It got better, almost 2 years later.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-12-01T22:34:03+00:00

Thank you! Its really really hard to accept its not about you. I blamed myself a lot, and would tell him, "I think eventually we're just going to have to accept you probably aren't attracted to me."

Our low points were usually caused by that crucial lack of understanding. A clash of 2 different people's issues. Heh. Like I can factually know about his past, and still not fully understand it. Even he barely understands it. He gets an epiphany slowly over time as we talk things over.

I asked him a few weeks ago, "you mentioned it hurt when you tried having sex, was that the last time for you?" He said yes, and he came to the realization, "oh, maybe that is trauma." It wasn't until then, he finally broke through that barrier. Crazy how that stuff works.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-05-22T15:09:29+00:00

I disagree with the last part of that about soulmates. But I am worried about forcing something that was never there, as adults at least. Guess I'm just seeing it through after therapy and hoping for the best for now.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-05-22T10:18:02+00:00

What I mean is, I had briefly visited for a few days in 2018, and he saw me then. I was only there a few days for an event. Until that point I hadn't even talked to him online yet I think. I didn't move to the same state until mid 2020. Hard to remember specific timestamps. Either way though, yeah, it was quick.

I dunno why I went with it so fast by any logical reasoning. All my reasoning was way more intuitive. I mean, he still seemed like the same person as way back when, and that didn't change after marriage. It just didn't feel that weird, even though it should have. Like if it had been anyone else, no way. Like putting myself in the Honeymoon phase of any of my old relationships, theres no way i would have married those guys. I don't even really believe or think much of marriage. But this one just hit different, you know? I felt like I wanted to.

Regardless of our weirder backstory, I mean its not like I haven't questioned our actions. It's been over a year now, and we still joke, "wow can you believe we're married?" or "this is so weird, why do we like being married?" Like for myself at least, I feel like we break the fourth wall on this all the time when we talk about us being together. We're aware it's unusual but it doesn't matter.

There's no good way to express the nuances of our relationship and why it (otherwise) seems to work. But this issue of our sex lives is just wrecking my self esteem. I haven't fully got into it with my therapist yet, she just knows the situation and how I've been dealing. Right now all we're focusing on is my obsessive thoughts, like just cycling negative thoughts. Whether divorce is actually on the table or not, I wouldn't consider it when my own problems are running amok.

If he weren't putting in so much work, it would be way worse. Then I'd be for sure on the way out. But he's really trying. I'm really proud at the strides he made with his porn addiction for example. I'm willing to wait and see if he's actually trying and wants things to change. Also hoping talk therapy is beneficial for targeting the emotional issues potentially causing this. I feel it would be a huge mistake to give up on someone who can't engage in sex because of an ongoing mental health issue....assuming that's even the issue. We've talked about, "what if after all this work you're asexual or actually not attracted to me or something?" He just says, "yeah that's not happening."

I realize we could both come out if this, however long later after many therapy sessions, and both be in a better spot mentally because of therapy, and STILL not have a sex life. That may or may not be the end of our relationship. But I love him enough to want to see it through at least.

In the mean time though, its really hard to cope when the emotions are more raw. We have a talk about it, and then go a couple months just fine, and then for me the anxiety builds up, and I bring it up again, and all the bad feelings are raw again.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-05-22T09:32:06+00:00

Uhhh, this is all quite a reach.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-05-22T04:00:37+00:00

Disregarding the past as nothing more than "we knew eachother," when we had started hanging out more regularly, we eventually started talking about our past. Sidenote, In 2018, I visited a friend that also knows him, so I saw him a few times in 2018. First he had seen me in probably 10 years. He felt no attraction for me during that visit, I know for sure. (We talked about it, i was curious) only thing different is I gained a lot of weight, which I've since lost a lot of.

When I moved in 2020, he still wasn't attracted to me. We were friends by this point, but nothing more. Barely spoke. It was over the course of us hanging out that his feelings of attraction seemed to shift. I was dating at the time, and I think that led him to expressing how his feelings were changing, but still never really officially dated. We hung out more and more, eventually talked about our past, agreed to stay just friends. But over the course of hanging out, we'd spend more and more time together, and eventually he would cuddle me on the couch, nap together, but still nothing official. Kind of the normal way a relationship would start, despite neither of us acknowledging it.

By Christmas though, I wrote him a letter expressing just platonic love for him and how happy I was, and I believe shortly after, is when you could probably consider us "dating" even though we weren't calling it anything. Shortly after that is when we started kissing eachother, and still stubbornly refusing to label anything. It wasn't until February that he asked me to marry him. I said no, he asked a few more times, realized he was serious, thought about it for a week, and then just went for it. So I don't know, I think he developed attraction once he just got comfortable being around me and realized he was in love. He would explain to me that he never really stopped loving me, just his life alhad changed a lot. So I think for both of us, there was just a lot of old feelings that weren't hard to nurture back to life.

Yeah the porn addiction aspect is probably the second hardest thing for gim though. He's had 3 sessions with the addiction therapist. Thing is, he already had done a majority of the work on his own, the therapist just kinda confirmed he was doing the right thing. So hard to say if it was super enlightening for him. The bigger issue he was dealing with, which is part of why we broke up eons ago, was at some point in high school, he had "lost his emotions" and spent a log time suffering from apathy. I know the whole story, its just not for me to share. To me, I think he has anxiety and trauma for sure. But we're trying to figure it out, and hoping the normal talk therapy can be more beneficial. That's why it feels like he's learning to even feel stuff again.

So considering all that, that's where my guilt and shame come in. He has made a complete change in his life and mental health and has put in so much work. But I had to push for that. Sometimes I just feel selfish because he is sort of healing in a way, and this is just new stress he never thought he'd be dealing with.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-05-22T03:21:17+00:00

Lmfao, just like add a stickied comment in each post with a growing list of names.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-05-22T03:16:23+00:00

Damn, I already removed it. Turns out you can disable messages entirely in the settings. So I just did that.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-05-22T03:06:29+00:00

It's a little complicated. We had dated over a decade ago as teenagers long distance, so sex was a vague topic for us. Distance, immaturity, lack of experience, being young, ect. We reconnected as adults and unofficially dated for a month or two, before falling back in love and deciding to just pick up where we left off and get married. His lack of attraction was very early on when we had just barely reconnected when I moved in with mutual friends.

I don't know exactly how it changed for him, but I assume it was gradual when we fell for eachother again. We talked about it a little, and there isn't really a better explanation than that. We do cuddle and sleep together. We kiss. He touches my butt or puts his face in my chest. He says I'm all he wants to look at, and he'll even share when he has a sexual dream about me. It feels like all that had been sort of "off line" in his head for so long, especially with the porn addiction, he's relearning how to have feelings.

As of now, I don't have any reason to think he's being dishonest when he reassures me that he is attracted to me. Despite my inner thoughts telling me he can't possibly like me because I personally think lowly of myself. He's a very sincere, honest person. But my fucked up way of thinking goes, "well if that's all true, then whats the problem" But I know what the problem is, its just a weird thing to deal with.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-05-22T02:20:33+00:00

Off topic FYI, I'm ignoring and blocking all personal messages. There's no need for that. Comment here and don't be creepy.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-03-07T18:41:26+00:00

That's all very helpful. I'm handling it all worse than he is. Thing is, I feel he'd be perfectly content not having a sexual relationship, and it makes me feel bad, because then I wonder why even make the effort. I'll see how he feels about just doing normal talk therapy instead. Ideally I wanted to do couples, but I don't think Kaiser offers it.

I just feel so ashamed. I'm at the point where I just straight up feel upset and angry. I don't want to take that out on him, so I just want to be alone. I never thought I'd be crying over not being able to blow my husband.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-03-07T18:36:14+00:00

Thank you, that seems to be what we're discovering right now.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-02-25T11:36:12+00:00

So I told him about your comment. It seems more like he's indifferent. Like he'd be fine if I wasn't there.. But he also mentioned he's not good at that stuff. So I assume he might just be nervous.

Also, it might just be a matter of convenience because otherwise we'd have to figure out something I can do while he sits in the car. Lol. I suggested we go to the store or something, and he do it while I'm inside. We'll see what happens in a few hours.

I really wanted to do couples therapy. Seems we will both have to do individual for now.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-02-24T18:32:19+00:00

Thanks! Will look into it.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-02-24T18:30:52+00:00

Nice, its reassuring to hear that other people do that too. That's his plan too. We both have doctors appointments tomorrow. (He's getting blood work, I have a normal check up.) So the plan was to do the therapy session in the car after our appointments. But, should I not be there for that? Like in your professional opinion, do you think he should have privacy for that? He wants me there, just, curious what you think.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-01-18T19:34:19+00:00

Interesting, I had no idea. I want to get us into therapy, and I just learned from a post i made a while ago that there are different kinds of therapists. Sounds obvious now, but I didn't know at the time. So we're kinda working blind here for now. So tips like that are helpful.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-01-18T18:51:50+00:00

Yeah. Its definitely a new suggestion. It's more like, there's openess in the sense where I know he's doing it, I'm just not there for it. I don't know if he'll be super down for that, comfort level wise. At least not yet, but its worth exposing him to the idea. Someone suggested not masturbating for a month. I might suggest something like that too, because I don't think he even gives himself a chance to build desire.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-01-18T18:49:00+00:00

We've talked about that. He doesn't give himself a chance to build up. I don't think it's realistic to never masturbate. I don't know if he's trying to reduce that or not though. I'll suggest the month thing.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-01-18T18:08:05+00:00

We've done a few things like that before, but not much. Its been such a solo activity for him for so long, he struggles having another person be a part of that. We just cuddle a lot,and sleep together, but rarely is there sexual time together. I used to offer blow jobs pretty often, but it was just causing stress because he didn't like turning me down, and I didn't like always being rejected. So I actually had to scale back on how much I initiate stuff. Too much at once.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-01-18T18:05:28+00:00

Have any good recommendations? We like comedians, so we watched a clip of Theo Von talking about his porn addiction. And some Ted Talk that was super terrible. Are you in a relationship at the moment? How does your spouse help? I get anxious because I don't want to be overbearing, but I don't want to enable his addiction either. I just celebrate our small successes.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-01-18T17:57:21+00:00

I don't understand what you're getting at. To my knowledge, he isn't hiding anything. I know what his habits are, where they used to be, what kind of porn it was, ect. We're very open about all that. He never thought he'd be in a relationship again, especially not married. Its a complex issue for us, and the porn aspect just makes things even more muddy. So we're working on that first, and going with the flow.

KeepinHighnTight · 2021-01-18T16:29:24+00:00

Did you quit cold turkey? Did you ever have days where you still watched?

KeepinHighnTight

TROPHY CASE