'AITA for 'outing' my wife's asexuality after she let her friends gang up on me?' UPDATED 3X

There are few things that feel worse than being ganged up on by a group of supposed friends.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a man asked if he was wrong for outing his wife's asexuality after a group of friends ganged up on him. He wrote:

"AITA for 'outing' my wife's asexuality after she just let her friends gang up on me?"

A little backstory: been together 9 years, married a little over 3. We both had incredibly high s*x drives in the beginning, and like normal after some time they began to come and go. We used to never go more than a few days without having s*x.

We got married just before the pandemic, which might have added to things, but the long and short of it is after some personal therapy at the beginning of 2020, my wife concluded that she was asexual and mostly had s*x for my benefit and to maintain the relationship. Looking back, I can kind of see it now. It would've been nice to know beforehand, but it is what it is.

She still offers s*x once in a while because she knows I want to have it, but I turn it down every time. It's no fun having s*x with someone just doing it for your benefit. If I'm going to have s*x with someone, they should actually want to have s*x with me. Not just for maintenance. Fast forward to this past Friday. We went to a party at one of her friend's house.

I know a few people so it's never too bad, although I'm not a big party guy. As usual, we end up being one of the last to leave. The last hour or so of these parties are usually chill - just sit around in the living room, chat, catch up. It's quiet. But the conversations eventually turn s*xual and personal.

And I hate it, honestly, for obvious reasons (namely having to hear all these women talk about how much they love having sex with her husbands / partners and all the things they do and knowing I'll never have that). The worst part though is my wife makes up all these wild stories and things we do - not even have done in the past.

Just flat out lies, but because she's embarrassed of her as*xuality, I just kind of nod along since she's 'not really comfortable with other people knowing'. I had come back from the bathroom to them having a conversation about oral s*x. One story about how someone didn't like it at first now they love it. Another about wishing they got it more. Another about liking it more than s*x sometimes.

Then it comes time for my wife to talk, and they're prying for details. For whatever reason, my wife decides to tell the truth, and say that she "can't remember the last time someone went down on her."

Of course, she left out the key bit of context, which turned into this group haranguing of how I need to put in more effort, how my wife probably gives me head all the time and I don't return the favour, and how it's typical of men to be selfish lovers. I took it for a few minutes hoping my wife would jump in and stop it.

She just kept quietly saying "it's okay, it's okay, I don't mind, he does other stuff, blah blah blah" but they kept going. Finally, one of her friends (who as an anecdote I f#$king despise because she's overly confrontational for absolutely no reason) demands to know why I don't eat my wife out more often. In a room full of like 9 other people. I look to my wife and ask if she'd like to chime in, but she doesn't.

I shrug and say that I actually really enjoy performing oral s*x on women, but that my wife doesn't let me because we don't have s*x. My wife's face dropped as she shot a look at me. I didn't even explicitly say she was as*xual. I just said we didn't have s*x, and haven't for a few years when further harassed about it.

She immediately begins apologizing for me, explaining that things have been rocky so we haven't been having s*x much, which I immediately shut down because that's not even remotely true. If anything, things have been great lately. If she's been having issues or doubts, this would be my first time hearing them. I finally gave up.

I told my wife I was going home, but she said she wasn't done yet or ready to leave. I logged into Uber on her phone so she could use my account and told her she can take it home or stay the night, but that I would not sit here and be a punching bag because she was to ashamed to admit she was as*xual. My wife immediately ran to the bathroom, and I was told to leave.

She came home not long after me, and hasn't spoken much to me since except to half-heartedly apologize but that outing her like I did was worse. I apologized for 'outing her' but that she didn't leave me much choice. A few of her friends have messaged me calling me every name up and down the book and saying they're going to convince her to leave me.

One or two of the boyfriends/husbands messaged me and said they were sorry and didn't know and offered to buy me a beer if I wanted. Another of the friends (in an openly poly relationship) actually offered to have s*x with me which I showed my wife immediately.

She says she knows it must have been sh#$ty to sit there and take it but that they're not really my friends, so some momentary discomfort from people I don't really associate with isn't comparable to her prolonged discomfort of significant people in her life now knowing she's asexual. I completely disagree but can kind of see where she's coming from. So, am I the AH here?

The internet was fully invested in this situation.

Coffee_Soup wrote:

There was an easy solution to this she could have taken forever ago. Don't talk about your s*x life. Make it clear that as your partner that she doesn't feel comfortable talking about what you both do in the bedroom. That keeps her desire to hide her s*xuality intact while also not screwing you over with lies.

NTA, she just threw you under the bus in every way to keep face with her friends instead of doing the small things to keep things she wanted private private.

IllustratorSlow1614 wrote:

NTA, I think your wife is less bothered about being outed as an asexual and more upset she’s been outed as an outrageous liar. It’s also weird that this s*x talk happens all the time with no regard for the privacy and comfort of the other people involved. It’s not just ‘her’ fanciful s*x life she’s talking about, her stories include you too.

No you shouldn’t have to put up with hearing her lie about you - or even tell the truth about s*x with you - with an outside audience. This isn’t therapy. This is gossip.

Honey_Iris wrote:

I'd consider ending the relationship tho. Not bc of asexuality but because she purposefully throws you under the bus ALL THE TIME. She stays with those shitty friends and doesn't mind it. A social opportunist but its not middle school anymore and its very clear that you're less important to her than those sh#$ty friends.

That's why she's so upset now. You, her lowly husband dared to embarrass her in front of FRIENDS. Asexuality is nothing to be ashamed of. If they are such amazing friends then why is she embarrassed to tell them but isn't embarrassed to talk about personal and intimate sex life and isn't embarrassed of punching u into the ground for their entertainment?

I understand that it may be difficult or awkward to deal gand et used to it later in life but there's SO MANY ways to do it and none of them require presenting you as the villain. She could have just said, I don't like to share out intimacy/I'm very vanilla and I like it that way" or whatever else.

She could also just talk about it with you beforehand and decide what u two are comfortable with. It's even more clear now that she acts as if she is the victim here and her lying and ostracizing you for a prolonged period of time isn't a big deal. Her feelings are more important than yours.

There's no way to tell when else can she throw you to the wolfs for her ,,benefit". F.e. she sounds like a person who'd blame the other parent when they dont want to look bad in front of the child. So think about this relationship. If she doesn't step up and set the record AND her friends straight, then you should maybe look into divorce.

After receiving a lot of support, OP jumped on with an update.

UPDATE: A few things I can't reply to because there's so many comments and I can't reply to all of them.

I actually don't mind not having s*x because I genuinely love her. There are times it does get to me, and this was admittedly one of them, but they are very rare (maybe 2 or 3 times a year). No part of me believes she bait-and-switch'd me for a ring - that's just not who she is.

She is asexual. She's not f#$king other guys. I'm not some cuck waiting at home like a few DMs insinuated. I went with her for a few therapy sessions where she let me know. I fully support her.

Yes, I'm aware that technically it is 'my fault' we don't have s*x. Asexuality is a spectrum, yes. She feels no desire to have s*x. She physically likes s*x, but otherwise she could live without it. My boundary is I don't want to have s*x with someone who doesn't desire me. I'm not undermining as*xuality by having that boundary.

The issue here isn't that I'm with someone who is asexual. I'm not sure why people keep telling me my marriage is over. I never suggested it. The issue is how she handles it and expects me to take the brunt of this kind of bulls#$t because she's ashamed of it.

The internet had plenty of responses to the update/clarification.

Itherial wrote:

NTA. Sorry you’re married to someone who lacks so much respect for you that they’ll intentionally tarnish your imagine and reputation because of the lies they’re choosing to implicate you in. If she’s ashamed of herself that’s her problem, not yours.

It's worth considering that she was already lying - and chose not to continue to do so to throw you under the bus. Literally no reason to not talk you up as a s*x god, instead she decided to embarrass you with a lie.

While making things up, instead of choosing to empower you, her partner, she chose to belittle you and expected you to take it. I’d be asking her to explain those actions. If it were me I’d be taking a long, hard look at the woman who changed the terms of our marriage after the fact, and then used these changes to tell lies and emasculate me. But you do you.

NatashOverWorld wrote:

Hmm, you never out someone, but this situation of scapegoating you because they're using your decision to not out her...yeah, she's been treating it like a joke and not really caring about your feelings eh?

I despise it when anyone uses someone's morals to hurt them. It was an AH move but sometimes you need to speak their language before they'll stop. Maybe she shouldn't have taken your silence as a right. NTA.

Mdg711 wrote:

NTA, for one it’s no one else’s business of what you do at home with your partner. The fact all these women openly talked about it for good or bad is BS!

-whiteroom- wrote:

NTA, your wife threw you under the bus hard, and let it go on and on. Its real crap of her to do that. She needs to come to terms with herself and not allow you to be others punching bag.

A little over a week later, OP jumped on with a major update.

TL;DR: of the original post though was during therapy wife came to accept she was asexual, didn't want to tell anyone out of embarrassment, made up sex stories about us and let her friends chew me out during a party instead of telling them off because of embarrassment of being ace, and I outed her when I said I was sick of being a punching bag because she was ashamed of her asexuality.

So I deleted the original post as it got pretty overwhelming. It was crossposted to a few other subreddits. I got a lot of hate in my DMs. It even made it to those Tiktoks where a TTS reads it with Minecraft gameplay in the background...which led to precisely where I am now. It had come across one of her friends' feeds two days ago, who sent it to her, which led to a conversation and a fairly productive few days.

In the time since, I did apologize for outing her, and she apologized to me for letting it get that far. She ended up telling all her friends, and none of them cared and were entirely supportive.

She asked them to apologize to me because it was her who put me in that situation, but only one of them has, and it was a half-hearted one at that (paraphrasing but basically "yeah, sorry, but maybe it's best if you don't come to gatherings anymore" sort of thing). We've started back at couple's counselling too.

I was happy with where things ended up after the initial conversation but we decided to go back to get everything out and hopefully find a workable way forward.

A few things I wanted to address from comments everywhere:

Asexuality is real. She's not low libido. She has no libido and doesn't feel that urge everyone else does. She believes she never has, but talked herself into thinking it because that's what she felt she was supposed to do. I wasn't paraphrasing, misunderstanding, or putting words in her mouth. This is her description of it.

A handful of people said it was entirely my fault for us not having s*x and my boundary was harmful to as*xual people and childish, so I wanted to clarify: my wife was the one who used the phrasing of 'maintenance s*x'. She has made it clear that she has no desire for sex but will do it for me occasionally if I want it. In her words, it's a task she is happy to do to keep me happy, and I'm not comfortable with that.

It's more or less a favour - like if I asked her to pick up my dry cleaning. It's not selfish or childish to want a partner to actually want to have s*x with you. Otherwise, it's masturbating with someone's body, which I'm not fine with. I'm fine without s*x. That part was grossly overinflated in some comments. I was uncomfortable at the lying and being thrown under the bus.

I value her for far more than s*x anyway. There's more that defines a relationship than s*x. Many people pointed out how it was weird friends sit around and talk about their s*x lives. I believe so to some degree (these aren't super raunchy conversations anyway) but I see no issue in close friends being open about things like this. It's not a big deal to me personally.

A couple people sent me resources on being a partner to someone who is asexual and I want to thank you for that. EDIT: Here's the one I found the most helpful: https://www.davewheitner.com/sexuality/resources-partners-asexuals/

In her defence, without me asking (since I wouldn't be comfortable telling her who and who not to be friends with) she has turned down a couple of invites to go out since, and has removed the two main instigators from social media, which is enough for me.

Some people were confused on the ages too, everyone is late 20s to mid 30s.

I'm not going to divorce her, so you can stop wasting time suggesting that.

So yeah. Boring update, I know. But everything is fine.

TL;DR: Someone saw a Minecraft video with the original post. Showed my wife. Opened up further discussion. Everything worked out. Will continue working out. We've moved past it.

Redditors jumped on to thank OP for the update.

FourEaredFox wrote:

Birds of a feather flock together. It's no shock you're not getting the apologies you deserved.

RNGinx3 wrote:

Sometimes Reddit gives great advice. Sometimes they are hypocrites. Sadly, you got the hypocrite wagon. Honestly, I'm glad you think everything is fine, but this update upset me. She's had zero consequences for her actions and still interacts with the friend group that ganged up on you, and has now also exiled you?

This is so backward to me (your OP was too), because my husband and I go to bat for each other, not protect ourselves by throwing the other under the bus (your wife's MO). I would never allow someone to talk to him the way they are you (not that he can't thoroughly defend himself), so I'm (still) side-eyeing her hard.

She's being a sh#$ty wife IMO, sorry, not trying to be mean. I think you deserve to be treated better than that.

bayesed_theorem wrote:

This is not a good update at all. Your wife doesn't appear to believe she's done anything wrong here other than "letting the conversation get that far." She literally lied to her friends to try to s#$t talk you and make you look like a bad spouse, but apparently doesn't see that as being a big issue.

Honestly, I question what you actually get out of this relationship? You're not having good s*x, so there's no physical connection. She appears to be fine s$%t talking you openly with no regrets, so there's no emotional connection. Are you staying with this woman simply because you're afraid to be alone?

Stock-Philosopher-15 wrote:

Dude you didn’t out her, iirc all you said was “we haven’t had s*x in x months”. Her friends f#$king suck. I’d still gtfo of that relationship. Her friends are PoSs and she’s spineless.

Three weeks later, OP jumped on with another major and final update.

In all honesty, I hadn't seen the response to the original update. I posted and logged out. I know it's been a few months but I figured people might want to at least hear this update since it's a pretty positive one. To get this out of the way first, no - we haven't divorced or broken up, despite the dozens of comments suggesting we do.

A couple of weeks after my wife being shown the Reddit post (or TikTok video, I guess), my wife asked me if I would come with her to a therapy session. I was a bit apprehensive about it because she's very private about her therapy to the point where she won't even let me drive her to the appointment, but I agreed.

We get to the appointment and the therapist asks me to wait a minute while she gets settled in. Shortly after, she calls me in and introduces herself. I sat down and she asks why I think [wife's name] asked me to come today. I said I figured it had to do with her being asexual.

Honestly though, I thought maybe my wife needed a safe space to say she wants to split up, so I was pretty nervous about the whole situation. My wife sort of nods along, and as the conversation progresses, I gave my perspective of the incident at the party.

The next bit felt like a classroom lecture - specifics about asexuality, explanation of it being a spectrum, how lack of desire doesn't mean not enjoying sex, and so on. The therapist turns to my wife and asks if she'd like to speak now or if she'd like her to do it for her. My wife tries, but whatever words she wants to say aren't coming out.

The therapist goes on to explain that my wife wants to make an effort to have a s*xual relationship with me. Not out of guilt, 'maintenance', or my benefit, but because it's something she now wants to pursue. She asks how I feel about that, and I just answer honestly with more or less what I've said here.

I don't feel like it's mutually fulfilling for two people to have s*x if only one person has any desire for it. I admit that I don't understand how her having s*x with me is not being done strictly for my benefit, but my wife starts sobbing and tells me that despite being at peace with being asexual, she really wants to want me that way.

I try to reassure her that she isn't broken or needs to be fixed (which are things she's told me she feels like), but she says it's something she desperately wants in her life. She begins telling me how supportive of her I've always been, how amazing I am, how much she loves me, and how happy she is to find someone who actually loves her.

The therapist cuts in and asks if I'd at least give it a try, and that if it still makes me uncomfortable, then I can just admit that since we already have communicated that well to each other. I'll admit, I wasn't comfortable with it, but with seeing my wife cry because it's something she does want to make an effort into, I said I would.

We talked about it some more, and my wife concluded that she will ask me when she's ready to take that step. Nothing happened in a little over a week since that therapy session. One day, my wife called my office and asked if could get out early. Admittedly, I kind of wrote off anything happening, so it didn't factor into my mind.

It wasn't unusual to ask me this anyway - there have been days where she's been pretty low, and I have a pretty flexible work schedule, so knocking out a few hours early wasn't something new. I asked if everyone was okay, and she said she just wanted me to come home, so I did. When I got in, the curtains had all been drawn, and she had lit a candle in the kitchen.

When I walked into the kitchen, she was completely naked and bent over the counter. I won't go too far into the details, except when I tried asking what she was doing, she cut me off and said I wasn't allowed to talk until after. Things have been really good since then. I've gone to some more sessions with her to try and understand her more.

A lot of our s*x is still me pursuing her, but there have been times where she's spontaneously climbed on top of me or unzipped my pants while watching TV. When we were walking home from dinner once, she pulled her dress down to flash me her breasts (she had seen it in a movie we watched and thought I'd get a kick out of it).

Maybe she doesn't desire people s*xually or feel that usual s*xual desire, and part of that does still bother me a little, but she seems happier now, and she seems to enjoy our s*x life. I'll admit, I've gotten kind of used to being flatly asked "do you need a bl*wjob today?" even if the approach is more mechanical than anything else.

Unrelated, but she's more or less cut her friend group off. There was some other weird stuff going on that I won't get in to, but she said how they've been after the whole incident has made her uncomfortable. She started a new job and made some new friends from hobbies, and they all seem great. It feels like forever since she's been this happy, and it feels like I'm dating her for the first time all over again.

Anyways, that's it. This'll be the last update. Sorry if it was a bit long winded.

TL;DR: Wife brought me to therapist to explain that while she doesn't feel any s*xual desire, she still wants to desperately make an attempt at a s*x life. Have been having a lot of s*x. Life is good.

Redditors were happy to hear the positive update.

Mace_1981 wrote:

Best news was her losing those toxic friends.

OP responded:

Honestly this was better than when our s*x life came back 😂

SpecialistPlenty6753 wrote:

As an autistic person who struggles with being “sexy” I’d kill for a partner like that lol

“You wanna f#$k?”

“Why yes, yes I do”

_Gary_P wrote:

This is an amazing ride you have allowed us to share, thank you. I wish nothing but happiness for the both of you.

DanSchnidersCloset wrote:

Knowing my partner had this much baggage regarding basic human interactions would be a major turnoff. IF we need a therapy session to figure out if my wife is into me or not, then it feels like a moot point.