Do you feel attractive? Sexy? How?

[OutOfPetrol]

Just that really.

I'm in a really bad place at the moment. I haven't had a sexual relationship that lasted longer than 6 months (and most have been around 3) until now and I'm finding the whole thing really difficult.

But I don't feel sexy. I've become preoccupied with how physically unattractive I am and how unsexy I feel to the point I'm on the verge of ending an otherwise good relationship.

I don't know what to do.

Have you looked into the possibility of dysmorphia?

I know you're reluctant to go down the road of more therapy and that you're too tired to keep trying, but here you are, disliking yourself, hating photos of yourself and you've spoken about waiting for it all to be over earlier in the thread.

I think it's a shame to be on the verge of giving up an apparently mostly good relationship and essentially giving up on yourself. You sound depressed, you sound like you need to go to the GP and like you need to have ongoing mental health support.

I've read the recent threads but don't have time to respond to them all.

In the car this morning, I was working through what I was going to say to him when we speak about it properly.

My biggest focus tbh is the impact it has on him and has the potential to do in the future. Earlier in the thread, people told me I shouldn't end it for his sake and I should let him make that decision but people stay in relationships all the time that are no good for them because they 'love' the other person. But it destroys them.

I love him but when I feel like this, or am 'triggered', I respond by shutting down. It's how I keep myself safe and avoid verbally lashing out at others. That is how I currently manage it because I don't have anything else.

I'm not going to promise him I won't shut down again because I can't. In fact, I can almost guarantee that it will happen again.

I don't want him to feel scared of what is going to happen or walking on eggshells. Ultimately, he will experience it as an abusive relationship even though I am trying to manage own feelings and have no desire to upset him. I don't want to be responsible for making another person feel that way.

What strikes me about your posts OP is there's a fair bit of mind reading and assuming responsibility going on. Other people are responsible for their own actions, their own choices, their own words. Maybe it helps you feel in control to do this? Despite what he's said, you decide actually, he thinks something else. You've decided he'll experience your self protection as abuse rather than something he can perhaps readily navigate. Despite being able to give him the option to understand you, and decide, as an adult, whether its something he can be ok with, you're already saying...but then he'd probably make the wrong choice and stay with me. In your own mind you've removed all agency and self responsibility from him....I do wonder if this helps you feel in control of the feelings you have

I feel sexy when I’m well rested and have been exercising and eating right even just for a few days! So hardly ever at the moment!!

So on the one hand, you don't believe he loves you or fancies you, but at the same time, you think he'd stay with you to be destroyed or abused because he loves you?

Actually, Can I ask some basic questions? this withdrawal you're having now with him....it seems? How does it work? Do you still talk but you emotionally withdraw? Do you stop talking altogether? If so do you let him know you need time to yourself? Does he know what he's done to cause this withdrawal?

I can hear the distrust and pain in everything you write, OP. My DH is very similar to you in some ways, and it was heartbreaking watching him believe the worst about himself all the time, and exhausting (and sad) him always expecting the worst from me. But it got better. He got better. It's possible.

You need to try and ask the doctors again for EMDR and possibly some treatment for body dysmorphia (/extremely low self esteem as a result of trauma).

Trauma does very, very deeply ingrained things to the brain and completely skews your thinking. There are dozens of people here telling you your view on yourself, things he's done, etc are very far out of the range of 'normal' - and that's a good thing. It means there's another way for your brain to be - and for you to feel about yourself. But you need to get the help to get there.

Because I promise you there's more to life than hating yourself and assuming everything anyone says has ill intention because you can't imagine it another way. Give yourself the gift of healing from this, because it's not fact - it's trauma skewing your view of everything.

Shutting down is my coping mechanism as well.

I think you can do this without being abusive, for definite. You're entitled to space in a relationship. Would it help to have a time out word or phrase, even an emoji you can text, like a safe word kind of thing, so you can say quickly if something is triggering you and you're likely to withdraw?

He can see it happening before it does.

I just completely clam up. I couldn't speak if I wanted to. Ove been able to text him when I'm in the same room.

I don't ignore him. He still messages when we not together. Not as much as usual but he does that because he doesn't want to overwhelm me. I do reply but it's hard and my responses aren't as they usually are.

But he has told afterwards that he's felt scared and been unable to sleep because he doesn't know if I'm going to end it.

In response to someone else, I didn't say I don't believe he loves me. I've said that I don't feel attractive and can't imagine how he could find me attractive. I don't feel sexually attractive and I don't see how he can find me so. I think that is something he has compromised on. I feel like he is comparing me to other women and wants me to be more like them and I'm not.

People get caught up in trauma bonds. That's not love but people feel as though it is. That's why they stay.

Did you read the Core Beliefs article?

OP, in what way are you so different from other women that he needs to compare you?
First of all he wouldn't be with you as a patrner if he only felt platinic love, he'd just be a friend, but he chose to sleep with you. Secondly if you mean you ar not 'feminine' but a tomboy then lots of men find tomboys attarctive - and the play ou play guitar in a band is seriously sexy if he likes your playing. Sexual attarction is not just about physical features - it's the voice, the movement, the personality.
Ih he was not bothered sexually he wouldn'y be scared (as he said) that you may end the relationship - surely he'd then just be pleased to be friends instead and didn't haev to compromise (as you put it) in the sexual aspect!

*platonic

sorry for all the other typos too!

I was abused as a child. And put down many, many times. I found I could have sex, I’d concentrate on pleasing the other person as well as I possibly could and that would feel to me that I hadn’t failed. The real me was never connected, I am so frightened of life, feel so ugly, but hide this as much as I can.
Anyway, I met my darling partner in my forties and was instantly attracted to him sexually and mentally…still can’t believe he feels the same way but he shows me he does in so many ways. I’ve a very battered body after my children and weight loss, I’m definitely not typically pretty in my face either. And yet, my DP makes me feel so womanly and the light of his life. For the first time in my life, I’m ok with having sex in daylight, and I don’t feel I’m hiding the real me away to protect myself.
Yesterday, I didn’t feel particularly sexy - I’ve put weight on over the winter, had hardly slept, hadn’t seen to my face etc…DP told me whilst we were making love in the evening that when I’d got out of the car at school drop-off, he’d been turned on looking at my bum. In my big winter coat, at 9am, being Mum, he’d found me sexy. I felt sexy knowing that.
I do understand that your DP mentioning a particular person when asking you to dress-up makes you feel worthless as you, but talking about this would be healthier than withdrawing and pushing away as your safety mechanism. There has been a couple of times my DP has accidentally said something I find hurtful, nowadays with him I feel safe enough to say, and he is always apologetic. Men are different, we won’t always get it right in communication, but love is hard to find and whilst it’s scary it’s also wonderful.

I just feel like you're locked into your own internal narrative that a. you're unlovable and b. there's nothing you can do to change that.

I don't believe that's true, but you have to seek professional help with it.

By the "that", I mean your internal monologue.

I did. It was interesting, thank you.

One thing that struck me reading it, especially the experiments at the bottom, is that I have done that several times woth some previous core beliefs.

So, for example, I can't cook was one. My evidence for it was that was that I went from not being able to cook anything at all to teachingyself amd cooking everything from scratch but, when my mum came round for dinner, she refused to eat my food or would eat it and then criticise it. The result was that I never cooked for anyone else because I didn't want them to think the same.

Then I realised I had no problem baking cakes for people because I'd never baked a cake for my mum and she'd never criticised it. My cakes don't ever look pretty but they taste good. And I don't care. I never worried about it.

So I invited my best friend round for dinner. She was really complimentary, I tried with other people and found the same. So now, I have no problem cooking for anyone and I'm confident that a) I can cook and b) if something goes wrong, it doesn't really matter.

I've done it with other beliefs too.

It's why I play in a band now because my mum criticised me musically. So I challenged it (many, many years on) and now I've been playing in gigging bands for the past 5 years.

I went back to university and got a first class degree. I entered a profession and now, finally, after 16 years, I believe I'm good at my job.

Some of that change has been made by me and my efforts and some is provided by the positive reinforcement of others as a result of that effort. Feedback shows I'm also valued and accepted by others in those respects so I know my original core beliefs were wrong.

But this one about being attractive enough to sustain a relationship or capable of being in a relationship is such more deeply ingrained than the others that I've really struggled.

A lot of the things people have suggested, I do. Pushing myself outside of my comfort zone - I do that; grooming - I do that; self care for peace of mind and to value/love/respect myself - I do that; pursuing interests and hobbies - I do that; exercise - I do that; maintaining my hair and nails - I do that.

But this belief is one I've tried to challenge etc so many times (because, if I'm honest, I've felt a lot better and a lot worse about myself in the past) and it's a belief that keeps being reinforced by the outside world.

I see it all around me. Women who look like me aren't represented anywhere, women who have my physical attributes are mocked, shamed, ridiculed and derided (by men and women) or treated as a novelty, I find it really hard to buy clothes because women with my body shape aren't catered for. Men I've dated have criticised me, been embarrassed to be seen with me, suggested ways I can change, compared me to other women.

Even when I've made great strides previously in my self esteem or confidence or self belief, there has always been someone - a friend, an acquaintance, a stranger to remind me that it doesn't matter what I think or believe, the only thing that matters is what other people think. Especially when it comes to having a relationship.

One of the things I've been particularly criticised for, my boyfriend claims to love. I've found that the most difficult tbh.

I don't see it as attractive in the slightest. Whenever he mentions it, I go cold and clam up. I accept the compliment graciously (or as graciously as I can) but it just reminds me that it's there.

I don't want to tell him I'm self conscious about it because I don't want to talk about it or draw attention to it. But it's something that would be unattractively highlighted if I were to wear the 'sexy clothes' he wants me to, which makes it worse. I wouldn't look like the women he finds sexy when they dress like that. I wouldn't look like his exes. I'd look hideous and I think it would make him see me differently and put him off.

And yet, my DP makes me feel so womanly and the light of his life.

I can see that the things my boyfriend says 'should' or are intended taken feel like that but my internal response is as though he's criticised me. I just get a burning rage and disgust rising inside me.

I read posts like yours (and it's lovely to read that you now feel like that!) but I ust can't see it happening. I want to push him away not draw him closer.

If I can ever get a doctors appointment again, I think I will go and see about EMDR. I've seen it mentioned several times for similar things.

The only problem is that the little voice in head is reminding that a) it won't actually change what I look like and b) it won't change how other people see me.

You need to tell your partner you don't want him to do this any more, because you don't like the way it makes you feel. He doesn't need any more detail than that, unless you want to give it to him, and it's not a discussion. Make it clear to him what it is that he's doing that bothers you, and ask him to stop because it makes you uncomfortable. If he loves and respects you, that will be the end of the issue, or very nearly the end, barring a few slip ups whilst he gets the hang of it. You are allowed this sensitivity. It is part of who you are. If he understands what he's doing, and you tell him you don't like it, he'll stop. If he doesn't, rethink the relationship altogether.

I know he would stop if I asked him to.

But it wouldn't stop him from wanting it or looking at other women and finding them sexier than me because that's how they are dressed. It wouldn't stop me being inadequate in his eyes.

He would just find it elsewhere of that is what he is attracted to. Even if that is just picturing other women dressed like that when we're having sex.

"Even when I've made great strides previously in my self esteem or confidence or self belief, there has always been someone - a friend, an acquaintance, a stranger to remind me that it doesn't matter what I think or believe, the only thing that matters is what other people think. Especially when it comes to having a relationship."

OK, so the bolded bit is the red flag here. We are not born with insecurities - a naked baby crawling around the floor doesn't worry about how it is perceived by others - we develop them. I would really urge you to consider remedial hypnosis; happy to send you a list of Control System practitioners, all of whom are qualified and experienced in dealing with these issues.

I could nearly weep in sadness for you, @OutOfPetrol.

I have been with someone like you who had these same issues, it made me so desperately sad that:

a) my former partner didn’t love themselves
b) couldn’t accept the very genuine love I had to give
c) couldn’t really allow themselves to love me back

The pain was so deep and cutting. A huge waste of the potential for something beautiful - the human capacity to love that makes our journey through this life sweeter.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Life and love is about far more than how people look!!! Can you meditate on that for a while? There are far more important things in life. Is your body healthy? THAT is important.

Would you be open to some sort of spiritual practice to help you see the world and yourself with more depth and meaning?

Do you do any voluntary work? Do you contribute to charities if you can afford to do so? These things are very healing in more ways than the obvious. They may help you to connect and attach to others more easily.

Your mother has clearly given you deep seated attachment issues.
Please read about attachment theory if you’re not familiar with it.

www.simplypsychology.org/attachment.html

I’d be curious to know what you think?

Then you need to leave. You're insisting that he will cause you a problem regardless of what he does, and essentially you're needing to police his desires.

We are all allowed to want things sexually that our partners don't give us. We are all allowed to find other people attractive. You can't take that away from him, because, like the rest of us, it's not something he can control. He seems to be dealing with any feelings like this, which may not even exist, in a respectful way to you. You trust him to do the right thing by you.

I think that all of us, if we were to insist that our partner only ever found us attractive, and nobody/nothing else, would end up in a series of short relationships, and be unable to maintain a long term one. It's inevitable, at some point in any long term relationship, that each of us will find someone else attractive.

As one abusive survivor to another: you stills have healing to do. I know you're fine single, but love can heal (as cheesy as that sounds), you feel like you're not worthy of love but of course you are.

Can you get back in therapy and work on some of the relationship things? Tell a therapist what is triggering you. It helped me hugely. Could you talk to your partner? It sounds like he cares about you and doesn't want it to end. I am feeling like you don't want it to end either, you just don't know how else to manage.. but self sabotage won't stop this. It will only prolong your healing. You might struggle to let him in, but once you do it could change your entire world. You absolutely can do this. ❤️ It isn't easy, but it can change everything. Xx