This is destroying me and my relationship and I don't know what to do.

[DownAtMySpotInTheGarden]

I've never really had relationships. I've dated but nothing really of any significance.

A few months ago, my boyfriend asked if I'd wear sexy underwear in bed. Nothing outrageous just the usual stocking etc. I've never been asked that before and it's really shocked how it's made me feel about myself and the relationship.

I know it's a pretty standard request but it's made me feel hideously unattractive, unfanciable amd unsexy. No one has ever asked or even suggested it before.

I've internalised it as he can't fancy me or want to have sex with me unless I do this. And then it would be about the clothes and it could be anyone. I suppose I feel completely dehumanised by it.

I had a really hostile reaction when he asked me. I was calm in my response but I told him that I wasn't going to do it and if he wanted to be with someone fanciable and sexy than he needed to be with someone else. Inside I felt angry and disgusted (at myself for not being enough not at him for asking).

He told me he only said it as a joke, said that I was sexy and he did fancy me and has never mentioned it again. It clearly wasn't a joke but I don't suppose he knew what else to say and it was a response at least.

But it's totally changed how I feel about myself.

I used to sleep naked and felt confident and attractive enough to walk around naked in front of him. I know I've not got a great body and I'm no beauty, but I believed he fancied me and loved me so it was ok. Since he said it, I've rarely been naked. I sleep in a t shirt and leggings most nights we're together. I go to bed earlier so he can't see me undress or after him and wait for him to fall asleep, or I suggest we watch another episode of something so it's too late.

Our sex life has fallen off a cliff. It still happens but its very perfunctory now. It makes me uncomfortable afterwards when he tells me he loves me and I'm very quiet and just turn away from him.

I feel he's settling for me now. I know this is me. I also know he wouldn't have mentioned it in the first place if he'd known how badly it would make mfeel.l about myself.

I think part of it is that I wonder what else he would like or prefer but now won't mention because of reaction to this. I just feel completely inadequate.

*The lingerie doesn't make the person sexy, the person makes the underwear sexy.

I don't want to see someone I don't find attractive in sexy undies, I want to see my partner, the person I already find stunning in sexy undies.*

Perfectly said 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Right.
If you are still here OP despite the fucking horrendous comments can I say not all of us are this horrid and I'm sorry you have had to read such shite
Second
You have tried to reach out for help and I hope you don't stop just because some people are outright nasty. I question they are on here to be supportive or just really nasty individuals.
Third
Please keep posting, I feel you are getting somewhere on here. You know it's past family, you have support here x

Ah.

The point is, you wear the lingerie, and he takes it off you. Have you never enjoyed having your clothes taken off you?

I have only read your OP and responses. I dont think you should be in a relationship. It's unfair and absolutely shit but there it is. You have totally withdrawn from him due to him asking a totally normal question. You have irrevocably changed your relationship. If you were posting as a woman who's partner had turned on them due to something you flippantly asked then most posters would be telling you to leave and that women aren't rehabs for broken men.
The way you are now treating him is unfair. Doesn't matter why, just that you are. Unless you are willing to speak openly and honestly with him and try get anywhere then what's the point?
I am truly sorry for what you went through as a child and through to adulthood and the damage it has done. You KNOW why you think and act like you do but you don't want to share this with him. If you know that there is nothing he can do or say to make it better then what is the plan? Just go on like this? That would be cruel.

Oh OP, it isn’t too late. Yes, your mum has driven a truck through your childhood and she sounds frankly appalling, but it’s not about the years that have gone by, it’s about the ones in the future. You have decades of life left. Do you want to let her taint those too?

Your mother should never have been embarrassed by you. You sound absolutely lovely. She should, however, have been horribly embarrassed about her own terrible parenting.

I understand your reaction, OP. Before he said this, you were naturally yourself, and felt that was enough for your boyfriend. When he mentioned the sexy underwear, he brought in a thousand comparisons with other women, wearing conventionally sexy lingerie and looking like porn stars and catalogue models. When you think of sexy underwear, no one pictures unattractive women wearing it, do they? We think of the images we see in movies and magazines. So it's natural to feel he wanted you to look more like them, and less like yourself.

No.

It makes me feel very anxious.

I would feel the same. I don't think it's an overreaction at all.

He does know about my background but I don't think he really understands the impact.

He's a lovely man who, tbh, has no previous experience of this. I think he maybe believes he can 'love me better'. But he can't. I know it's on me to do this.

It's been a bit of a slow realisation for me too. I've avoided relationships. Certainly serious ones with genuine feelings. I think I naively thought that if I knew I was loved, safe and cared for, show the way I felt about myself would change. I knew it was different with him right from the start.

And it was different and it did change how i fept about myself. I had someone elses eyes to see myself through. Until he made this request.

I felt safe and loved for the first time in my life. But the request knocked a nicely spinning top off kilter and now it's just chaotically spiralling around a wooden floor. And I don't know how to get it back on track. Probably because it wasn't genuine.

This is something you need to deal with making such a mountain out of a molehill. Why are you so uptight for?

Blimey what a lot of horrible replies you've had saying you've overeacted etc. Completely unhelpful and bloody judgey. A lot of them have the air of if you don't please your man he will leave and also being sexually objectified is great.

Just because they wouldn't have reacted like you doesn't mean your reaction is not valid. It is your reaction and it happened because of the life you have had.

I reckon him saying that has triggered a feeling in you similar to how your mum made you feel. Along the lines of you have to look a certain way to please a man. Which you hadn't felt like with him before. Try and separate what he said from how your mum made you feel, he doesn't think the same way as her. And remember it's not that you're not attractive it's just that you have been taught to think you are not attractive.

Maybe you could try some CBT thought sheets (which you can find online) to reduce that feeling

The whole point of the post is that ,no, she doesn't have that!
She has a bloody fear and flight response to be being told/ asked she has to dress a certain way for sex!!!

God yes. Someone else who has managed to articulate what I couldn't! This is very accurate.

Hard to put my finger on exactly why though. I suppose it's like those robot sex dolls. The man isn't having sex with a person, it's just a mastrurbation device. Sometimes men can make you feel like that. It's subtle, but it's an instant turnoff for me.

Yes. That is the feeling.

Suddenly I wasn't good enough or enough anymore and I had to be something and someone different in order to be acceptable.

Anything else is a disappoinent and an embarrassment.

Thank you.

Yes. And that too.

It changes sex from being something that is done with you to something that is done to you.

He never ever makes me feel like that ordinarily though.

I think being truly loved by someone can be very healing but only if you can be yourself with them and feel accepted for who you are.
Are you able to talk things through with him being completely honest?

Maybe you could try some CBT thought sheets (which you can find online) to reduce that feeling

I use cbt techniques just to make it through the day/week a lot of the time. Its become second nature and not really aware that I'm doing it. I've been told previously that it's not appropriate for me. I was referred for DBT a couple of years ago but then my work hours changed. I wasn't able to attend the sessions after the first two and there weren't any others available.

Yes. And I have done to a degree but he doesn't really understand it. How could he?

There isn't really anything he can say

He's given me all the reassurances that he can but the words don't change anything significantly.

He just wants you wrapped up in satin and lace so that he can unwrap you whom he fancies and loves to bits!

Usually CBT or DBT is used for a specific problem that you want to focus on. I think it's probably appropriate for this situation. Maybe it wouldn't help you process childhood experiences though

The thing is we live in a very overtly sexualised society towards women.
If you are not performing or presenting in the way society says you should women are still supposed to feel " not enough"
Not all men by any way think like this, my partner doesn't. He doesn't because I won't dress up like women in porn do, I won't act like women in porn do. I act like my own sexual self.
Being asked to dress up for bed usually means the woman has to perform, has to put on a costume that isn't necessarily what she feels comfortable with.
This is the essence of porn culture I think, it's not about two people getting naked and having sex, it's one saying you need to " dress up" as some women I've seen in porn.

Someone said earlier that surely knowing him as friends first and being together etc should be proof as to how he feels.

All I can see is that he had no idea how fucked up I was before we got together. Not a clue. Most people think I'm just a bit badass for not conforming to societal expectations 🤣 and admire me for not feeling the weight of other people's expectations! Only a small handful of people know the truth.

I just think the reality of me is so different toast people's perceptions it must feel like I'm.a different person. I feel like a different person to the one most people describe.

I'm not really what he signed up for. I know that. But he says that he loves me.