Relationship Lets Talk About Sex And Intimacy

[amethist]

Hi Kathia

Anyone who has a depressive or anxiety based illness, sex is one of the first things to go, they cannot cope with the expectation of having to shall we say perform, it is too much for them.

You are really going to have to back off for a while, let him decide when he is ready, it is the only way. The more you expect and pressure you put on him, the longer this will take.

It is frustrating, but for them it is worse, knowing your expecting movement and them knowing it is not going to happen.

It's possibly not that he is avoiding the subject, he probably does not know how to explain, at the moment he has no drive.

Maybe this link will help you understand how good stress from a relationship can be as bad as bad stress to them.

[DLMURL]https://www.ptsdforum.org/c/threads/the-ptsd-cup-explanation.13737/[/DLMURL]

Amethist

 

[Kathia]

This doesnt apply he doesn't fly off the handle. How long am I suppose to wait before he feels like talking. I've been beyond supportive and understanding.

I can't be in a relationship without affection. I'm sorry that doesn't work for me. I'm an affectionate person. I'm already talking to a therapist cause I can't talk to him about anything other than his rap career which I have facilitated by getting him investors and me investing myself.

He won't go to therapy. Seriously I feel like I'm at fault and walking on eggshells all the the time. I have shelved my desires for the man on all levels. All I'm asking that he make sincere effort.

IF PTSD is used as cruch in certain instances. Being an alcoholic doesn't excuse you from driving drunk or neglecting your loved ones. I'm just tired of being alone and told to wait and that we are asking progress where? He can't hug me or snuggle with me.

Maybe I need to start smoking weed in order to bond with him cause it's not happening on any other level. Where is my support honestly I can't talk to my friends or family who think this is toxic to begin with.

I feel like this has made me distraught and depressed and he doesn't care or doesn't get it.

 

[Eleanor]

Kathia, if he is not getting treatment - it is almost certainly not going to get better. This IS what you are signing up for. The only difference between a garden variety abusive relationship and a "healthy" PTSD relationship is the commitment to treatment. Actually, probably the only relevant difference between healthy and abusive relationships generally is a commitment (on everyone's part) to heal their own wounds an meet their own needs - the relationship is about giving each other opportunities to be supportive in meeting each other needs.

Sorry to be so blunt. You need to understand what PTSD is and does better, and you want to obviously - AND you need to decide if this is the road you really want to travel. You are still in the early days of this relationship, right? Or am I remembering wrong?

With respect to the earlier posts, it might be helpful to remember the difference between "demands" and "requests" is that when we make requests - we make them from a place that it is ok for the other person to refuse them. How ever we make them, though, it is not guaranteed that the person we make them to will RECEIVE them correctly. It is possible to make a demand and it be perceived as a request and vice versa.

If you read back in time in the diaries and posts of supporters with long term relationships you will get a more realistic idea of what this ride is like. If I wasn't married and had a child with my H when his PTSD emerged... I don't know that we'd be together. I certainly wouldn't have knowingly signed up for this... Which is not to say I don't love my husband, I love him to the marrow of my bones, but I love myself too, and this is a HARD life. Much harder than I would knowingly have chosen.

 

[Kathia]

Eleanor but for me to continue for the long haul I need to see something from him PSTD or not. I can't kep apologizing and bottling my feelings so that he's comfortable. I honestly think at times I dislike him for having this I don't care attitude. I love him but I don't always like him. He either doesn't care what he's doing to us or is clueless cause the man is a vault. He has never planned a date or anything. He does need to get help. At this rate we may not Make it through the summer.

 

[angel2write]

There is NO lack of sex drive, but instead he has a difficult time "finishing". He gets extremely frustrated

My thought about this one is, have you checked his medication? A lot of them have this side effect, esp. SSRI's. We went through this problem for a while, halved the Lexapro dose, and things got better.

I mean, I know there are all kinds of psychological reasons that can interfere, too, but sometimes it's just the meds messing with their physiology.

 

[Eleanor]

for me to continue for the long haul I need to see something from him PSTD or not.

He does need to get help. At this rate we may not Make it through the summer.

Sorry I lost track of this thread for a bit!

"At this rate" - maybe you guys shouldn't make it through the summer. What is it you are looking for in a relationship?

Warning: I am probably a bit "old fashioned" but not because I am a fuddy duddy (I've lived with boyfriends etc.) but because I am, at the end of the day, pragmatic. Also, this is probably too blunt.

You aren't married, and you don't have an obligation to him. Boyfriend/girlfriend relationships are (unless some serious mutual, clearly articulated agreement has been reached) by definition temporary and are ALWAYS (even if there are agreements) purely voluntary. You don't HAVE to sign up for this.

Your first priority has to be you. If you are not taking care of yourself, you can't be any help to him anyway. If he is not going to take care of himself, nothing you can do can help him. That is the hard and unyielding truth about PTSD from where I sit. Maybe about life in general.

If he is not the guy for you, he is not the guy for you. Let him find himself and then someone who is better suited to him. And you get on with healing whatever led you to want a guy who can't show up for the relationship, and living your life. You have a good heart, and are a caring person - be careful about getting yourself into a relationship with someone else who needs to be "rescued."

 

[amethist]

Hi kathia

Before you go any further, it may be a good idea for you to learn just how PTSD can effect sufferers.

What we as supporters need from them and what they can give can be poles apart, if your lucky you can at some point meet in the middle.

You are never going to get exactly what you want from any relationship, possibly far less from someone with PTSD. Sometimes you have to step back and ask yourself if you are expecting too much form someone who suffers with PTSD, through no fault of their own.

An understanding of how it does effect them can go a long way to compromise. If you cant then as Eleanor has already said, "Maybe you guy's shouldn't make it through the summer", for both your sakes.

You have to be able to take care of yourself, before you can take care of him.

 

[HorseChick]

Having your sexual advances make your partner feel "uncomfortable" can really make a person feel like a creep for wanting sex. Additionally, the idea of making the if/when of sex entirely up to him makes me feel like a tool (I only get "used" when my bf feels like it).

It is hard to tune these thoughts/feelings out AND hard to accept that I can't ask for the closeness that I want when I want it. AND I think it is only normal for supporters to feel rejected when we're rejected. We may be zen masters but we're only human, right? ;)

I can sooo empathize with your feelings. I've given up on "asking" for sex or even closeness. Now I've put up a wall from the hurt of being rejected and I feel so angry all the time. And I'm so tired of having to hide my anger.

He is a combat veteran and I'm a rape (among other traumas) survivor. We both have PTSD. Before he started his treatment about 8 years ago, we had a great sex life and I felt so close, safe, and loved.

I know I have secondary PTSD from years of walking on eggshells, wondering when it will be a good time to talk, but the talks always turn into him telling me all the things that are wrong with me that make him not want to be intimate with me.

My horses were a wonderful therapy, but now, because of back pain, just going to the barn to feed is a chore. I don't have anything or anybody that I can count on now. I feel so alone.

 

[Eleanor]

Well, HorseChick, for better or worse, you are not alone here.

You guys are going to have to work through this if you want to stay together. Does he want it to improve? Have you guys tried any couples counseling? (although a good couples T, is hard hard to find in my experience. So many are just wussy.) Is it possible he is doing old relationship stuff with you? PTSD - or its lesser cousin bad patterns - can get us stuck in any number of ways...

I have no idea whether this will be at all helpful or even appropriate in your case, by my H and I just had a breakthrough of sorts (I think). It is, of course, a long story, but every time he'd have an episode or just get emotionally overwhelmed he would go straight to "I'm through. We will just split up." I hung on and hung on and told him I didn't want to split up etc. This has been going on for... more than two years. So last weekend I said, "Ok. You win." And he called and tried to talk to me, and I just shut up. I said not a word even though he was saying all kinds of false and hurtful things about me. We were getting divorced, what did I care? Go ahead, vent away, I thought. And then, a funny thing happened, he started saying new stuff. Kind of surprising stuff, even to him. And he cried a bit. Then he went back to how I didn't care, blah blah blah. When he wound down, I told him I heard how hurt he felt, and tried to say he was wrong about a couple of the things he thought I thought. He just shut down and said "I can't talk any more." and hung up. I waited a bit, then I went to see him - not to argue - just with the intention to offer him whatever comfort and support a friendly person might offer someone who was suffering. And... we managed to talk, and get clear on a lot of stuff that had been stuck for a long time.

I don't know much of anything about your situation except you have one. All I can tell you is that all my friends here have been very nicely telling me that I HAVE to take care of myself first, and I kind of thought I was, but I really wasn't until I gave up on "us." Then, as my T says, the energy shifted. And different things became possible.

Sounds like you guys are good and stuck, and it might be time to loosen up the old grip on some or the other bits of it?

 

[ARH10]

Reading all these responses leaves me feeling understood and conflicted. To me sex is an important part of a relationship--and it used to be an important part of this one in particular.

My sufferer is dealing with combat ptsd not something related to sexual abuse. And when he is having particular low there is zero sex drive. It's terrible and awful. I know it seems petty but combine with him being emotionally closed off, I just feel like a glorified roommate most of the time.

I'm a young woman and I feel like I deserve to have great sex now while I want it and am happy to have it. I've triedMANY ways of addressing the topic. Nothing seems to work.

It's hard to avoid self-blame. Ugh.

 

[Deleted member 26072]

I didn't get the chance to read every response to this post, so this question might have been already asked and answers. I am a 'sufferer' and my own sex drive has completely diminished in the last month. It was fine before hand, I was still very anxious in generally revolving anything intimate, but I was getting better. Then after a series of bad nights (nightmares) and a couple of bad encounters, I got worse and now I have little interest in intimacy. I still like my hugs and kisses, but thats it. My 'trauma' was kind of sexually related, but more physical, with an ex-boyfriend.

What I'm asking, is can this loss of sex drive be intermittent? As in, can it come and go? I've been with my boyfriend for 7 months now, and at the start of the relationship, I made him wait a month before I could kiss him and then it was about 3 or 4 months before I could do anything else. And since then, it's been on and off with my feelings about sex - sometimes I feel violated, others I just feel insecure, and a lot of the time, my desire for it has complete gone.

 

[angel2write]

My sufferer is dealing with combat ptsd not something related to sexual abuse. And when he is having particular low there is zero sex drive. It's terrible and awful.

What I'm asking, is can this loss of sex drive be intermittent? As in, can it come and go? I've been with my boyfriend for 7 months now, and at the start of the relationship, I made him wait a month before I could kiss him and then it was about 3 or 4 months before I could do anything else.

OK, I'm not an expert, but if you want my opinion and experience... for what it's worth, here it is:

ARH10- PTSD is exhausting. You're fighting anxiety all the time, your body is flooded with stress hormones, you can't sleep, you over-react to everything, you have to fight anger, you have to fight fear, you never feel safe and you never, ever relax.

It's not, to put it bluntly, sexy. And when he's low, he's probably so worn out and spazzed out from all the stress, there's just about nothing left. When I'm really bad, just being in the room with another person can be like having a cheese-grater run over my nerves. But with time and effort, I believe it can get better. The bad times will still come, but as recovery progresses, there will be more good times. And honestly, my husband and I are way closer now than we ever were before. The way he stood beside me and was there for me just about every single minute of my recovery process has bonded us in an amazing way. Our sex life is pretty darned awesome now. But it took years.

So... what do you do if you want to have sex, but you're hampered by PTSD? To answer Khione, yes, I think it can come and go. Just based on what you wrote above, and not knowing anything else about you at all, I'd say you can have a sex life IF (and here's the big "if") IF you're willing to fight for it.

My trauma was somewhat sexual, somewhat physical. My sex life is still kind of warped. But I wanted sex. I didn't want it to be just one more thing my abusers ruined and took away from me. Attitude has a lot to do with it: attitude towards sex, attitude towards the abuse you suffered, attitude towards recovery, attitude towards your partner.

Also, how important is your relationship? People with PTSD can be hell on their partners. Sex is usually pretty important to (healthy) guys. How hard are you willing to fight for your own healing in this area & to recover this part of your life so you can share it with your partner? Seeing you fight for something that he cares about will help motivate him (hopefully) to stick and be there when you need his help & support. Which is not the same thing as saying you have to put out to keep him. Just that, if he doesn't even see you making an effort (even if you are) it can be really discouraging. So talk to him, share with him as much as you can about how you feel, what you want, what you need to succeed.

You have to recognize, too, that sometimes you're going to try and fail. Sometimes it just won't work. And it will help a lot if you can both be calm about that. If you get to kissing and have to wave off... well, at least you got to kissing this time! Think about it like training for a marathon: you have to start where you are & improve slowly. It's not going to happen overnight.

There... was that, like, way too much advice?