I’m so glad my post helped. There are so many different combinations out there in the world that are valid life-partnerships that aren’t just the male/female, live-in, sex-based, child-rearing examples we’ve all grown up being told are the norm. It’s hard to find them, and usually you have to break the mold all by yourself, which is both frightening and inhibiting.
The benefit of an actual demonstration that something different works for other people is incalculable.
And I just want to point out, again, that mine and my husband’s relationship is intimate: we literally share our lives. We talk about our days and our thoughts and feelings and the news and the kids and all the various things that entertain us. I know how he thinks; when he’s happy, when he’s stressed, what tickles him and what irritates him… and he knows all this for me as well. We can rely on one another completely (which is very nice when someone gets sick or hurt!). We love and trust and respect one another. There is SO MUCH MORE to a partnership than sex. There really is.
I hope it’s okay to add on here, if not let me know I’ll delete.
It’s been twenty years of marriage now. We’re partners, we support one another and that’s good enough.
As far as I know, neither I nor my hubby are asexual, but somehow along the line we’ve just sorta stopped having sex. We’ve never really talked about it, it just sort of naturally happened due to the nature of our schedules and, I suppose, getting older. Like you said there are plenty of ways to be intimate with being physical.