B
Bootstrap
First time poster; wish I’d found this site months ago. I (M31) have been seeing my partner (F36) for one year. We are both college students. She is a single mother of two children (M10 and F7). We live separately. She has C-PTSD as a result of sexual/psychological abuse during an eight-year marriage with the father of her children; she has had zero contact with him since taking her children to a women’s shelter, five years ago. I am the first person she’s dated seriously since leaving him.
Relationship started out with the usual giddy warmth and daydreams of the future. We settled down a bit after a few months of that. Three months ago, we began feeling a bit more distant; she was under pressure, which cut into our ability to be emotionally or physically intimate. Sexual intimacy is a trigger, and we’ve set boundaries around how we talk about sex so that she can feel safe.
I spoke to her about my need for quality time with each other, she shared more about her need for space, and we listened to the other. The problem started a couple of weeks later; she started to feel guilty and pressured to attend to me, whether she was in a place to do so or not. She felt like she was letting me down, and resented me for creating that feeling.
We talked a few more times, and she began sharing that she didn’t know if she could ever be in a committed relationship again. She’d started feeling nervous and trapped after we began getting more seriously involved with each other. She gave me the usual “You deserve someone better than me.” She also told me that she loved me, and she still wanted to try even if she felt scared.
Two weeks after that she told me she didn’t want to date, on the exact day she left her ex five years before. I said okay, and tried to validate her feelings even as I felt the bottom dropping out. We had lunch and parted. And I’ve been confused since. I am not ready to break up with this lovely and passionate person.
She held me tightly and moved to kiss me before we parted; I asked her not to. We meet for coffee a week later, where I apologized for my part in making her feel unsafe, and told her what I would do to help her feel safe and give her space. She engaged in the conversation, but did not express a desire to stay together. Which, okay. So I dropped it and told her I wouldn’t bring it up again.
Then she grabbed my hand and held it as we walked through the park next to the coffee shop. She sat and chatted with me for awhile, and cozied close into my arms. She showed up to an event hosted by mutual friends, and hugged me goodbye for what felt like an eternity while looking into my eyes with a tender expression. She invited me to a concert next week, and to join her family for dinner and watch a movie with the kids.
I feel like I am getting mixed signals. I do not know what to do. Do I set boundaries? Do I lean into it, with the hope that she is trying to find her way back to me? I know I can’t push her. I don’t know if I’m fooling myself.
My hope is that she needed to isolate for awhile due to the added stress of a significant anniversary in her recovery process, and didn’t know how else to communicate that; it’s not something she’s ever asked for.
Relationship started out with the usual giddy warmth and daydreams of the future. We settled down a bit after a few months of that. Three months ago, we began feeling a bit more distant; she was under pressure, which cut into our ability to be emotionally or physically intimate. Sexual intimacy is a trigger, and we’ve set boundaries around how we talk about sex so that she can feel safe.
I spoke to her about my need for quality time with each other, she shared more about her need for space, and we listened to the other. The problem started a couple of weeks later; she started to feel guilty and pressured to attend to me, whether she was in a place to do so or not. She felt like she was letting me down, and resented me for creating that feeling.
We talked a few more times, and she began sharing that she didn’t know if she could ever be in a committed relationship again. She’d started feeling nervous and trapped after we began getting more seriously involved with each other. She gave me the usual “You deserve someone better than me.” She also told me that she loved me, and she still wanted to try even if she felt scared.
Two weeks after that she told me she didn’t want to date, on the exact day she left her ex five years before. I said okay, and tried to validate her feelings even as I felt the bottom dropping out. We had lunch and parted. And I’ve been confused since. I am not ready to break up with this lovely and passionate person.
She held me tightly and moved to kiss me before we parted; I asked her not to. We meet for coffee a week later, where I apologized for my part in making her feel unsafe, and told her what I would do to help her feel safe and give her space. She engaged in the conversation, but did not express a desire to stay together. Which, okay. So I dropped it and told her I wouldn’t bring it up again.
Then she grabbed my hand and held it as we walked through the park next to the coffee shop. She sat and chatted with me for awhile, and cozied close into my arms. She showed up to an event hosted by mutual friends, and hugged me goodbye for what felt like an eternity while looking into my eyes with a tender expression. She invited me to a concert next week, and to join her family for dinner and watch a movie with the kids.
I feel like I am getting mixed signals. I do not know what to do. Do I set boundaries? Do I lean into it, with the hope that she is trying to find her way back to me? I know I can’t push her. I don’t know if I’m fooling myself.
My hope is that she needed to isolate for awhile due to the added stress of a significant anniversary in her recovery process, and didn’t know how else to communicate that; it’s not something she’s ever asked for.