Sex

[LikeALampWithoutAShade]

My sex life with my partner is really struggling.

I've been concerned for some time that he doesn't find me sexually attractive.

This has really knocked my confidence and, despite my best efforts to challenge these thoughts, I'm now completely convinced he can only have sex with me if he's been aroused by seeing someone he finds sexually attractive and fantasising about them or has been watching something sexually arousing.

We have sex once a fortnight on averge but I just feel dirty and used afterwards.

Over the past week or so, he has shown more interest in me sexually (although we haven't actually done anything sexual at all) and I can feel myself shut down.

I have a vague recollection of a recent exchange where he him suggested a full body massage. I asked who would be massaging who and he said it didn't matter as long as we were both naked. The conversation didn't go any further because I didn't respond but it's like I had completely blocked it out because I read something earlier that reminded me of it but now I can't even tell if it was a real conversation or a dream I had!

Do you fancy him?

Yes.

Hi op, have you had low self confidence in other relationships?

It sounds like this is permeating your life and he can’t be the source of your happiness as what happens if he leaves? Although I understand how one aspect or need not being fulfilled can rot through the relationship if not addressed. You sound so miserable op, I’ve been there, would you be happier alone and building your confidence up?

DogrosesinMay

Not like this. I feel really low. It's not just my confidence it's everything.

I knew him for a few years before we started dating and he told me he'd always had a crush on me. But then he said he'd never thought of me like that. He wasn't being unkind when he said it.

It's because I believed that he found me attractive at the start that this has hit me so hard.

I've been out with other men who I knew didn’t really find me physically attractive but I was never been under any illusions about that. I never thought otherwise.

But I just feel devastated by it really. That I believed it was all so good and I felt confident around him and in myself. I've never been very confident in myself and when he mentioned in passing things he thought were attractive or sexy I didn't really like it and felt a bit insecure because they were things I will never be or wear or look like. But I also allowed myself to believe he found me attractive too. Like people keep saying it's OK to still find other people attractive.

I tried to talk about it with him and I think he just felt a bit stupid so said he didn't remember saying those things or they were just comments in passing that meant nothing.

But when he said he'd never thought about me like that it floored me really. I have asked him about that too but he just said he can't remember saying it again.

I feel stupid and ugly and ashamed.

Oh @LikeALampWithoutAShade you sound so down. If he’s said he doesn’t see you like that why not end it? Probably this dragging on after he’s said that is the source of this although you do sound unconfident, although I’m only going off off here. If you have no ties why not make a new start op. Maybe it’s just run its course.

Agree
I'd be asking him straight out - do you fancy me?
If there was any hesitation that would be the end.
I don't need another friend.
No wonder you feel s

I feel like you could've taken his comment about not seeing you 'that way' in a much more apocalyptic way than he ever intended it and blown it out of all proportion so that you're reading everything through that lens when he might've miscommunicated and there's actually loads of evidence that he's into you. To get from that to this kind of thinking:

I feel like he's making fool of me or mocking me by pretending he finds me attractive so I'll have sex with him when he's feeling horny.

.... feels really quite disturbed. First and forement get help for yourself to come back from this dark place because until you get that self esteem of the floor, nothing he says or does can fix this.

@pinkdelight but how else could anyone take that. I wouldn’t stay in a relationship if my partner didn’t think of me ‘that way.’ Isn’t that what differentiates from a friendship?

What I mean is that she's taking it as a definitive declaration on how he sees her and therefore he definitively cannot be and never was attracted to her in any way and that figures because she doesn't see herself as attractive and so on and on.

When in fact he might've said it unthinkingly about how he once thought of her and it really isn't relevant to their relationship because clearly as soon as things changed and they became romantically involved then he was indeed attracted to her and does think of her that way and has ever since.

Example - I worked with my now-DH for two years in the same office and never 'thought of him that way' or even considered doing so as I had other stuff going on and he was a bit younger than me and was seeing someone else etc etc. But after we'd both been through a few life changes and were single, we got talking and found we had a lot in common and then the attraction came and was legit and strong, so not worth any less because he wasn't initially 'my type' and it wasn't any less real because I didn't think of him 'that way' from day one.

What he said was probably thoughtless but not meant to detonate the whole basis of the relationship the way that OP has taken it and run with it.

pinkdelight

I see the point you are making.

The situation was that we knew each other a for a few years as friends and then he asked me out.

He told me that he'd had a crush one for most of that time and he once admired something I'd done (that showed strength and resilience) and that's when he realised he was in love with me.

In the very early days of dating he told me that he used to imagine being with me but in romantic rather than sexual ways. Eg he imagined us holding hands rather than shagging. Because I had no reason to doubt he was attracted to me sexually too I thought he just meant that his feelings were more than just sex.

But then when he said last year that he'd never seen me like that it made me realise that he meant he just didn't see me that way at all.

He'd do absolutely anything for me and he does.

Aww, most of that is really nice, the crush and so on. And you could read it as it being this revelation to him that he's fallen in love with you like no one else - i.e. all the rest of these women you see as his type. If you weren't so low and seeing everything through this dark lens, you could reasonably reframe it as he's way more attracted to you on a deeper level whereas he perhaps saw those other women in a more objectified sexual way, attracted to them on a superficial level but nothing sustaining. It doesn't mean he's not sexually attracted to you, but that you're in a different bracket in his head to those others and the sexual attraction grew from this (first) friendship then romantic crush then full-on love which includes sex. Maybe he doesn't have dehumanising fantasies about doing porny things to you, but maybe that's because he respects you more than most. It certainly doesn't have to mean he's secretly mocking you and on some sicko wind-up just pretending to fancy you and hating every moment of your BJs. Honestly, I think it's poor communication on his part plus zero self esteem on your part and that combination has got horribly out of control. Please get help - counselling for you to start with and then bringing him into it if possible. You need building back up for yourself and then the communication needs work.

@pinkdelight I see now, thank you.

Men are simple creatures, I can only talk from my own experience, but for me. I love my wife and find her extremely attractive, but she has her own insecurities and regardless of what I say, I believe it falls on deaf ears. We are all our own biggest critics, but if he loves you and wants to be intimate in the bedroom. He is probably thinking very little in the moment and just enjoying the experience. So the next time it happens, clear your mind from creeping doubts and just enjoy yourself.