A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:About 4.5 years ago i was seriously hurt by a crazy ex. Sex was abuse, and it was cruel, and as soon as i could escape i did. I moved to a different city, sacrificed my friends, my job, my life and developed an eating disorder. My way of handling the horror that had occured in only a few short months. I then rushed into a relationship which I'm still in today. But i am unhappy. And we NEVER have sex. The no sex, obviously, is my choice. It drives my boyfriend mad, and i think if he wasn't so mentally fragile because of all the rejection he would have left me by now. He truly loves me, but is going mad without sex. As for me, I just don't want anything with him, I feel dirty and nasty when anything intimate happens. Yes, it is psychological. But it is also physical. I have had, over the past 2-3 years, the most horrendous pains. I have had surgery, and will need more, and am only just recovering from some of the most painful embarrassing and disgusting conditions you wouldn't even go onto embarrassing bodies about. I want to be normal so badly, but if it's not my mind, it's my body, and i feel so so alone. Am i wrong to stay in a relationship when i hate to be touched, if it was love would I be able to be intimate? Do i need professional help? Or will there be a time when being intimate with someone feels natural, and i don't hear the tick tick of the relationship alarm, telling me to sort this out soon before hurting a lovely man even more. Reply to this Question
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reader, anonymous, writes (12 March 2010): I will add that, you don't have to say every detail. But, outline it at least.
If you don't feel comfortable doing that with this guy, then he's not what you need right now.
A
female
reader, janniepeg  +, writes (8 March 2010):
 Thank you rcn, I hope you would be online whenever abused people asks questions about intimacy. For the original poster, I just want to add that you might want to find a tantric healer. You might learn to associate gentle touch with peacefulness and pleasure at the same time.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (7 March 2010): u need to relive and confront everything thats been done to u. Putting it under the rug to resurface later isn't working.
Meaning, tell your bf everything. Every grisly, humiliating detail. When he knows, the understanding will flow, from both sides.
And when you know he knows, I think you will open up to him more. This is all about trust, and issues of you feeling vulnerability.
But, perhaps this BF isn't the right one. You need someone that inspires trust in you.. that makes you want to actually try to heal instead of dwell. Sounds like he isn't strong enough for u.
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A
male
reader, rcn +, writes (7 March 2010):
 Let me ask you this. How long are you willing to allow your ex control your life now? Accept that you deserve to be loved. Accept that you deserve to feel good when intimate. This is not your ex, but your blocks are pushing him away as if his touch would be the same as the touch of your ex.
True intimacy between two people doesn't hurt. It can lead to a magical experience that is shared, and not to feeling dirty as you felt with your ex. What he did to you was wrong. What he took from you is wrong. The way he treated you does not make you a different person, only made how you view yourself different. Your boyfriend loves you for who you are, and wants to touch you for being who you are. He isn't trying to take anything away from you, only to share intimacy with you.
Those things are what I want you to start telling yourself. You deserve to break through the damage caused, and live and share with another even though this past took place. What happens is our minds protect us from pain by associating experience with what might cause us harm. Because of your past, you mind has associated the act of sex with being dirty and pain. To re-associate your mind, I want you to (1) Write down not what your ex did, but what has been taken from you because of what he did. Make it angry, emotional, whatever you would tell him face to face if given the chance to freely speak your mind. No you don't have to mail it. It's for you. Then in your heart, forgive him for treating you this way, not because he deserves forgiveness, but you deserve to live without the pain of what he's cause you. Forgiveness is divine, because it cleanses you of holding onto pain caused. (2) Take some alone time, relaxing, bathing or however you find relaxation, I want you to close your eyes, and imagine if you could mentally script intimacy, what would it be like? What would it feel like to really feel close to someone you love? How would the touch feel? How would it feel to (how I best describe to be made to) squirm with pleasure? I want you to first imagine how all these feelings would feel to you, then I want you to do it again, but merge in your boyfriend is causing these feelings that you had imagined. (3) After doing #2 a couple of times, I want you to open yourself up to having sex with your boyfriend. Take it slow, have him take it slow and not rush into it. Create it around the intimacy you imagined. Have lights dimmed, candles whatever you feel relaxes you.
The reason for these are to first release pain, then to imaging the best feelings of intimacy and how they would feel to you. You do this to replace the old feeling showing another feeling with sex can exist, and when done with someone you love, such as merging your boyfriend into that picture, in a week or two, give us feedback to let us know if his touch created the exact or close to exact feeling that you imagined it to be. Take care, and please do the exercises to free yourself from the past, and start living again.
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A
male
reader, Frank B Kermit +, writes (7 March 2010):
 Yes you may need professional help...otherwise you would have dealt with it by now.
Yes you need to end the relationship you are in. I assume your boyfriend knows the reasons you reject him, if not, you had better explain it to him. The emotional damage you are doing to him is going to hurt him. On the other hand, you likely found someone as hurting as you are right now, which is likely the reason he has stayed.
I think you need to Stay out of relationships. At this point, relationships for you is escapism and you need to face your demons on your own.
If sex is still not a possibility for you, even with help for yourself mentally and physically then you might consider finding intimacy with other asexuals. This way you can have the companionship and tenderness you need, but not the sex that hurts you.
To learn more about asexuals, check out two sources:
http://www.asexuality.org/home/
and
http://www.franktalks.com/radio for an interview I did with Asexual David Jay who runs the above site.
I think they may also have coping methods for your current situation too.
-Frank Kermit
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A
male
reader, Kenj  +, writes (7 March 2010):
 Hi your not alone in this, I am in a relationship with a woman who has anorexia, plus she has self harmed many times. She has had the ED for the past 16 years of her life. I know what your going through and I know its not easy. Its not easy for my girlfriend and me but despite that we do have a loving relationship.
If your boyfriend is getting mad because he cant have sex with you then I am sorry to say he is probably just in a lust / infactuation stage of your relationship. It may change, but unlikley. If he truly loved it would not be a problem he would accept you for who you are.
To be open and honest you do need professional help, if you still have your ED and I suspect you do its going to take a long time, but there is hope and always hang on to that hope - Never give up!
If you need to chat then feel free to message me via this site. Take care!
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A
male
reader, ethan18 +, writes (7 March 2010):
tell him why you don't like to be touched. if he truly loves you he will understand. you need to go talk to a professional to help you get over this horrible thing that has happened to you, because you have been mentally scarred. you are not only hurting him, you are also hurting yourself. it sounds like you really love him, but you don't know it because your scared of being intimate. remember NONE OF THIS IS YOUR FAULT!!! and you are the victim. if you explain it to him I'm sure he will under stand, because its not everyday you meet a man willing to stay with a person for soo long without any sex. congrats to finding a great guy like him!
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