So my partner [36M] and I [32F] have been together for four years. We have completely different levels and styles of intimacy. He is very asexual – like can go four or six months without sex with his girlfriend no problem. Even in his 20s he wouldn’t be intimate with his girlfriend for six months or more.
I am the exact opposite – i love intimacy with my partner. I can go two or three times in one day. But I probably average three to five times a week with my previous boyfriends.
We are also very different in how we like to spend time with our significant others. I love connecting with my partner, talking and sharing moments. He prefers to be on his phone or watch tv together.
It was apparent after six months we were not compatible and i asked to break up. He said no, and that he would change. After several months nothing would change, i would ask to break up, and he said to give him more time.
After a year I started becoming really depressed. I was so lonely. I became a shell of myself. He not only refused to have intimacy with me but also became very mean. I started feeling very small and that my voice didn’t deserve to be heard. Every couple months I would ask to break up and he would say no.
Finally after a couple years I told him that I was going to start sleeping with other people if he didn’t want to be with me in that way. He said fine go do it and that he didn’t care. So I did, and when I told him I did he said I cheated on him and got really angry.
Another year goes by and at this point I started becoming suicidal. I felt invisible. On egg shells around him. He never wanted to hear my opinions on things. Nothing I did was right. Even my dog was nervous to be the room when we were together because it was so toxic. I kept asking to break up. I even said I was going to get a restraining order. He was then nice for a day or two, said we were mean’t to be together, and pretends like nothing happened.
A guy friend started becoming really nice to me. We would talk about things. He made me feel seen and heard in the ways that I had been starved of for so long. Laugh at my jokes. Look me in the eyes when I was in the room with him. We had an amazing friendship that then became something romantic by accident. We fell in love and I eventually told my boyfriend. He told me to end it and that he would be that person for me and that I was being selfish.
I don’t know what to do.
TL;DR: my boyfriend doesn’t want to have sex or break up, so I started sleeping with another guy