Perhaps this is as good as it gets. After all, what is ‘a successful Mixed orientation Marriage’? Next month we will come to the first anniversary of my wife’s coming out as a lesbian. And we’re still together, still exclusive and faithful to each other, and intending to continue that way.

What a year of trauma it has been, mostly for me, but some for her too. The ‘d’ word has been spoken, divorce. We’ve looked at all the other options: an open marriage, one side or both. Perhaps we’re going for the hardest option, or perhaps it’s the easiest, the one involving the least change. We both felt too old to start new lives. After all, there’s no guarantee of finding a better, more compatible partner if we separate. We’ve invested a lot, most of our lives, in THIS relationship. And there’s a lot of good in it. We like each other; we talk together, we do things together (and apart). But we’ve never had much of a sex life, and now we have none.

We’ve agreed on a weekly cuddle, on a fixed time and day, and being the eternal optimist that I am, I can’t help hoping that this may become a little more… But I think that for now, my wife simply isn’t able to give any more. Her long (30 years!!) struggles against her lesbian attractions and nature has left her asexual. So there’s very little of the intimacy that for me is such an important part of a marriage. The total giving and opening up, the vulnerability, the no hold-back, the intimacy, the desire for the beloved other. And we’re both mourning this sexual component of a loving relationship that we’ve never known and now will probably never know if we stay together as we plan to.

But there’s a very deep intimacy all the same. She trusted me, she shared with me her deepest struggle, her darkest secret. We are friends and perhaps even lovers, but without the sex. Can this be enough for me? And for her? We’ll see. But it’s already a lot. But I have to learn to live with the present, with what I have, rather than dreaming of some future and improbable miraculous change. This can be a good day, with lots of good things in it, even without sex. Perhaps this is as good as it gets, and this is success, not the miracle that I have long searched for on the web, in trying to apply to our situation, our relationship, someone else’s experience. With some magical way of arousing a lesbian who has no desire for me at all, but a lot of tenderness and affection all the same. There are no secrets, and there is trust. That’s a pretty rare and precious gift too. There are no guarantees for the future – but that’s true of every marriage. Ours are just lived with a far greater realism about the fragility of all relationships.
But there are days when I could scream with frustration - or hurry to take more of the anti-depressants without which I'd have seriously gone off the rails.
Brassyhub