... How have your partners reacted when/if you've told them? How do u ever get over it enough to allow your partner to be intimate and find it pleasurable, rather than abusive? :s
It's an interesting question. First off, though, I just want to underscore that this is me/my experience, not what I'm suggesting you or anyone else do.
I didn't tell my husband, and that was a mistake. Not in the not telling him. I was right on the money there, the man cannot and should not be trusted. The mistake was in marrying someone that I couldn't/wouldn't trust with all of me. When I got to that particular fork in the road, to tell or not to tell, I should have walked away. So, for me, that's become a line in the sand. If I'm unwilling to trust someone, I should not be dating them.
Other sexual/romantic partners fall into 2 basic camps: those I told and those I didn't. The ones I didn't tell, I didn't for a variety of reasons I'll just skip. Of those that I did? Whole host of different reactions.
What I've come to realize, though, is that their reactions don't matter.
What does matter is
my reaction to their reactions!
Meaning, is their reaction helpful to me or does it screw me up further? I'd say, on average, about 30% were reactions I could happily live with. Another 30% were probably perfectly lovely reactions for someone not me, and then the final 30% I can't see being useful for anyone.
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How did I get over it enough to respond to intimacy? I'm not sure that I have, but I'm working on it.
Physical intimacy I dealt with ages ago, by sleeping around a lot. Washed away all the bad with a whole lot of good and amazing. I'm not suggesting anyone else do this, but it's what I did.
The other side of the intimacy coin is what I'm currently working on. I don't trust people in general. I like them, I can sleep with them, but I'm not keen on trusting them. Copious amounts of sex fixed the one side... But where I seriously screwed up in that process was that I was very specifically sleeping with people that I couldn't/wouldn't fall in love with. (And not sleeping with people I could). I ended up marrying (and falling for) one of those blokes, having entirely forgotten my original intent of only sleeping with people I not only didn't mind discarding, but shouldn't really have in my life for very long, anyway. Not that these were bad guys. Most of them were really lovely, amazing, awesome men. Total sweethearts. A lot of military, police, fire... Who were right on the same page with me as to not wanting to be in a relationship, and really upfront and honest about it. Part of washing away all the yuck was in being with good people, not more bad ones. Just people that I wasn't right for, or who weren't right for me. So there was little risk of hurting or being hurt. There were a few regrettable cases, where I misjudged them. And one of them I made the mistake of marrying. Because I didn't trust my own judgement.
Which is my only word of caution for both of us. We may be on opposite sides of the spectrum, trying to reach the middle... But in the middle is the ability to trust your own judgement. The only way I know to learn that is trial and error.
I tried to eliminate risk, but that doesn't work. In order to learn to trust my own judgement, I actually have to make judgements. And be wrong. And learn from it. And be right. And revel in it. But I have to be willing to risk being uncomfortable, embarrassed, unhappy, and plain and simply wrong...in order to learn how to be right. I hate that part.
