Let's talk about sex

[HappyAcorn]

I have been with my now husband for 4.5 years. He is not my 9 year daughters father.
In the last few years I've been diagnosed with some chronic illnesses like chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia.

I also have PTSD from sexual assaults from many years ago.
Every few months I go completely off sex. Its usually when I feel quite stressed/overwhelmed or something has triggered a memory.
My husband finds this really difficult, he feels rejected and through guilt I withdraw further so the cycle continues.
Im having therapy for the PTSD but im not sure what else to do. He wants me/us to seek support and figure out the root cause, and therefore prevent it from happening so frequently, but I don't have the answers.
Any advice would be much appreciated.

Hs should be supportive and stop making it all about his feelings. He knows your reasons for not always wanting sex aren't about rejecting him so he shouldn't act like this or make you feel guilty. Its perfectly ok to not want sex.

I am clear on what he wants, OP, but what do you want?

Do you want more therapy to address this? Or are you happy with the sex hiatus when it happens? Is not having sex enough tonease your pain or do you live with the feelings it triggers constantly (which is an unpleasant experience for you)?

You don't need therapy to understand the root cause because you've explained what that is here.

What do you want?

Would you find talking about the assaults helpful? If so you can contact the Survivor's Trust. They have a helpline and can talk to you about your therapy.

EMDR may be useful. It helps with trauma and PTSD.

There's some information here on PTSD, including ways of dealing with it: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd-and-complex-ptsd/about-ptsd/

You say that you go off sex because of feeling stressed or being overwhelmed. It might help to talk to your husband and work together to find ways to mitigate your stress and strategies to deal with it. For example, you're feeling overwhelmed, so he takes over and you go for a walk, or lie down in the bedroom.

He needs therapy to understand why a temporary withdrawal from sex on your part has such a crippling impact on him.

A mature response on his part would be to help relieve some of the overwhelm you are struggling with, and offer compassion and understanding until you are back to your usual self again.