Relationships

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I'm so puzzled. After some initial shyness my friend and I had a romantic sexual relationship for several months, and then she told me no more and said she was asexual. That was two years ago and we are still close friends. We periodically have difficulties on the same lines now and recently she has told me that she has autism, which seems out of the blue. I have have strong needs for touch and contact and I get in trouble because she has changed so much now and tells me she would be fine with no touching at all. I need some general advice. How could we have been so intimate and then she wants none at all? She also has CPTSD and is in recovery.

Does it really matter WHY she now feels the way she does? She has communicated her current feelings and boundaries. If you can't accept them, you can always end or change your relationship. She doesn't need to give you an explanation, or discuss her medical or trauma-related issues with you.

You misunderstand me, brother. I'm just trying to figure out what's going on. I've kept up this friendship for three years after she changed the rules, so it's not like I don't value her. I do, very much. Chill a little, please.

If it has been three years without sex in a relationship that started with only a few months of sex, I think you seriously need to consider breaking up with her, as hard as that may be emotionally.

She doesn't need to tell you why she feels the way that she does. She told you how she feels and let's leave it at that.

Friends. What's to "break up" with?

@OP, you could ask her, but there's a chance that even she doesn't fully understand. It's possible that she thought she wanted a sexual relationship, but after trying it she realized that it wasn't actually what she wanted. It may have set off trauma from before you knew her. She might have had undiagnosed issues that finally came to light and changed her perspective. She might have only later discovered she had autism, or just wasn't sure about telling you beforehand. Either way, people change, and people are allowed to change.

Regardless, anything we can suggest here is at best a guess, and nobody is going to know what's in her mind better than her. Any particular reason you're asking us instead of her? Also, why is it so important to know why? Knowing why won't change the fact that it is so. Are you asking out of concern for HER needs or for YOUR needs?

No need to chill, she's told you how she feels - when or if she wants to give you a longer explanation she can. None of us here can possiby guess at her current feelings, so any pertinent information would have to come from her would it not?

Yes, you're right about that. I'm just trying to get a broader perspective about how things like this happen. BTW, I am not neurotypical either...

I don't have any insight as to why she was interested in a sexual relationship at one time and then stopped that interest. A lot of things could be going on with her. You mention that she has CPTSD, so it might be understandable that she is suddenly skittish and doesn't feel comfortable in that way, even if she seemed to at first. Something changed, but neither of us knows what that is. You really don't have any choice but to accept her boundaries. Perhaps you can continue your friendship with her but look for a romantic and sexual relationship with someone else.

Yes. That is what she is telling me to do. I live in Vermont and I've had Covid once, so I won't be pursuing any other relationships until late Spring, when I can meet people outside. At 80, I can't take any chances. But I'll do my best to keep our friendship ongoing, because I care very much for her.

I think I read the close friends as being alongside a current relationship. Maybe I read into that incorrectly.

My bad if so!

If she has established there is no more relationship and you are only friends now, then there is no reason to expect anything intimate or sexual, OP.

Woah, I didn't realise you were 80.

Things are different, often, at 80 versus earlier on in life. Not all old people are sexually active, want to be, or even can be physically.

She sounds disturbingly like me, though I'm not so extreme. What I mean is, at the beginning of a relationship I'm always very warm and touchy-feely, and then I seem to gradually turn into something more like Mr. Spock, though only to a degree, it's not a 100% transformation, and I've usually been capable of some warmth towards my partners however long they've lasted. I still don't understand why I tend to go that way, and wish I didn't. I guess I might find out more about it if I had some counselling about it, but counselling is often very subjective and I might end up none the wiser or warmer, and in my current relationship it doesn't seem to be a severe problem at all. Still, I think that most relationships do start off very warm and then cool down and calm down, so I guess to some extent it's normal, and if it wasn't we'd probably all go raving mad.

Sorry to hear that you've been on the receiving end of such a huge temperature drop. I'm surprised that at 80 years old the sexual side of it is still important to you, as male testosterone levels are usually a lot less by that age, but if they aren't, then that's not necessarily a bad thing. As for what to do about her cooling off, I suppose only you can decide whether you want to continue with her, whether you want to accept the new situation or to look for a way of mitigating your losses, or whether you want to look for somebody who can be a bit more touchy-feely. None of those options seem very good to me.

Personally I hate break-ups and cold relationships, so I'd probably want to stay with her but looking for ways of mitigating the losses. Of course it's not a great idea to try to make somebody change, so I'd want to be very light touch and diplomatic about that, and to be prepared to accept defeat, which is hard for anybody who cares much about physical warmth. If I could find a good relationship counsellor I'd consider talking to them about it, and I'd probably invite my partner along to that, without pressure of course. I think it's always good to talk as long as the talking doesn't get competitive or forceful.