Im dating an aro, but i don't know what is going on anymore

[Guest Noel]

Hello! 

As you can read from the title above, my girlfriend is an aro, she told me herself about it 2 years ago and that she was sorry if our relationship would be more of a platonic instead of a romantic. And she told me that she doesn't feel something like love towards me, but she feels specially comfortable with me to the point where she would live with me because i can be her help anytime. 

I agreed to that and i don't actually care about it since i love her so much to the point i want to marry her when the time comes. (As a heads-up, im 19 y.o in my last year diploma college and we were dating for 4 years now, she is 2 years older than me)

I don't want us to separate, but seeing how she prioritize anything else over me just making me feel like I'm worthless in her eyes. My effort towards making her feel comfortable around me feels like wasted. I feel like I'm just a beneficial person to her and at the same time disposable. 

Everytime i try to engage a romantic talk, she would just bash it with joke and it would be like your usual talk with your college friends. With that i don't feel special at all. 

Please anyone aromantic or anyone who experienced with this, can you tell me what's going on? Am i doing things right? Or perhaps i was expecting something unachievable? I don't have any idea anymore. 

[nonmerci]

For the romantic talk, well, she is probably not confortable with it. Maybe she doesn't want the relation to be romantic. Maybe, the platonic conversation is special to her. But I can't talk for her, that's just a possibility. Here, the problem may be that you don't have the same expectations about your relationship. The best is to talk to her to know how she view things, and if you can, find a way to make it confortable for both of you.

About her priority. Something important to understand to date and aro, is that we usually don't see romance (and therefore the romantic partner) as the thing to prioritize over everything. So, being evrytime her top priority may be unachievable. However, for what you said, it seems it is not only that you are not her priority, but that you feel like she doesn't care about you at all. For that, I can't answer, in particular with no context. Probably, she doesn't show you that you are important to her, and that's why you feel this way. She probably doesn't even notice that.

So the biggest problem is an absence of communication (and to be honest, that's often the case). You should ask her how she feels about you, what makesyour relationship special for her. Also talk to her about your feelings, how you feel worthless, so she can acknowledge the problem and think about why it exists. If she's not aware of a problem, she can't fix it.

Now, that's just my thoughts. I'm not in her head, and nobody knows better what she thinks than that. Are you doing something wrong? For what you say I don't think so. Are you expecting something unachievable? I don't know, that's possible for what you said, that you both expecting things so different that it can work. These things can happen and that's no one's fault. But only a discussion with her can tell you that for sure.

[Oatpunk]

Hello! I'm sorry you're going through this.
The thing that really concerns me about this is that she would live with you because you can "be her help anytime"? That sounds like a massive red flag to me, and adding that to how you perceive her to prioritize everything else over you, it just doesn't sound like a very healthy relationship.
Since she has been open about being aromantic from the start, I think it's understandable that she doesn't enjoy engaging in romantic talk, but that doesn't sound like the issue here. If she makes you feel unimportant you need to talk to her about that. It's possible that it stems from a lack of communication or simply an incompatibility between you two, but it's also possible that she's using you. You deserve a relationship where you feel fulfilled and fairly treated.

[Noel]

7 hours ago, nonmerci said:

For the romantic talk, well, she is probably not confortable with it. Maybe she doesn't want the relation to be romantic. Maybe, the platonic conversation is special to her. But I can't talk for her, that's just a possibility. Here, the problem may be that you don't have the same expectations about your relationship. The best is to talk to her to know how she view things, and if you can, find a way to make it confortable for both of you.

About her priority. Something important to understand to date and aro, is that we usually don't see romance (and therefore the romantic partner) as the thing to prioritize over everything. So, being evrytime her top priority may be unachievable. However, for what you said, it seems it is not only that you are not her priority, but that you feel like she doesn't care about you at all. For that, I can't answer, in particular with no context. Probably, she doesn't show you that you are important to her, and that's why you feel this way. She probably doesn't even notice that.

So the biggest problem is an absence of communication (and to be honest, that's often the case). You should ask her how she feels about you, what makesyour relationship special for her. Also talk to her about your feelings, how you feel worthless, so she can acknowledge the problem and think about why it exists. If she's not aware of a problem, she can't fix it.

Now, that's just my thoughts. I'm not in her head, and nobody knows better what she thinks than that. Are you doing something wrong? For what you say I don't think so. Are you expecting something unachievable? I don't know, that's possible for what you said, that you both expecting things so different that it can work. These things can happen and that's no one's fault. But only a discussion with her can tell you that for sure.

Thank you very much for your thoughts nonmercy, I ever thought about what you said once. But it never came back again to my mind. It seems like after all it's just a matter of communication. She doesn't know how I feel so she doesn't know how she should act in this relationship. 

 

7 hours ago, nonmerci said:

About her priority. Something important to understand to date and aro, is that we usually don't see romance (and therefore the romantic partner) as the thing to prioritize over everything. So, being evrytime her top priority may be unachievable. However, for what you said, it seems it is not only that you are not her priority, but that you feel like she doesn't care about you at all. For that, I can't answer, in particular with no context. Probably, she doesn't show you that you are important to her, and that's why you feel this way. She probably doesn't even notice that.

And after you point out these theories, I feel like that might be the case. Now that I think about it, she never looked to anything else when she made up her mind towards something. And I think that she made me feel uncomfortable is accidentally after all. But it's all just my thoughts, so I need to talk this out with her. 

7 hours ago, Oatpunk said:

Hello! I'm sorry you're going through this.
The thing that really concerns me about this is that she would live with you because you can "be her help anytime"? That sounds like a massive red flag to me, and adding that to how you perceive her to prioritize everything else over you, it just doesn't sound like a very healthy relationship.
Since she has been open about being aromantic from the start, I think it's understandable that she doesn't enjoy engaging in romantic talk, but that doesn't sound like the issue here. If she makes you feel unimportant you need to talk to her about that. It's possible that it stems from a lack of communication or simply an incompatibility between you two, but it's also possible that she's using you. You deserve a relationship where you feel fulfilled and fairly treated.

Hello oatpunk! 

Thank you for your thoughts.

This massive red flag that you mention is obvious in any way, but I don't mind it at all. I want to be relied upon and to be looked for when I was gone. And sometimes she can made me feel that way, but over what you said about she might be using me. It is indeed a possibility, but now I don't think that's the case because everytime I offer my help to her over something, she would mainly reject to my offer if she can do it herself.

7 hours ago, Oatpunk said:

If she makes you feel unimportant you need to talk to her about that. It's possible that it stems from a lack of communication or simply an incompatibility between you two, but it's also possible that she's using you

To this point, the highest possibility is the lack of communication. We ever talked about how we should continue our relationship, but I just realized we never talked about how and what she expected in this relationship and I never told her about mine. And the fact that after knowing that we never talked about this, I feel like im the selfish one wanted to be prioritized. 

[Ch0c0]

8 hours ago, Oatpunk said:

The thing that really concerns me about this is that she would live with you because you can "be her help anytime"? That sounds like a massive red flag to me, and adding that to how you perceive her to prioritize everything else over you, it just doesn't sound like a very healthy relationship.

What I would perceive as fair as aromantic would be more along the lines of 'always have your back' or 'fight alongside you'. For me, aromanticism manifests with independance and not missing people all the time (no annoying texts lol). Most people could interpret it as not caring.

[El011]

this is late but I think you should break up with her. You're obviously not enjoying this relationship and you should find someone who can feel the same way about you as you do about her.