I dated my ex from 16-26yo, we broke up a few months ago and I’ve started seeing someone new. He is the second person I’ve ever slept with in my life, so it felt like a pretty big deal to me. With my ex, the first couple years being together and losing my virginity, it wasn’t the best for me. If we made out and I didn’t want to escalate it to sex, he’d get upset with me. I’d be accused of leading him on, and a few times he had walked out of my house and left me there alone just because I said no. This caused a lot of anxiety with me surrounding anything sexual.
From the ages of 16-18yo I constantly felt the need to have sex with him, and if I didn’t want to, I felt like I needed to give a reason or have an excuse. I’d often find myself wondering why we couldn’t just make out without it leading to anything, or feeling anxious until we had sex and then feeling relieved after that it was “out of the way”. I eventually brought this up to him when we were were about 21, admitting that I felt like he had almost scarred me in a way when it came to sex, that I never felt truly relaxed or like he would be mad at me if I ever said no. He was very receptive and felt ashamed of how he made me feel, and put a lot of effort into communicating and reassuring me more in those moments.
It didn’t seem to truly change these feelings and reactions in me though, to the point of him noticing a visible change in my behaviour if we were in a heated make out and it didn’t lead anywhere, saying stuff like “babe, I’m not mad at you, it’s really okay if we don’t do anything” and I’d just have this pit in my stomach and find myself wanting to be like “are you SURE you’re not mad though” — it just made for a really weird dynamic with sex for me personally.
And now with this new guy that I’ve slept with, I have started to truly notice just how much my past sexual experiences have affected me. We’ve been talking a lot and he makes me feel comfortable, saying he doesn’t want to pressure me and is totally fine not doing anything if I don’t ever want to, but I find myself feeling almost defensive/nervous when it comes to sleeping with him again, or if the topic comes up. I find that I want to over explain myself or shut down any overly sexual advances from him out of fear of “leading him on” or “making him mad” by maybe not being in the mood, even though I like him.
Has anyone else ever dealt with this? What was your experience like? I guess I do need to learn how to just be honest with new partners and if they show any of those same reactions as my ex, to not pursue it further. But I just don’t want this to be a problem in the future and I want to let go of this trauma-like behaviour when it comes to sex.
Thanks for any insight yall.