My fiancé and I have been together for 7 wonderful years, starting when I was 15 and he 18. I adore him, and him me, we have a relationship that gives us a very special emotional connection. For example, he can know if i’m feeling down from several hours away and visa versa. This doesn’t apply to only one emotion, it applys to any emotion. We are best friends.
The only reason we could each see the other leaving would be due to cheating. His idea of cheating is slightly different from the norm though. He perceives it as me letting someone else see me naked intentionally, or anything going out and physically doing something. This means, and i have clarified with him, that online flirting, voice, or video is not cheating, provided there is no nudity.
There is only one real problem with our relationship, he has almost no sex drive, and I have a very high one. He simply has no real interest, no desire. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with the equipment needed, or a mental imbalance, he really just has no desire for it. We have discussed this in length, and both feel that our relationship and love for one another goes much deeper than sex. In other words, i’m honestly that we don’t have hardly any sex (as in we have it once a month or less). He also doesn’t enjoy kissing, we have never ‘made out’ in the conventional sense, and again, I have come to accept that this is the way he is, and I love him for it.
But this doesn’t get rid of my need. About a year ago i entered into a online mild bdsm contract, I was the submissive. (my fiancé and i are both into mild bdsm, so this wasn’t completely new to me) I discussed this with my fiancé at length, making sure he was really ok with my need to experiment, learn, and frankly, be desired physically. Neither of us expected to get so lucky as to find the right one so early in life. This helped for a while, until the other person involved in the contract crossed a line and everything ended. I also flirted with one other person after that, but he got busy and so did i and we just stopped talking.
These two people i’ve had dealings with online are not just ‘ok satisfy our needs and now bye’, that isn’t it at all. We are friends, and enjoy our conversations together that have nothing to do with sex at all. Would we still be friends if there wasn’t any flirting and the like? Yes, because we have been for almost 3 years now.
So for the past year, I’ve just been suppressing, which i know isn’t healthy and will come back to bite me eventually. Recently, the one person who did not cross lines whom we just both got busy has recontacted me and we have been reconnecting. He is in a similar situation, he is married, loves his wife to pieces, but after so long together, the spark for sex is fairly non existent. He knows this and so looks for relief online as to not actually go out and get himself into trouble.
But i just feel conflicted in a few ways.
I’m honestly not sure how i feel about my fiancé being ok with me going online to satisfy my needs that he isn’t able.
I’m not sure I want to go back to flirting, typing and/or voice (voice is essentially what would be called phone sex) with another man.
But at the same time, before my fiancé and i discussed things about my needs, and the fact that he just doesn’t have the desire, our relationship suffered. I had a very difficult time coming to terms with the fact that he didn’t want me physically, that he wanted no one physically. I felt hurt and lost, never growing up or in school to you hear about men who don’t have a sex drive, only that they will do anything to get in your pants. And so we have both grown over the past year, especially me, accepting that i have needs, and he doesn’t in that department.
And so we have sat down and discussed things at length again. I told him how i’ve been suppressing the need, but that i know it is still there. And he has told me, in crystal clear clarity, that he has no problem with me going online to seek the attention in that department that i need.
And so I just don’t know anymore. I feel lost and confused. Do i go back to just suppressing everything in that department? Hoping that it doesn’t come back to bite us later?
Or do i enjoy the online companionship, with mutual gain to both parties involved? It isn’t an everyday thing, we don’t meet up at specific times or anything like that, if we are both around, we just start talking.
This situation with my fiancé feels very unique. Everything I was taught about relationships growing up says that our situation isn’t normal, and that i’m doing wrong. But am i really doing wrong by trying to release my desires so they don’t build up and hurt us? My fiancé doesn’t want that to happen either.
And again, to make sure i’m clear, I could NEVER EVER go out and physically do something with another man, the guilt would kill me or drive me insane. I love my fiancé to much to even contemplate doing that to him. And so online, where the person is a world away, seems like a much safer environment. And it isn’t random strangers i’m talking to, it is a man who is in a similar situation whom i’ve know and been friends with for almost 3 years who also doesn’t want to hurt his wife.
