Sex stresses me out

[Cluelessat31]

I have changed me name as I post regularly. So I'm 31 and married. I've been with my husband since I was 17. I had a few other brief sexual encounters in my teens. Nothing much more than a clumsy fumble. Other issues in our marriage have got me evaluating everything I thought I knew about it. But I honestly hadn't thought about the sex side. Its just one of those things that I'd never really thought of as not being normal. But now I'm reading up on boundaries, and personal rights, I'm beginning to wonder whether feeling stressed at the idea of sex is normal, or because of something else.

I've always just assumed there was something wrong with me and that I just had a weird low sex drive/aversion to sex. I suffer from endometriosis, although this has only been recently diagnosed, however I suspect I have had symptoms all my life. I have always had very long, heavy periods, with very short cycles. And honestly during those periods sex could not be further from my mind. I know this is something that has frustrated my husband.

As a younger man especially, he was very keen to have lots of sex and often I would go along with it because I felt guilty and that I was the weird one. There have been times when he has done things I haven't liked, and its taken me repeated attempts to stop him doing it. Which again makes me feel stressed. He will try to 'get me in the mood' with kisses and cuddles etc, but if I make it clear I'm not keen on sex at that point he will abandon the whole thing. So I honestly think I have started to associate any physical contact with sex. When we do get that far, I genuinely just feel very tense and stressed.

I'm not sure im explaining this well, but to be honest these days sex makes me feel incredibly stressed and panicked, and I'm wondering if it all just me, or whether it is because of something else.

Any experiences would be really helpful.

It isn't you at all. My ex used to make me feel very uncomfortable. Thinking about it I felt very stressed most of the time I was with him. I though 'is it me?' too, and thought maybe I was uptight, but we're not, it's the feeling of someone constantly pushing at your boundaries, and/or manipulating you. Think of it as you are putting up a shield and someone is trying to break through your shield wall; you are having to be 'en garde' all the time, or at least when he tries these things.

You've described the feeling very well. My 'ex'/FWB would go on, and on, and on, about sex, he would try and nag, coerce and pressure me into sex acts he liked and I didn't like at all, some of which I'd made clear to him I didn't want to do, but he kept on nagging.

Towards the end when I didn't do the stuff I'd told him I didn't like, he withheld orgasm from me and had a bit of a huff.

He threatened to end the friendship.

Then when I finished the sexual side of the relationship, he withheld closeness/emotional intimacy from me.

There have been times when he has done things I haven't liked, and its taken me repeated attempts to stop him doing it.

This sounds like attempted rape/sexual assault.

Trust me it is so wonderful to be free and without that pressure

@NoMoredickheads. I love your name by the way 🤣🤣

I am having counselling and she has identified that I find it difficult to enforce boundaries like, because I worry they negative impact on others. When it comes to see, I have genuinely just accepted the idea that I am the defective one in some way, rather then the fact that perhaps our sexual relationship had made me uncomfortable at time. I find it astounding that I could have reached the age of 31 and have children, and not have seen that the things that aren't right might not just have been my fault! How insane is that!!!!???

It's not insane at all. Part of it is 'cognitive dissonance' that we think the person in front of us is our friend/cares about us, but then their actions tell a completely different story. So it takes us a long time to become aware of what's going on, but we have that inner sense of 'wrongness' whenever the person brings up the idea of sex, while not knowing what's actually wrong.

So we might think it's us, we're frigid or uptight or something, but it's not, it's that someone is trying to make us do stuff sexually we don't want, and that is a massive onslaught on our sense of wholeness as a person. It is attempted rape, at least on the level of the self.

Also IDK about you but I always wanted his approval/to please him. I didn't have many other people in my life so I didn't want to lose him. I wanted him to like/love me (daddy issues probably) - but your motives might be different. It is being a people pleaser basically perhaps.

I found it so hard to say no to him.

People like this exploit our vulnerabilities and loyalties, and manipulate us.

It is coercion, and it's awful.

I'm 43 BTW and only recently go out of 18 months of that very nasty 'relationship!'

So- what's your plan going forward?

I would make it clear to him what you don't want to do. You have a perfect right not to have sex when you don't want it, and not to have sex acts done to you/do stuff you don't want.

Anyone who doesn't accept that is an abusive violator, physically and/or psychically, and best avoided as much as possible.

I'm not being flakey when I go on about on a psychic level btw, I don't mean it in the sense of any obscure 'spirituality,' I just mean that we are talking about your psyche, your self, and what he is doing is trying to batter his way in.

@NoMoreDickheads. Honestly he is no longer in the house for other abusive behaviours. I'm currently trying to find the strength to untangle myself from him. Hence why I'm in the process of looking very differently at other aspect of our relationship that I've never really looked too closely at. The sex thing has been an issue for a while, but one I always just assumed it was me and my problem, rather than the fact his behaviour might have had a detrimental impact.

@NoMoreDickheads. Also thank you for responding and being so honest. I frankly don't know what I would have done without Mumsnet and all the incredible advice and experiences people share.

It's my pleasure, feel free to talk about any of the abuse here as much as you want to and are comfortable with- lots of people will feel happy to try and help.

I'm so glad you're no longer living with him. He is very nasty, based just on this issue alone, let alone any others. Please don't have him back. They don't tend to change, because their behaviour is based on beliefs that they own and/or are entitled to our bodies and our service of some kind, and they control us to demonstrate that ownership and entitlement and reinforce it.

You could take a look at the Freedom Programme if you haven't already, www.freedomprogramme.co.uk/ it's £12 to do online but it's excellent. Not all of it applies to every abuser but some of it will. My experience of abusive men has mainly been around sexual entitlement, but they can be like it in every sphere of life. The Freedom Programme shows you a lot of the tactics.

If you're in the UK you can find your local freedom programme facilitator on that site and get in touch with them. Some of them are currently doing different programmes over Zoom- my local one is doing Own My Life www.ownmylifecourse.org/findacourse