#i probably would've spent a lot less time feeling very scared and hopeless and alone

[altschmerzes]

Hey you don’t have to answer this obvs if it’s something you don’t want to share/talk about but I’m curious how did you meet your wife/navigate getting married in an aromantic way? I kinda feel like I might be aro and I’m getting older and feeling like. I want a partner and I don’t want to be alone but I don’t know if I really feel romantic love, and I just feel kinda hopeless about finding that, but it’s nice knowing there are people who do find it.

absolutely, yeah!!! i love to talk about my relationship honestly, for a lot of reasons (it makes me feel very happy and warm inside, and i love to talk about this wonderful thing i have in my life with this wonderful person, i am a Wife Guy for real) but also for exactly this reason too - bc i don't think a lot of people know that what we have, what we're doing, is an option. or if they do think of it, they don't think it's realistic or something that can actually happen.

i spent a long time thinking that what i wanted, the thing that would actually make me happy, that i daydreamed about just... it was a nice thought but the odds that i would be able to actually have it were so low that it didn't warrant thinking about at all. i wanted a partner, someone i could live with and raise kids with and build a life together with, and i wanted it completely platonically. i didn't want romance and i didn't want sex either but i did want intimacy, emotionally and physically. i assumed this would only be possible with another aro(ace) person, because i didn't think anyone who wasn't aroace would want that, or that it would be like. unfair somehow, or asking someone to give enormous things up to be with me. (this was all a bunch of jumping to assumptions and internalized bullshit, btw. my fiancee is a lesbian and is just as happy as i am, wants our marriage and our life together, exactly the way that it is, just as much as i do - and has been extremely patient and kind in reassuring me of this.)

(haha this got long again, it usually seems to when i'm talking about My Aro Experience and relationships and em sldj. further under the cut-)

and then it was like, well, i already have no idea how i'd meet another aroace person irl, and even then i have no idea if we'd be compatible. if we'd have the same values and vision for our lives. if they'd want kids. if they'd be comfortable with the kind of physical affection i really wanted to engage in. etc. so i just kind of told myself that y'know, it would have been nice if i had the option of not being alone, but i didn't, so i had to just get used to it. (and it is perfectly fine if someone wants to be alone. that's great. that's a huge thing the aro community is fighting for all of the time. but i did not want that. i just thought it was the only choice i had, if i wasn't willing to force myself into a romantic and probably sexual relationship i didn't want.

my wife and i actually met quite a while back, when we were like. sixteen or so, online. we've been friends for a really long time. which is why when im asked how long we've been together by people who don't know our relationship is platonic, or that i'm aro, or whatever, i have a hard time answering it XD. because like, our engagement was the first we'd ever decided to Be In A RelationshipTM, but if you think about it as a progression of the same relationship we've always had, just as dating before an engagement would be, we've been together for like. coming up on close to ten years.

figuring out navigating our relationship has been a little difficult at times but mostly it's been absolutely wonderful. difficult mostly in the sense that there's no script for this, nothing set out that tells us this is what a relationship like ours is supposed to look like, or usually looks like. we've had to figure it out ourselves. but also that's one of the things that's really been wonderful about it. we can decide at every single point what it is we want, what it is that'll make us happy.

like - at first we decided to have separate bedrooms when we moved in together after we finished our respective degrees/got married/got immigration all sorted out. and then after sharing one when we went to my hometown to introduce em to my family we were like. well. we were fools, huh. so, turns out we're sharing a bedroom. (and i'm... really happy with that, particularly, because it turns out i sleep really well when em and i are together. i used to write a lot about characters sleeping in the same bed, cuddling, etc, and i still do, but i always sort of assumed it was completely obvious i had no idea what i was talking about bc it couldn't possibly be the way i described it. and now that i've been there, it's better.)

the rest of the world is a little trickier, haha. it's a little weird and bad sometimes that people are constantly assuming i'm in a romantic relationship, tbh. even in the aro community i see a lot of people talking like the only people around are nonpartnering/single or in romantic relationships. and the rest of the world, people who don't know i'm aro or who do but like.... forget that a lot? or assume it's changed or doesn't matter or something? is kind of exhausting and uncomfortable. for the most part, we don't bother explaining the nature of our relationship to people. this is also something we talked about! we discussed how much we wanted to clarify or contextualize, and decided that ultimately like... with the exception of people we're very close to, and in contexts like this (fairly anonymous post on ye olde internet with the ability to immediately block anyone who clowns on it), it's really nobody's business unless we decide it is and we're cool with just letting people assume whatever. that doesn't mean it doesn't suck sometimes, but it's a calculus i've made and we've made together.

anyways, just. there you have it!!! i trust my fiancee and i love them and they love me and our greatest priority is always making sure the other person feels safe and loved and respected. and i feel that in every conversation we have. it's a unique situation and we've had to figure a lot of things out along the way, and that's included a lot of conversations i just don't know how to have, but we've figured it out together. i felt hopeless for a really long time, too. i wish i could go back and tell myself in the past where i'd end up. and that's part of why i keep talking about it so much and so openly, so that people know they don't have to just... there are options, y'know? options for going after what you want and talking about what you want with anyone in your life who you have a significant relationship with. i could've cheated myself out of the best thing that's ever happened to me by assuming it just wasn't possible. i'm so glad that i didn't.