neonmothership
New Here
I’ve spent a lot of time on this forum over the past few weeks, and found it to be a great support in trying to help me process my recent situation with my girlfriend.
I’m sorry, this turned out much longer than I thought…
I’ve been with my girlfriend who is diagnosed with ptsd for around a year now. Her ptsd stems from her childhood when her dad sexually assaulted her. And later in her life she was raped by someone she considered a friend. It’s worth saying she has had counselling in the past for this.
The start of the relationship was great. We grew very close, and I can honestly say I’ve never met anyone like her. We had even discussed the idea of moving in together. As time progressed, she slowly became more distant. She initiated sex less, she was less affectionate in general and it felt like she was distancing herself and pulling away from me. I was growing to love this girl more and more, and it felt like I was maybe committing myself too much to this relationship. Being inexperienced with ptsd, my initial thoughts were that she was losing her feeling towards me and was slowly pulling away. Looking back now, I see this was a ptsd response.
Eventually we had a discussion about this. At this point she mentioned that she had been in a relationship that had ended a few months before we started dating. This guy encouraged her to open up about everything, but would eventually go on to end the relationship and disappear without much closure.
This hurt her more than she initially realised. It left her feeling worthless and the fact she felt safe and trusted him, to then be suddenly left feeling vulnerable and exposed, is affecting her in this relationship. As our relationship has become more serious, her self preservation instincts have kicked in and by distancing herself from me emotionally it goes some way to stopping her getting hurt again. After this we decided to slow down talk of moving in together, which did help for a while.
A few months on she has become more distanced, we rarely are intimate with each other and I can sense she’s going inside herself more. She’s very busy with work, and she’s been struggling with feeling overwhelmed more recently. I felt like I was having to initiate most affection, and due to work demands we didn’t get chance to spend quality time with each other like we used to.
She was really cutting herself off from me emotionally, we were communicating less and it felt like a wall was building up between us. This lead to a discussion two weeks ago where we both said we felt distanced from each other.
She went on to explain that she’s been experiencing extreme anxiety, a fight or flight response to physical intimacy with me. She’s being trying to overcome this herself, but it’s eventually reached breaking point when she found herself crying during/after sex. She’s never experienced this in such a way before.
She went on to explain that her way of dealing with this was to avoid intimacy, she was less affectionate and less emotionally connected with me to reduce the scenario of it happening. And the longer this happens, It’s like she gets in a negative feedback loop of anticipating feeling like this during sex. When I first met her she was extremely sexual, so reflecting now on how it’s changed over time should have been more of a clue something wasn’t right. I kick myself for not picking up on it as being a ptsd response, or for thinking it’s because her feelings have changed towards me. I respect her and her boundaries and never want her to feel pressured into anything she’s not comfortable with.
The outcome of this discussion was that she needs space. She feels like she’s not able to breathe and process why she’s feeling like this while she’s still trying to be present in a relationship. She feels the best way is to remove the pressure/exposure of intimacy to help her gain some clarity. We both still love each other. She feels she needs to face up to this by herself as to not ruin any chance of this relationship working. And I’m proud of her being brave enough to voice this.
Since then I’ve remained in contact with her, although significantly less, and we’ve recently decided to slow things down and go back to the dating stage.
She’s hoping by taking things slow we can rebuild up to being intimate. However, she’s also said she’s scared because what if somewhere underneath I’m reminding her of her dad/attacker in some way?
I feel in limbo. I love this girl very much. I want to support her to support herself, but finding the balance of also supporting my own feelings quite hard.
The optimist in me wants to take things slow and try and work it out. But am I being naïve? I’m finding it hard taking a step back watching her keep busy with friends, when deep down I want to be with her for days at a time not just once a week. I want to make memories and continue building a life together. But equally I want to try everything in my ability to make this work, and understand this is part of that journey.
Does anyone have advice or experience of a relationship that has experienced these types of intimacy issues? Any comments really are appreciated, thank you for reading
I’m sorry, this turned out much longer than I thought…
I’ve been with my girlfriend who is diagnosed with ptsd for around a year now. Her ptsd stems from her childhood when her dad sexually assaulted her. And later in her life she was raped by someone she considered a friend. It’s worth saying she has had counselling in the past for this.
The start of the relationship was great. We grew very close, and I can honestly say I’ve never met anyone like her. We had even discussed the idea of moving in together. As time progressed, she slowly became more distant. She initiated sex less, she was less affectionate in general and it felt like she was distancing herself and pulling away from me. I was growing to love this girl more and more, and it felt like I was maybe committing myself too much to this relationship. Being inexperienced with ptsd, my initial thoughts were that she was losing her feeling towards me and was slowly pulling away. Looking back now, I see this was a ptsd response.
Eventually we had a discussion about this. At this point she mentioned that she had been in a relationship that had ended a few months before we started dating. This guy encouraged her to open up about everything, but would eventually go on to end the relationship and disappear without much closure.
This hurt her more than she initially realised. It left her feeling worthless and the fact she felt safe and trusted him, to then be suddenly left feeling vulnerable and exposed, is affecting her in this relationship. As our relationship has become more serious, her self preservation instincts have kicked in and by distancing herself from me emotionally it goes some way to stopping her getting hurt again. After this we decided to slow down talk of moving in together, which did help for a while.
A few months on she has become more distanced, we rarely are intimate with each other and I can sense she’s going inside herself more. She’s very busy with work, and she’s been struggling with feeling overwhelmed more recently. I felt like I was having to initiate most affection, and due to work demands we didn’t get chance to spend quality time with each other like we used to.
She was really cutting herself off from me emotionally, we were communicating less and it felt like a wall was building up between us. This lead to a discussion two weeks ago where we both said we felt distanced from each other.
She went on to explain that she’s been experiencing extreme anxiety, a fight or flight response to physical intimacy with me. She’s being trying to overcome this herself, but it’s eventually reached breaking point when she found herself crying during/after sex. She’s never experienced this in such a way before.
She went on to explain that her way of dealing with this was to avoid intimacy, she was less affectionate and less emotionally connected with me to reduce the scenario of it happening. And the longer this happens, It’s like she gets in a negative feedback loop of anticipating feeling like this during sex. When I first met her she was extremely sexual, so reflecting now on how it’s changed over time should have been more of a clue something wasn’t right. I kick myself for not picking up on it as being a ptsd response, or for thinking it’s because her feelings have changed towards me. I respect her and her boundaries and never want her to feel pressured into anything she’s not comfortable with.
The outcome of this discussion was that she needs space. She feels like she’s not able to breathe and process why she’s feeling like this while she’s still trying to be present in a relationship. She feels the best way is to remove the pressure/exposure of intimacy to help her gain some clarity. We both still love each other. She feels she needs to face up to this by herself as to not ruin any chance of this relationship working. And I’m proud of her being brave enough to voice this.
Since then I’ve remained in contact with her, although significantly less, and we’ve recently decided to slow things down and go back to the dating stage.
She’s hoping by taking things slow we can rebuild up to being intimate. However, she’s also said she’s scared because what if somewhere underneath I’m reminding her of her dad/attacker in some way?
I feel in limbo. I love this girl very much. I want to support her to support herself, but finding the balance of also supporting my own feelings quite hard.
The optimist in me wants to take things slow and try and work it out. But am I being naïve? I’m finding it hard taking a step back watching her keep busy with friends, when deep down I want to be with her for days at a time not just once a week. I want to make memories and continue building a life together. But equally I want to try everything in my ability to make this work, and understand this is part of that journey.
Does anyone have advice or experience of a relationship that has experienced these types of intimacy issues? Any comments really are appreciated, thank you for reading