversation about potentially closing the relationship? How do I know if he’s just settling for me/using me as a placeholder?

Sincerely,

Does the “A” stand for “Asexual” or “Anxious”?

First of all, DTASAA: you’re not broken. Being asexual doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you; it just means that you don’t experience sexual attraction the way other people do. That’s it. It’s neither inherently good, nor inherently bad, nor does it say anything about your worth or value as a person or partner. It can be a challenge, nobody’s denying that; you’re part of a small percentage of the population, where most of the folks you’d want to date are allosexual. But there’s a difference between something being challenging for you because of who you are and being deficient because of who you are. You don’t need to apologize for being ace any more than someone needs to apologize for being a ginger, having curly hair, being left handed or any other arbitrary example of the wonderous diversity and variety of the human experience.

Second of all: this is one of those times when I think it would be better and more productive for you to take everything you wrote to me and just show it to your boyfriend, DTASAA. You’ve neatly outlined the issue, why you feel the way that you feel, why you feel hesitant to bring it up and how it’s affecting your relationship. That’s 90% of having The Awkward Conversation.

Now the remaining 10% is – ideally – what you think would help and why that solution would make things better. That’s where things get tricky… but it’s also why you should be talking about this to your boyfriend.

I do have one question about your boyfriend’s request for polyamory though. While this is by no means the way everyone does it, one of the common paths to polyamory from someone who was strictly monogamous tends to be monogamy > open relationship > caught feelings and now wants to discuss polyamory. What I haven’t seen is someone who starts off asking for an open relationship, can’t find a partner, and then asks for polyamory.

In fairness, it’s frequently more difficult for a partnered, straight, cis man to find women who are interested in an ethically non-monogamous relationship; there’re a lot of men who lie about having their partner’s approval and knowledge, men who see it as one-sided and just want a harem while not letting their partners date and so on. But I’m scratching my head as to why your boyfriend thinks it’d be easier to find a polyamorous partner instead of looking for someone who’s cool with an open, casual relationship.

Now maybe this is a case where he’s a bit more demisexual than he realized and needs more of an emotional connection to someone to feel sexually attracted to. Maybe he’s been trying and finding people who are cool with being in a poly relationship but not a FWB relationship with someone who’s already partnered. But the way he’s laying things out makes me wonder if he understands what he’s asking for. Similarly, the fact that he won’t consider the possibility of meeting someone who might meet all of his criteria strikes me as being more than a little willfully blind. Gaming out the possibility, even if only so you all have a contingency plan isn’t a bad idea. This way, at the very least, if he does suddenly find someone who matches everything, you all have at least some structure to work from instead of flailing around in a panic that he caught feels.

Now that having been said, there’re a few things for you to think about as well. One of them is to ask yourself precisely what you’re worried about… but also how this is going to protect you from it.

As I’ve said before, anxiety is your brain trying to protect you from what you see as danger. It rarely makes logical sense, but that’s anxiety for you. But that lack of logic means we don’t often think all the way through what’s making us anxious. We tend to get to the “this triggers my anxiety, therefor I need to prevent it from hitting that trigger” without thinking “but is it actually helping?”

It sounds like part of what you’re worried about is that if you open things up to polyamory, he’s going to find a partner who he likes better than you and will leave you for them. This is entirely understandable and a not-unreasonable worry. The issue is that a monogamous relationship isn’t going to prevent that from happening. People in monogamous relationships can and do unilaterally end their relationships because they decide they don’t want to be with their partner. People in monogamous relationships can and do leave their partners for someone else that they met before they broke up. The difference between a monogamous and non-monogamous relationship in these scenarios is often “does the other person know their partner is actively seeking – or is currently in – another relationship?” While ignorance may be bliss, it’s not protection against the thing that happened.

Don’t get me wrong: this isn’t to say “get ready for heartbreak, your guy’s gonna leave”. It’s to say “the thing you’re worried about isn’t going to be caused by or warded off by your relationship model”.

So, remember how I said you were missing that last 10% of The Awkward Conversation? Well, here’s my suggestion to fill it in. First: talk more about the what-if and why he thinks poly is going to be an easier time for finding a partner than an open relationship without expectations.

Second: game out how you two will handle things if, against all odds, he does find someone who’s three for three for him. It’s a difficult conversation, but one that I think will at least ease some of the uncertainty that’s hitting your anxiety buttons.

Third: Ask for more reassurance. One of the things you’re worried about is that your boyfriend is less into you because you’re asexual and is dissatisfied because you’re not as good a match as you could be. One of the things that can help with that is to simply acknowledge to him that this is a worry you have, and ask if he could love you a little more loudly when it’s hitting you. Getting a little more deliberate and concentrated love, support and reassurance can help ease those worries as well as help you feel more connected to your partner.

I do think it’s ok for you to request that you close the relationship for a bit while you’re dealing with this attack – especially since he’s not currently dating anyone else. Part of what makes an open or poly relationship work isn’t just communication and time management but also trust and feeling secure in the relationship. Right now, your anxiety weasels are pogoing through your brain; getting them to settle down before another person is in the mix isn’t just reasonable, but actually would help when you do open things back up again. I’d suggest that you look at this as closing things temporarily until you’re feeling better and then reopening the discussion about how it’s going to work.

And speaking of reopening the discussion: don’t forget that these are ongoingconversations, not binding contracts. In fact, it’s good to check in periodically to make sure that things are working for both of you and that you’re both satisfied with how things are. Your needs, wants and tolerances will change over time; so will his. What you agree to now may not be what meets either of your needs in the future, so don’t be afraid to say “what I agreed to before isn’t working for me now.” That’s not being unfair or giving a bait-and-switch, it’s saying that circumstances have changed and you (or he) would like to readdress this part of our relationship.

But none of that can happen until you discuss things with your boyfriend. So start with showing him what you’ve said to me and work from there. More communication, honesty and asking for a little more love provided at a slightly louder volume is never a bad thing.

Good luck.

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Hi Doc,
I’ve been slowly (very slowly) making improvements to my life. However I’ve really hit a plateau. I have a few things I think that are parts, but it probably isn’t all and I may need the chair leg of truth.

I started a new job 1 and 3/4 years ago, and quickly developed a crush on a co-worker. I didn’t ask her out directly or have any physical contact but allowed myself to be overly friendly and she reported feeling uncomfortable to HR. It was fair of her to do this. However I find other women on my office attractive. The idea of asking any of them deeply unappealing (three guesses why). But anytime I see them and feel a sense of attraction, I feel a sense of being back in the HR room, and it causes enormous whiplash between the two.

Couple this with the fact I haven’t made a real friend in the last 5 years, and nearly none in the last 11 (since college). I’ve done some things, even during COVID. I went to a board game group (something close to my interests, and people I normally enjoy being around) but all I wanted to do to was hang around the friend who brought me to it. When they didn’t come, all I could think the whole time was “this isn’t fun, I want to go home”. Also the curse of maintaining friendships after college holds very true. I only have about 4 people I talk to infrequently and very rarely meet up.

I know the first thing you’ll probably say is: “get your ass to therapy now”, and I was until my therapist dropped me (rather unceremoniously, imo) and I’m having trouble finding the focus to do so.

If it helps, I’m autistic and have ADHD.
Sorry for how long this has been. I’d really like to find a relationship, but I realize how unrealistic that is right now.
So I’m just trying to find ways to move in a good direction while being a least moderately exhausted and burnt out.

All Out Of Love

OK my dude, I’m going to level with you: there’s a lot of detail in this that’s missing that I think would make a difference.

The one that especially leapt out at me is the situation with your therapist. There are specific ethical codes for therapists when it comes to dropping a patient, which includes making sure that the patient either is referred to another therapist, giving them adequate notice to ensure that they can avoid an interruption of treatment by finding someone else or otherwise finding ways to ensure that the patient isn’t just abandoned with a “good luck, hope it doesn’t get worse”.

Similarly, there’re a lot of reasons why a therapist might decide to end things with a patient – ranging from “I’m not adequately qualified to give you the help you need” to “This is affecting my ability to give you care at the level you deserve”.

I mention this because this seems significant, but the significance depends entirely on precisely how things went down. If your therapist just dropped you high and dry, with neither warning nor explanation nor helping you transition to another care giver, then that strikes me as being highly unethical. If not… well, that’s information that may well be relevant to the issues you’ve had with trying to make friends or find partners.

The same goes for how you ended up getting dragged in front of HR at work. To be sure: HR exists for the sake of the company, not the employees, but it’s the sort of thing that isn’t normally caused being “overly friendly”. So I think the specifics of what you were doing are important to consider. Not just for the sake of how I can advise you, but also because understanding what you did that made someone uncomfortable is the first step in learning from it.

It’s good that you think it was fair of her to say “hey, this is affecting me and I feel it necessary to go to HR about it,” but taking the next step of saying “OK, I see what the problem was, here’s how I’m going to make sure that I don’t make the same mistake” is more important. It’s also how you deal with that feeling of emotional whiplash between “I think she’s attractive” and then having flashbacks to being dressed down by HR. Understanding the whys and wherefores, taking it onboard, realizing how your actions contributed to it and ensuring that you don’t do it again helps ease those worries.

And even more importantly, it means you don’t make the same mistakes again. Which is going to be important when it comes to actually dating.

Some more introspection is also going to be helpful when it comes to making new friends and maintaining your relationship with old ones. Part of the problem with, say, going to the board game meetup is that at least some part of you was seeing it as “going with the person you already know”, rather than “going to meet people with whom I share interests in common.” Much like going to parties, if you cling to the one person you already know, you’re going to handicap yourself in terms of making new connections.

So it’ll be good for you to think a little about whether you actually wanted to go to that meetup, or you felt like you had to in the name of meeting people. In an ideal world, you want to prioritize going to things that you want to go to; if you’re going out of a sense of obligation, you’re not going to give the same amount of effort to enjoying it or to meeting people. Making friends isn’t something you want to half-ass; your potential friends deserve the whole ass. That doesn’t mean you have to go full bore “OK IT’S TIME TO BE FRIENDS NOW”, but at least giving people (and new opportunities) a chance is important.

In fairness, not everything you go to will be a perfect circle in the overlapping Venn Diagram of your interests. You may even have a hard time finding events or opportunities that are your precise flavor of fun. In those cases, however, it’s worth seeing it as an opportunity for new adventures and new experiences – a chance to discover new and different interests that you may never have thought you’d enjoy. And if it doesn’t necessarily work out, it’s still at least a story.

Case in point: one of the things that changed how I approached going out and being social was to stop looking at going out as “I need to flirt with women and get numbers” and to start looking at it as “I’m going to experience a story tonight”. That story might be talking with a dude at a dive bar who turned out to be a gold prospector in South America, ending up bar-hopping with an Australian architect and his soap-opera-actress girlfriend or meeting a lovely young woman and talking art and portfolios. But because I kept my options open and saw it as “I’m going to have an experience” rather than “I need to get X result”, I was more motivated to go out, to try things that weren’t my usual jam and to not be handicapped by the unfamiliar. It even meant I tried things that seemed radically out of character for me, but would still at least provide me with stories afterwards.

Now, as someone who’s autistic, you may find this to be more of a challenge. But one thing you might try is, instead of clinging to your friend at the events, asking them to introduce you around and let that be the launching point for making new connections and new friends. If they can’t make it, then asking the event’s host may be helpful. Just saying “hey, I’m new to all this and I have a difficult time meeting people, could you introduce me to a few of the regulars you think are cool?” may be useful for breaking through any blocks or hesitation you have.

But for now? I think based on what you’ve said, giving yourself a break to process what happened at work and your therapist (and finding a new one) is going to be important. Avoiding burn out means taking some time off and letting yourself recover. When it’s paired with some of the issues you’ve mentioned, taking that time to fully engage with it, learn from it and figure out how to avoid making those mistakes again (without paralyzing yourself or going into self-flagellation mode) is going to be vital.

Good luck.

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This post was previously published on Doctornerdlove.com and is republished on Medium.

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