I actually agree with you. Treating a trauma victim with kid gloves does her no favors. It just reinforces the trauma. The majority of my issues are resolved due to prolonged exposure therapy, which resolved in 3 very difficult, very long months what years of ‘‘talk’’ therapy could not. I strongly believe that overcoming any issue like that requires a willingness on the part of the victim to endure a lot of discomfort, anxiety, distress, etc. I knew it was going to be hard to do prolonged exposure therapy but my rationale is that I’d been reliving it every day for 10 years, what is another 3 months? So if she can find that treatment I can’t recommend it enough. Warning though, don’t try it without the guidance of a mental health professional because if done improperly it is likely to backfire spectacularly.
If your girlfriend is interested & would like to speak with someone who has gone through this process, feel free to PM me and I will provide an e-mail address for her to contact me (that offer stands for anyone who reads this with any kind of trauma who is interested in learning more.)
There’s also a tendency in these relationships to completely discount the feelings/experiences of the man involved. This was difficult for me to understand at first, that wanting to have sex with the person you love is a normal and natural thing, and so is the disappointment and frustration of not being able to do that the way you want to. I think knowing how much it was hurting my husband really worked as a catalyst for me to get treatment.
Her consent is the key here. I assumed the worst because I’ve been here for years and posts where people admit to spying on their SO are a dime a dozen. Also I’m having a very bad day.
I really want things to work out for you two, perhaps selfishly because I know it takes a special kind of man to even be willing to deal with issues like this in a relationship.
She did for a while but from what she said it was not for sexual health related issues.
I’m dealing with a lot of anger toward her family. Whenever I contemplate her past, I just find no excuse for being so F’d up or country bumpkin-style trusting/dumb to not protect your own children.
I am a natural protector, and I often err on the side of caution.
The average female domestic dog protects their pups better than many people.
I just have no words.
I guess I haven’t been in such a dark spot or so naive that I would put someone in an obviously risky situation.
First time ol’ step-grandpa green liver took my niece, daughter, whatever to a bar would be the last time. If he hurt her, he better hope that the police get to him before I do.
You know looking at this from another angle, is it possible she simply is not very sexual, or sexual in a way you’d like? She didn’t lie to you really.
I mean most of your complaints don’t show outright dishonesty, she just seems inhibited by your standards. It is just kind of weird everyone assumes she needs and should get help, it should be up to her. She may not be interested or see anything wrong.
I mean some women don’t like anal sex, it would seem odd to suggest they get therapy to get over the hangup. Everyone has dislikes and hangups sexually.
You know what she is like and I think you should just decide whether you can accept how she is and whether that is a deal breaker or not, if it is let her know and ask if she is willing to work on it.
You’ve been really helpful Spice, and I thank you.
I need to bring these things up, but it is a matter for me of when and how.
If you have any advice on how to broach these subjects I am all ears.
I obviously will not bring up my fears about her past, but keep to what is currently causing us issues and do so in a kind way. I’m still afraid.
Also, thank you for realizing that men matter and we have feelings!
I know that came off wrong, but really the last few decades things have swung so far as far as popular psychology and popular media that masculinity has been so besmirched. For instance, most articles on “why women cheat” are actually a list of rationalizations for how the male failed the female and so she was justified. Our culture has put on these rose colored glasses, and when I slipped them off I was relieved. As a kid, I would watch Oprah with my mom and I remember thinking with sincerity “oh my gosh, everything is always a man’s fault somehow!”.
It is obviously retarded to let your daughter be taken care of alone for long lengths of time by a non-biologically related male (grandma’s 3rd husband) who is also a known chronic alcoholic and takes your child to bars. Yeah, I know that it can happen under even the best circumstances and by people that don’t drink, but if something did NOT happen in this case then it was just pure dumb luck.
I don’t think those are incompatible with each other necessarily, but I do think it’s not helpful to omit the full story here. I also don’t understand what you mean by saying “she didn’t dress like that or go out much at all.” She certainly did just two weeks ago, according to the linked thread. Or are you saying this suddenly dressing in revealing outfits is new behavior compared to the previous six months?
It’s also worthy of mentioning here that while she seems asexual/anorgasmic with you, less than a month ago you believed it was likely that she was cheating on you (to the point that you broke up with her), citing her flighty behavior and skanky clothing. It reveals something about her mentality/emotional state. (It was also weird that in the other thread, you didn’t mention that she doesn’t appear to enjoy sex, at least not with you. Because that would’ve been a pretty big warning sign in a potential cheater!)
Either way, for the past month you’ve said that you don’t trust her and you aren’t satisfied by your sex life with her. It doesn’t sound like she’s getting much from you either. I don’t see much of a future here without mutual counseling.
My biological father is an alcoholic and so the bar was kind of his default place to be. He had me for visitation on weekends and we spent a lot of time there. I don’t remember it being particularly traumatic but it was boring as hell. I guess it depends on the kind of bar. The part that sucked about it was just having a father who clearly did not really give a shit.
As for anger… You know it’s weird, I didn’t talk to my Dad for 10 years, and when we finally resumed a relationship when I was 23, and I learned that he never changed in all that time. I never really felt angry at him until the last time I visited I was maybe 29, we were watching game shows on TiVo because that is all he ever does, he started bitching about what a terrible mother he had because she’d never approved of him and how she’d reached out to him as an elderly woman and he’d basically told her to burn in hell. Then in the same breath he tried to explain how he wasn’t really that bad of a father, that really he could love alcohol and me at the same time, and i didn’t understand, his life was so haaaaard he just couldn’t be sober. I’ve suffered emotional abuse from my Mom and sexual abuse from two stepfathers and overall am really not that angry about it, but for some reason what my Dad said just pissed me off. Maybe if he hadn’t had his head stuck so far up his ass none of that other shit would have happened to me in the first place. And notice despite my haaard life I somehow managed not to become an alcoholic whose greatest accomplishment in life is conceiving a child with a roofied 18 year old. I haven’t talked to him since.
I don’t think it’s bad to be angry though. I don’t know how she feels toward her family but sometimes it can be helpful when someone else is angry on your behalf to understand how grave an injustice was done to you. And if she is angry that is certainly justified.
I don’t consider your average Oprah fare to be my idea of feminism. The idea that anyone other than the person who cheated is responsible for cheating is laughable to me. To me it seems disempowering and insulting for any woman’s behavior to be excused based on her gender. And in my experience when a relationship gets messed up it usually requires a fair bit of effort on behalf of both parties.
It’s a tricky thing, because I am very much a feminist and believe there are systemic inequalities that put serious hardships on women. I also have a lot of trans friends and friends who do not fit gender stereotypes and frankly I don’t really relate to a lot of stereotypes about how women are supposed to be. But I think a lot of the dialog around addressing these inequalities fails to emphasize how damaging these stereotypes and inequalities are to both genders. And that fact can make feminist ideas deeply alienating to some men. And that’s leaving aside the things that are outright insulting or hateful toward men.
Same stupid gender essentialist bullshit, different contexts, sucks for both men and women.
And it all depends on your view of masculinity. My husband is not the stereotypical ‘‘manly’’ man. He is nerdy and nice and would rather talk about X-Men than football. When he met me we were 18 years old and I was an honest-to-god neurotic wreck. He knew up front what he was getting into because we were close friends and I told him my life story long before we started dating. The first time he kissed me, I lost my fucking shit. I had some kind of panic attack and I started bawling and told him it would never work between us. Here he had driven two hours to see me with the understanding that we were starting a relationship and I expected him to be pissed.
What would a masculine man do?
I don’t know. What he did was immediately reply, ‘‘It’s okay. I just want what’s best for you’’ and hold me while I cried.
He never flinched, not in that moment and not once in the 12 years we’ve been together. Not through PTSD flashbacks, deaths in the family, or the miscarriage we’re going through now. He’s always there and I never had to doubt it once. What he gets in return is my undying loyalty and willingness to return measure for measure the support he has shown me. That’s the man I would pick over the strongest, baddest motherfucker on the planet. It kills me that some men would point to him as an unfortunate product of feminism because he can’t bench or change oil in the car or drink beer. He’s a fucking beast in every way that matters.
Sigh A lot of women fake orgasms in order to be “done.” There are some men who somehow think they haven’t done their job until they’ve “made” you come, and that’s the way they put it, as though you have no choice in the matter. Saying you can enjoy sex without having an orgasm gets you nowhere. Sometimes you’re tired, and that’s why you aren’t coming in the first place, but he won’t leave you alone to get a decent night’s sleep, because he’s determined to see to it that you have an orgasm.
I had a college boyfriend like this, and the relationship pretty much ended when I asked why it was so freaking important to him that I have an orgasm every goddam time, and he said he just wanted to please me. I said if that were true, he’d leave me alone and let me get some sleep.
If the OP isn’t trolling with a strangely inappropriate question, and a join date of last month, then I’d guess he’d making things worse by pressuring her with all the questions.
My husband can, and we’ve been together for 14 years, but some men can’t. I dated one who couldn’t, and that definitely contributed to the fact that it didn’t work out. I have heard from lots of friends that they’ve come across this particular, I don’t know, stubbornness? in men as well. It’s not over till everybody comes.
Ha! I dunno, maybe some men take it personally, like it reflects badly on them as a lover or something? Sometimes it’s just medication, fatigue, whatever, there can be so many factors.
I really don’t appreciate the tone of your input here. I did NOT say that she did not enjoy sex with me or want sex. Please cite where I said those things at all. I did not.
Your digging into the other thread to find ways that what I said a few weeks ago can be somewhat contradictory to what I am saying now on a different aspect of the relationship is not helpful, and I get a whiff that you are not interested at all in being helpful to me here.
My goodness. Projecting onto me much? Did I say anywhere that I constantly questioned her? No. How many months on this board until I can ask a question without these accusations from left field?
Did you tell her this secret snooping technique that other people don’t know about that you employed on her phone? Because if not, it sounds pretty much like the definition of doing something “sneakily weird” to her phone.
I think it’s just a matter of taking it personally. How would you react if the man you were having sex with didn’t orgasm? Granted, male inability to orgasm is rarer than female but it exists. People just expect it to happen and when it doesn’t, well something must have been done wrong.
Sounds like, on this issue, you want a woman from column “A” and this one is squarely in column “B”. That doesn’t usually bode well for long term relationships.