We (M+F early 30’s) dated for five months, very much in love and a lot of common ground but in a difficult dynamic. We have been working on building communication and trust so as to remedy this but some of these wounds are deep..
From the moment we slept together he went all-in, wanting to spend day and night together, and it was too much for me. I was slow to trust since he was still heartbroken from his last relationship. And what is more, I have a disability and suffer from limited energy, and I didn’t feel like he could see that and attune to me. I was also scared to really open up. We both agree that he crushed me, so to say. Turns out he never really feel safe and special, fearing that we may not see each other again and that it wasn’t serious for me. I was a bit jaded about romantic relationships when we met but have told him so many times how much I liked him, that I loved him, that I was serious about building a future together. I now absolutely love how involved he is and eager to have good times and try new things together and profess his love. I also think he is seeing more and more how much I really went for this relationship. However because of what I describe below I have also become confrontational and exasperated and this plays into his insecurities.
This is a bit blunt but imo he has been pushy and selfish from the start. I can appreciate this. He knows what he wants and is set on making his own way in life, and I love that about him. I can also be selfish so it’s good to know that he can match me on that haha. But I have also had some real boundaries crossed, and this hurts the most when it comes to sex. I’m open to a lot of things but there are also things I’m really not into (due to past trauma or just preferences) or things that I don’t really enjoy. He would question me on these preferences (“but come on, it’s fun”) and has flat-out disregarded them a few times. He came in my eyes thinking that I can just close them but ofc it hurts anyway and I had told him not to. Then he did it again a few weeks later. He struggled understanding the idea of consent and has told me quite a few times that if he has desire he cannot just stop and think about how it feels for me. Eventually I broke down and called him a sociopath / misogynist, bewildered how he could be so selfish and yet so sweet at other times, and we broke up.
He told me he is sorry and that he loves me, and was obviously also hurt by my name-calling. I felt that I should have been more compassionate, realizing that I have triggered his insecurities, and I really want to make it work. I am his second partner after a long relationship and his inexperience is a real trigger for him, while I can be a bit callous in how I talk about sex or about my exes/flings. So we start dating again, and while we still had plenty of arguments, we also got to know each other better and he agreed to go to therapy with me to help with communication.
As for communication we basically have this pattern where he can get defensive instead of just acknowledging even a small slight and he can freeze/block me out, and he can also blow up at me when he is hurt rather than telling me. I struggle with giving him time to let things sink in especially if we are still around each other. I don’t want things to disappear unacknowledged into a sinkhole of hurt. I feel like I have to repeat myself over and over again. I struggle with patience and sometimes make him feel stupid. But I really felt that we were getting somewhere. He tells me more often when he is hurt and we have more and more good conversations where we both listen and take each other seriously and reassure each other.
Until he just put it in without a condom. Again. We started doing it a bit as foreplay. He really loves it and is used from his past relationship to not use a condom, but I really don’t want to get pregnant. Maybe a bit as foreplay would be fine if he could stop and put on a condom when I ask him to, but it takes him quite a while to switch gear. This is triggering for me so it’s best if we just don’t do it. In such a moment, knowing that it’s not a misunderstanding, I feel so incredibly disrespected, and in my mind this is basically akin to rape/stealthing. He did apologize but also flat-out asked me if I want to have sex with a condom my whole life (we could have talked about this at a better time and in a more delicate way…) and asked me if I still wanted to have sex while I am lying frozen next to him in bed. I say no, get up, and the conversation goes to how I have hurt him in the past.
The day after I break up with him. He did say that he is working on these glitches. He also thinks that it is normal for couples to struggle with consent/power dynamics. After the break-up I confront him again and he said he understands, that he will always remember how pushy he was and how this created a bad dynamic, and that he will always remember the good times. It breaks my heart and gives me hope at the same time. I have been waiting for him to acknowledge this so fully (he sort of did on and off). I want us to spill our hearts out and forgive each other and come up with some sort of plan to keep things more stable. We clearly both have some issues lol.
Should I stick to my guns, keep him blocked and move on? Or open up to the idea of therapy and making it work, maybe having a break on sex, until we are out of the woods?
Thank you for reading such a long post, it means a lot to me!
TLDR (ex-)bf is pushy and crossed some boundaries, but the good times are good and now that he tells me he sees his part in the dynamic I have hope again.

1 comment
  1. You can’t make it work with someone who has deliberately sexually assaulted you at least 3 times according to you post. He knows what consent is, he just doesn’t care.

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