A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:I love my husband and I am attracted to him, but every time we have sex I feel dirty and cheap afterwards. We only have sex about once a month and it's lights out him on top. I still feel dirty and horrible afterwards. It's affecting our marriage, he is 26 and I'm 33, we have only been married 3 months. I have often been labelled a slut and have had rumours spread about me in the small town where we live. Right back when I got my first boyfriend, he told me I wasn't anything special, men only talked to me because I looked easy. I used to fall for every guy who gave me attention after that, I have no self esteem. I can't even look at myself without feeling disgusting.
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male
reader, crawldaddy  +, writes (1 July 2014):
you need help don't know if your spiritual or not notice I didn't say religious big difference. Forgive yourself and ask for forgiveness from anyone you feel you may have hurt, this will open you up to seek other help as needed. At this point it could even be your husband who could help. And we all know one thing leads to another. I'm just saying!
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (1 July 2014): Hi OP here. A little bit more information, the gossip spread about me was done by a co worker who claimed I was sleeping with her fiance, who also worked with us. As he was having an affair (with someone else) to protect the person he was having an affair with, he did nothing about these rumours. When the truth came out, I got no apology - she just claimed it had happened! Her friends jumped on the bandwagon and started claiming that I had slept with their boyfriends too. I worked in a bar so I was approached by men wanting a one night stand, I knocked them back so they were quick to bring me down. I wasn't that promiscuous, I slept with a couple of men, no strings attached when I was single. It's more about the rumours. It's like I can't get away from my first boyfriends opinion. My husband doesn't say much about me not sleeping with him - I think he's scared to upset me. I feel like I'm letting him down, at Christmas time we did have an arguement (he was drunk) and he accused me of sleeping with someone else and called me a slag, knowing it would hurt me. I feel like I'm being judged constantly - one of the women (they are all surprisingly in their late 20s) said I slept with her partner when she was pregnant.
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A
female
reader, So_Very_Confused +, writes (30 June 2014):
 I think that your feelings are way beyond any help we can give you on this site.
I strongly urge you to find a therapist and work with a professional to work on your self-esteem and self-loathing.
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A
female
reader, Euphoric29  +, writes (30 June 2014):
Dear OP,
I agree with the first agony aunt that it would be easier to give you advice, if we knew a little more.
But I'll try anyway to say one or two words.
You talk about yourself in a very negative way and it seems your low opinion stems from the mean gossip about you. And this horrible thing your first boyfriend said, probably not because it was true, but because he wanted to have power over you.
You are probably a beautiful woman in a town of bored and envious people, so they want to drag you down. What's wrong with easily falling in love and making some mistakes along the way? Yes, it's hurtful as a life lesson, but it's not immoral and it doesn't make you a slut or dirty or whatever. Forgive yourself, dear. To get attention, to be liked and loved and desired is one of the most fundamental needs that all of us have inside ourselves. Sometimes we go too far in order to get what we need, okay. But I bet those people who are judging you are overlooking some huge errors in their own lifes.
Now, before you take all the guilt for the sexual difficulties and tell us that you are damaged, I would like to know whether it's possible that your husbands' behaviour causes some of the feelings you have. Does he make you feel beautiful or ugly? Does he appreciate you for who you are, or criticise you? Does he love you, or is it a one-sided thing? Does he have sexual problems and conflicts that interact with yours?
Maybe you want to explore this.
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A
female
reader, Intrigued3000  +, writes (30 June 2014):
 I think you need counselling and in your sessions you need to delve into your childhood. That feeling of "feeling dirty" and your earlier promiscuity are signs of possible childhood sexual abuse. I can't really say that's for sure, but you definitely need to figure it out with a therapist. I would also recommend hypnotherapy to uncover possible buried memories, but make sure you do it with someone who is experienced. The results may be quite traumatic. Therapy is a good, solid first step towards healing. Please don't expect to be healed in a few sessions. Sometimes it takes months or even years. It's a process, so please be patient with yourself. I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and it took many years of therapy to deal with my inner demons.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (30 June 2014): Your husband is the man who loves and cares about you. He isn't just having sex with you, he is making love to you.
You should seek professional-counseling to deal with your feelings.
If there was a time in your past that you allowed yourself to be used and manipulated by men, don't let the small-town finger-pointing get you down. People in small-towns have boring lives, and gossip is all they have for excitement.
When you're nothing yourself, it's easy to point out another person's faults and mistakes to make yourself feel better. That's how small-town minds work. Your business is their business, only because they don't have much of a life.
You're over thirty and that puts your parents in their 50's and older. They had an old-school upbringing and preached to you about sexual behavior under the double-standard. It's okay for boys to be promiscuous, but girls who like sex are sluts. That sticks in your head throughout your life. That annoying double-standard even encourages some girls to rebel by being sexually-active at a very young age. They can't wait to lose their virginity. The result is, they may develop a very negative-attitude toward sex; and may never really appreciate it as it should be appreciated. Aside from procreation, sex is a pleasurable expression of physical and mental-attraction for another person. Sex is not dirty. The attitudes and ways people create to perform the act, can contaminate or twist the true purpose of it. It's dirty when performed without a willing partner, with someone under-aged, or just used as an act to degrade someone. It's all in your mind, and that can be fixed.
Your feelings are salvageable, with some therapy to reassure you that you've done nothing in your life to hate yourself for.
You've made a few bad choices. Show me an adult with a functioning brain who hasn't. My dear, we all make mistakes but you don't convict yourself for life over your past. You just don't repeat what you did wrong. You can consciously do that. Therapy will give you an opportunity to talk to a professional, who can help you find where those bad feelings come from; and coach you on how to deal with them.
If it is affecting your marriage. Therefore, counseling has to be sought as a couple; so your partner understands what's going on, and learns how to deal with it.
I just find it odd all this stuff happens "after" you're married. Not a thing before? Why didn't you have a problem while dating and through your engagement?
Was this a marriage of convenience? Weird you didn't feel so "slutty" (as you put it); that you couldn't commit to marriage, when you knew sex is a major part of it.
Did you rush into marriage after a short courtship?
Get the counseling together as soon as possible.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (30 June 2014): You seriously need therapy. Your self humiliation is very high. Your attitude toward sex is not healthy. You guys are way too much neelyweds and to young to only have sex 1 time a month, especially for a 26 years old man. There is something going wrong here, get some therapy.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (30 June 2014): We'd really like to help but there's so much information missing in your post that it's difficult to give concrete advice. Maybe if you clarify these points we can help more.
Have you always felt this way about having sex with him since the start of the relationship? If not, when did it start? Did you feel like this with previous partners?
How long had you been together before getting married? Are you both happy with sex once a month? Has it always been this infrequent? It doesn't sound like your average 26 year old if he's happy with sex once a month.
Why do you do it with lights out? Have you tried being on top to spice things up?
Have you considered seeing a therapist to deal with your self esteem?
Give a bit more information and we'll take it from there
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