Me: 29F, partner: 31M, been together for 2,5 years, before that we were best friends for over a year.

TLDR: I am experiencing a lot of pressure to perform sexually and have trust issues from bad relationships and past experiences. My idea of a relationship revolved around duty, pleasing your partner, and self-sacrificing to a harmful extent. This reached critical mass for me, I recently broke down and now I’m trying to re-build my life around a new, healthier concept of a relationship, built on equality, flexibility, acceptance, and personal responsibility. My current partner is actually a wholesome, honest sweetheart who would love nothing more than for me to just be me and for us to be equals. I am frustrated because emotionally I don’t feel like I can be truly equal yet. I still struggle with my past despite my new partner. I’m looking for insight from people with similar experiences and advice for how to regain trust after long-term emotional trauma and successfully embracing my new beliefs of what a relationship is supposed to be.

This is a long read, but I hope people can share their own experiences. For me this is uncharted terrain and I feel lost.

Bullet point background info!

My fears:

• If I don’t give my partner what they want/need I’ll face rejection, resentment, they’ll be disappointed, sad, mad, manipulate me into doing it anyway, and eventually leave me.
• I fear my libido is not high enough for my partner or myself. I want an abundant, free, adventurous, joyful sex life, and I fear I won’t feel ‘into’ it/horny/carefree/secure enough to build up to that.
• Not being good enough.
• Believing my ‘role’/duty as a partner is to fulfil my partner’s sexual needs. I don’t matter.
• Love is conditional and about checking your partner’s boxes. If I don’t fit their picture, we break up. I’ll end up losing a connection and feel lonely.

Past experiences:

• My ex-partner throwing tantrums, being sad to the point of tears, disappointed or dejected and resentful for long periods of time if I said no to doing something he wanted me to do.
• Pushing myself past my own comfort and boundaries to fit a role to please my ex-partner, or to prevent them from being sad/upset for very long periods of time (months/years).
• My ex-partner admitting he was using me to satisfy his fetishes (he was very into something, and I wasn’t. I still sometimes complied to please him, but when I said no when I wasn’t in the mood for that, he suddenly was no longer interested in sex with me).
• Me feeling very rejected, resentful, and unwanted when my ex-partner didn’t want to have sex with me. Definitely a result from the idea of needing to fit a role in a relationship, conditional love and thinking that you’re responsible for your partner’s needs and feelings.

I understand he didn’t do anything of this out of malice, he was just not mature enough to be responsible for his own feelings. He relied on me a lot to pull him from negative places. My own resentment and sadness came from the idea of ‘I sacrifice so much for him, and he won’t even try to return the favor’. Very toxic and telling of my old belief that a relationship is built on duty and responsibility towards each other.

This leads to current day, in a different relationship, where I feel pressure to:

• Have a high enough libido to spontaneously and often ‘just’ jump into it.
• Have flirting or teasing lead to sex.
• Keep going during sex until they are ‘done’, I don’t feel free to stop halfway/when I want.

The biggest current trigger and why I’m actively struggling with it now:

My current partner (of 2,5 years) has quite a high libido. His ‘accelerators’ are very sensitive, and his ‘brakes’ are not. I am a bit different, my accelerators are sensitive, but my brakes are hugely sensitive as well. At the start of our relationship, we had a lot of sex all the time, and engaged in kink freely and joyfully. We trusted each other fully and were enthusiastically consensual. Him telling me how much he wanted me was the sexiest in the world for me and would turn me on like a switch. Since then, we’ve been dealing with a lot of hardship: financial stress, his chronic illness, my depression and burnout, work, school, family, the pandemic, etc. and the stress of it all brought up the worst patterns and triggers from my past. In my core I still believed relationships were based on duty and pleasing your partner. My patterns always revolved about taking a pleasing role for my partner so they would accept and love me. If my relationship started feeling insecure, I would try harder and harder to serve them and be exactly what they wanted me to be.

I started believing he only wanted sex with me for himself, not for my joy as well. I started labelling every little negative thing about his behavior as the red flags from my past and believed it to be evidence that he was just like those people. Evidence that he was blind for my needs and emotions, that he had expectations I needed to meet and that he would be disappointed if I didn’t and manipulate me to get his way. His flirting has become very loaded, because now I experience all this (ungrounded) pressure to react positively to it, enjoy it, or let it lead to sex, even if I wasn’t in the mood. Him telling me how much he wanted me now felt like a one-sided expression of his physical horniness that had nothing to do with me actually being a willing and enthusiastically consensual partner. Let alone the joy of connecting and vulnerability. I shut down because I don’t want to be used.

I want to say all of this was 100% in my head, but I can’t say for sure because of my survival-mechanism brain telling me some things he does are the same as what I experienced in the past. That’s my struggle right now: I have a hard time really believing I can be equal in the relationship and feeling emotionally safe and secure in it. We hit a critical point four months back where all of this suddenly hit critical mass for me and I stopped feeling in love, which scared the crap out of both of us. We’ve had a lot of talks and took a massive mental health break where we focused on getting clarity. I unearthed all the patterns and toxic roots from my past and we noticed that I had really pessimistic ideas of what a good relationship looked like. His idea of a relationship was as equals, who are both responsible for their own needs and emotions, and who support each other when they can and want to, without obligation and without having to shove yourself aside. And most importantly, with both partners having the power to change the relationship to whatever they want and need as time goes on, so it can grow with both people and accommodate both their needs. This way you’ll always be a part of what’s going on, and you won’t do anything past your own boundaries of comfort level. His actions reflect this too, but with ‘negativity glasses’ on, I interpret lots of things as red flags and I need a lot of reassurance all the time.

I really want this equal kind of relationship too, but mostly experienced this as the giving partner, not the receiving one. I’m sad to say I have no idea what a relationship as true equals feels like, and that’s why I have such a hard time really believing and ‘feeling’ it. It also scares me. It’s very vulnerable to me to really be my true self and assert my boundaries, as I deep down have trouble feeling ‘good enough’. I fear them rejecting the true me. Playing the ‘perfect girlfriend’ role has always been, in my head, a safe choice, as the perfect girlfriend would not be rejected and lonely. I now know that’s a self-defeating pattern as it always ends with me not feeling satisfied and unable to truly connect. However, I now have massive trust issues coming out of it, that I don’t really know how to deal with further.

The biggest trigger right now is that during this long critical period, he expressed that he needed more sexual connection. We figured that me not feeling safe and secure in the relationship is the biggest ‘brake’ withholding me from having a healthier, happier, and more spontaneous attitude towards sex. We’ve since then slowly made steps and we can now semi-regularly engage in mutually joyful, consensual sex. But I’m not where I want to be. Whenever stress hits, my libido disappears. When we’ve had an argument, especially if I feel unseen or criticised, I can get stuck in this fearful headspace for days where I revert to seeing all his behavior in a negative light and can hardly pull myself out of it. I want to want more sex, but I’m frustrated with myself when I don’t feel horny or safe enough to be horny. I’m frustrated with myself for not feeling safe when I actually am safe. I’m frustrated with myself for not feeling good enough. I’m frustrated with being fearful and not being able to emotionally feel what I can rationally see: a wonderful loving partner, who doesn’t want me to ever feel pressured, and who sees me as an equal. He still has the want/need for more sex, but since the main problems are being worked on and he sees my efforts, he’s been able to put it in the background for now. He doesn’t bring it up unless I ask him about it, and he’s been dealing with his sexual needs by himself if he needs to, so he doesn’t pressure me at all. This, however, doesn’t change that he still, eventually, wants more sex in this relationship. We even discussed that he might want to eventually find someone else outside the relationship for sex (we’re poly, so this isn’t weird) or that we might break up if it stays this way for a long time (years). I have a hard time coping with this, as it triggers my fear for not being good enough massively. Even though breaking up at that point would come from a true mismatch of both our needs and would probably be better for the both of us, it still feels like it would be my fault for not doing enough, not being good enough for him or not getting over my fears fast enough. Even if it would be for the best, it would be a tragic ending to what has been the best relationship either of us has ever had. We both want the same things out of a relationship, so the biggest liability is me not actually believing in it. I want to not be fearful anymore, and I want to really believe and feel that we’re equals.

The steps we’ve been taking are a lot of talking, me being emotionally vulnerable, verifying the other person’s intent, him reassuring me and checking in with my mental state, and me trying to challenge my fears by trying to act on moments where I do feel sexually in the mood, and sometimes trying to do low-key kinky things we both enjoy to ease ourselves back into it. We’ve also tried small exercises like me taking the initiative to touch him in a way that I enjoy, without trying to act on what I think he would enjoy, without it leading to sex. We’re in a lot better space than four months ago, we’re back in love, but I still struggle and am frustrated when I get stuck in one of my negative ruts again. Can people relate or maybe have ideas for things that can help me?

So, in summary:

I don’t want a relationship built on duty or obligation. I want my relationship to be equal and a conversation between the both of us. We both want to have sex only if we both (enthusiastically) want it. My partner doesn’t want me to push myself beyond my limits, and neither do I. My partner’s needs are not my responsibility. If I in the long term can’t suit their needs, we can try to find a solution together that suits us both. If they are still dissatisfied and feel it is a need that has to to be met in a relationship, we’ll probably break up. Not because I wasn’t good enough or didn’t do enough, but because we both want different things. If it turns out that way in the future, it would be better for the both of us. Right now, they are not dissatisfied, they feel fine. They are hopeful that we can make this ‘new’ foundation for this relationship work (equality and acceptance) and will continue to grow. They would like to at some point have more sex, but the biggest point right now we think is to get a healthier relationship and get (me) a healthy approach to sex. However, I still struggle a ton with fears and sometimes still get setbacks that make me feel unsafe and mistrust my partner, sometimes for days to a week on end. I have a hard time believing the good intent of my partner even though he really isn’t the problem, my past is. I struggle with a deep fear of loneliness and therefore my patterns have always revolved around playing a pleasing role because I fear being myself alone isn’t good enough. Can people relate or maybe have ideas for things that can help me?

Steps we’re already taking:

1. Therapy for me has already concluded, we’re doing everything she advised. Therapy for him is underway (he’s got his own baggage from past relationships he wants to work through).
2. Remember that I want sex (and the relationship in general) to come from a place of mutual joy and trust, not pleasing each other because we think that’s what they want. I want to connect from my true and present self, whoever that is in the moment.
3. Talk about vulnerabilities, current feelings and connect, accept, trust. Feel heard, seen, and accepted just the way I am in that moment. Feel that it’s okay to be me and to have fluid boundaries.
4. Keep asking to verify ‘do you expect me to do x?’ or ’Do you think I’m responsible for your need for x?’
5. Do non-sexual kinky things we feel comfortable with for emotional release and to help build trust.
6. Write something down that I want to do, including a ‘focus’. For example: I want to make sexy pictures in lingerie, and I want to focus on communicating/speaking up about my thoughts and feelings. This is for me to try engaging in the things I want, without the pressure of it having to turn sexual.
7. Set a boundary before engaging in something sexual and stopping there or stop whenever I feel ‘done’/no longer fully into it. This is to see it’s okay to stop whenever I want and there’s no negative consequences to stopping. For example: I would like to tease and jerk you off a bit, but I don’t want to go any further than that (i.e. cumming or intercourse).