I'd be interested to hear your thoughts and reflections on this.

[AllFuckedUp]

I've just read the *Dealing with shame popping up *thread and its prompted me to post.

I also grew up with the misogynistic messages around sex and, when I married, my relationship was almost entirely sexless. My exh was a virgin when we started going out at 25 and had some 'funny ideas' around sex. Mainly that I was too good to have that done to me and I think it happened no more than a dozen times in the 12 years we were together.

This was compounded by the fact that my mum always told me I was too unattractive to he loved and so I'd written that off as a possibility by the time I was in my teens.

I completely separated love and sex in my head in my early 20s and after my divorce (late 30s), I either ended up in relationships where the sex was good but sex was all it was or with someone who had feelings for me but the sex was lacking.

Most of the time I was single and had fwbs with men who were very good friends of mine, where the sex was good but there were no romantic feelings or intention on either side to take it further.

About 5 years ago, I dated a man who was very cold emotionally. And the sex bordered on abusive without any affection at all in the relationship. Probably in anyone's eyes. It just reminded me of what exh had said because this was sex being done to me rather than with me. So I ended it.

I started seeing my partner now nearly 3 years go. For the first year, things felt normal. I felt like I'd finally found a balance between love and sex. I was open about things I wanted to try and do, I didn't feel self conscious or like I was wrong in any way and we both (I think) enjoyed it. Nothing particularly remarkable but I had a long way to go to get to feeling normal about it all. But then he said a couple of things that made me wonder if I was wrong about that.

We knew each other for a few years beforehand and he said he'd always had a huge crush on me. I assumed that meant he was physically attracted to me. But after a few months, he said that whenever he'd thought about me, he thought about me romantically (eg imagined us holding hands) rather than sexually. Around the same time, he mentioned in passing famous women he'd previously had crushes on and masturbated over as a teen, a mutual friend he said was 'sexy', whilst telling me that he'd never thought about me in that way.

He has told me things he finds sexy/attractive in women and none of those apply to me. He tells me every day he loves me and he hugs and kisses me often. What I have taken from this is that he does have a libido and is sexually interested in women generally. But not me.

He clearly loves me very much. He's tactile and affectionate and I can tell by the way he talks about me and the way he treats me. But our sex life plummeted. Now he'd rather stay up when I go to bed playing games on his phone or watching a film. He comes up when I'm asleep. We have very perfunctory, basic sex once every few weeks and I assume this is because he sorts himself out the rest of the time but occasionally wants to have sex? Even him being affectionate leaves me feeling empty and sad now.

It's completely destroyed how I feel about myself. I feel unattractive and undesirable. I feel huge shame around it all and I am definitely not 'sex people' (referening to the previous thread!)

I can't watch films with any hint of sex or even romance because I feel that side of a relationship isn't for me. It's a world I don't recognise at all. I've even started to avoid going out in the evenings with him because I feel I'm just in the way of him meeting someone he does find desirable.

I'm nearly 50 now so definitely less attractive than I was and definitely a couple of stone heavier.

I really can't imagine a way of it being any different now. With him or with anyone else. Our day to day life is good, we get on really well, he'd rather spend time with me than anyone else - I avoid going out but he doesn't like it because he'd rather spend his time with me than anyone else. But there is a cold emptiness in me and a constant reminder that sex isn't for me.

Is there anything I can do to improve this?

I'm not even sure the sex board is the right place but Relationships isn't always very supportive and it is a sex issue more than anything.

I think you've been dealt some horrible experiences. Unforgivable that your mum should have said that, and it's shaped your later experiences. I'll be clinical about it, I think your DH doesn't see you as part of a sexual relationship. I suspect he's got a mental dividing line between the ideal emotional support partner and his sexual preference. If he can talk about you as being distinct from his sexual desires I think that's a problem. It's his problem, by the way, not yours.

Actually to me this is a self esteem issue, which becomes apparent during sex.
You deserve to have it all. You shouldn't settle for someone who makes you feel unattractive.

Have you talked to him about how you're feeling? And would he be receptive to your feelings?

You learn who you are by unlearning all they taught you to be.

In other words they told you things and you believed them. Now it is time to reverse those beliefs.

A sexual being doesn't need anyone else for affirmation. It is all within you. If your current partner is not enhancing your life then maybe it is time for you to rethink that relationship as well.

You're still young.

It sounds like you’ve been treated very badly by an awful lot of people and deserve a lot better!

What happens when you tell him how this is making you feel? I’m not the type of woman males masturbate over as teenagers and never have been, but I’ve loved and been loved…and enjoyed sex.

Is he talking in terms of the stuff of fantasy and not realising you’re taking it to heart because you are understandably insecure? If I had to describe the physical features of a man I find attractive (ie wank fodder!) the answers might not resemble real human men I’ve loved or desired. Not because I’ve settled, but because there is a gap when we use our imagination.

Being the ideal emotional support partner is incredibly sexy! Just not the first thing you think of.

Thank you.

I have brought it up a few times but it hasn't been very productive. He doesn't seem very comfortable talking about it and just reassured me that he does find me attractive but in a "of course I find you attractive. You're the most beautiful women i know" way. But that just stops it dead and then nothing changes.

It's not something I talk about a lot. I've probably brought it up four times over the last two years and he always acts surprised when I do. So it's difficult because he just asks me where it's come from and has nothing to say because it's unfathomable I'd think that.

Is he talking in terms of the stuff of fantasy and not realising you’re taking it to heart because you are understandably insecure?

He doesn't do it anymore. But he's gone completely the other way. Almost to the point of claiming he's blind to women, just doesn't see them, isn't interested. But none of it is genuine and it actually makes talking about anything really difficult.

All.it does is shut any conversations down. There's no space for them to happen.

I'll be clinical about it, I think your DH doesn't see you as part of a sexual relationship. I suspect he's got a mental dividing line between the ideal emotional support partner and his sexual preference.

Thank you. This is the at the root of it I think.

When he said he'd never thought about me that way, I was too stunned to say anything at the time. I asked him a few months later and he said he didn't remember ever saying it and so he couldn't possibly answer. Except that he refers every single random piece of crap I tell him, all the pointless trivia from my childhood. There's no way he said it just to be an arsehole. He was being honest (if a little drunk). Even if he doesn't remember telling me, he must know what he thinks.

Have you tried telling him,
”When you are hesitant to talk about sex it makes me feel as if I shouldn’t want to talk about it and then we get nowhere!”
perhaps after a few drinks to lower the inhibitions. He sounds 90% absolute sweetheart, but you are right to want both love and sex and that requires clear communication.
Don’t be too quick to write him/yourself off. I think some men just don’t realise that saying nothing just makes our inner monologue answer for them and makes things 100 times worse than saying the wrong thing.

No. I haven't. Because, you're right, it just makes me feel like I shouldn't want to talk about it so I don't. And when I'm only faced with denial and confusion, I have nowhere to go. What's the point in talking to him if he won't engage?

We went out a couple of weekends ago and I just felt so uncomfortable with him that I stood outside on my own all evening. I chatted to people who came out for a smoke but otherwise, I was on my own. I went out for 5 mins of fresh air but I just didn't know how to go back in and be part of it again. I didn't know where to stand, whether I should stand next to him, whether I should find somewhere else. He was a bit pissed off with me because he'd wanted to spend the evening with me and he'd just looked like an idiot on his own. I'm just conscious of it all the time.

But he can't see that I feel so detached and unwanted and irrelevant now that I just feel like I'm in the way.

He sounds 90% absolute sweetheart

That's the problem really. In so many ways, he is. But other people talk about their partners or have a joke and a bit of a flirt with their partners and we have none of that. He made a flirty comment to me the other day in the pub and I just didn't know how to respond. I'm not going to flirt back because it feels so unnatural now. I just felt weird and uncomfortable.

We used to flirt. But I'm not going to flirt with someone who has told me they've never seen me in that way.

I'm so sad and pissed off because it could be perfect but I've just found myself in the same situation all over again.

Could you go through that comment with a therapist? Ask him to please face up to having said it and it has really, really damaged your confidence?

It feels to me like he probably meant, “I would never objectify you sexually,” rather than “I don’t think you’re sexy.”

I would hate your inner demons, (I have plenty of my own!) to chase away a good thing when you finally found it. Only you can figure out if that’s what’s happening though.

It feels to me like he probably meant, “I would never objectify you sexually,” rather than “I don’t think you’re sexy.”

That's how I have wanted to take it but the fact he won't talk about it makes me doubt it.

I've wanted to believe that he meant it wasn't all he was interested me for.

I'm not sure how he'd feel about couples counselling. I'm just not sure I can carry on feeling like this. It was so good and had so much promise and then, bam, just like every other time.

I'm not sure I've got the emotional.energy to work through this because of something he said but doesn't seem especially bothered by.

Thank you for your support.

So much of our (women's) sexual confidence and desire is linked to feeling desired in the first place and we're conditioned to believe our value is linked to how much men want us.

When something make us feel insecure (body/weight changes, menopause, decline in partners attention) our critical inner voice is quick to amplify that and it further squashes down our desire. It's easy to become trapped in the doldrums.

Start by doing things to boost your self esteem, get back in touch with you own sexuality/ sensuality, book a massges, read some erotic fiction, fantasise in the bath... whatever works for you... and talk to him, explain that this is a big deal, one that could end the relationship and you both need to work to fix it. Read Mating in Captivity... and don't just accept the slump into 'housemates'!

Thank you.

Honestly, though, it's happened so many times, I've just accepted it as truth that I'm not attractive enough.

I just can't see myself as a sexual being at all anymore. I'm just functional. I understand why you have suggested the things you have but I can't see how I wouldn't just feel stupid doing those things. I've done them all before. I used to when I believed I had just met the wrong men and decided not to listen to their words. So I remember what it was like. But that's just not me anymore.

It would make sense to talk to him but I have tried and it goes nowhere. I don't know how much of that is because what he says feels insincere or actually is insincere.

His responses when I've spoken to him previously are that he didn't say that, he doesn't know why he would have said that, he can't answer because he doesn't remember saying that. And then he tells me that he loves me. It goes nowhere.

My feelings are that the truths are what 'slip out' when you're not really attending to what you say - when you speak before engaging your brain (which is what he claims some of his previous comments were when pushed) because that's your subconscious speaking. The truth doesn't lie in the carefully constructed responses you give when you are trying to reassure someone.

I shouldn't have let myself get in this deep.

Thank you.