I'm late-20s, and have been in a relationship with my partner for coming
up to 4 years. Was diagnosed with depression when I was younger after I
dropped out of university, and although I'm no longer in that dark
place, I feel that I've never really s...
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I'm late-20s, and have been in a relationship with my partner for coming
up to 4 years. Was diagnosed with depression when I was younger after I
dropped out of university, and although I'm no longer in that dark
place, I feel that I've never really shook off the depression
completely. My partner and I met online, since I came over here to live
almost 3 years ago the intimacy rapidly tapered off and now the lack of
it has left a huge void in our relationship. I avoid intimacy at all
costs because when we do begin to be intimate I suffer extreme anxiety.
What began as mild discomfort with sexual activities now prevents us
from doing anything sexual. I think the initial discomfort stemmed from
poor body image. I'm overweight (have been all my life) and for most of
my 20s I suffered from an addiction to porn. This replaced normal sexual
interaction with women - since my early 20s I only had one relationship,
again online, however was not very close with this girl. Obviously this
skewed view of sex is not compatible with a serious loving relationship,
however I didn't even realise this was the problem until months after I
had moved to Australia and it became clear there was a problem.
Initially I thought it was just something that would pass once I had
become more comfortable in a new country, once I'd found a job, and a
place of our own. But those things have come and gone and the anxiety
has only become worse. I think I'm anxious at the thought of being
myself in bed with my partner, because I do not live up to my
expectations of how a man should be and perform during sex, and also how
the whole sexual experience should be. I made excuses and tried to avoid
the subject and avoid intimacy at all costs, but as my problem became
apparent, I had to talk to my partner about it. Every time I turned her
down, every time I avoided sexual contact with her, I damaged her
self-confidence and hurt her. Every time I suffered anxiety to the point
of recoiling away, I put her through the same mental anguish I'd been
suffering, if not worse. We've been to a sex therapist, who after a few
sessions referred me to a psychologist who specialises in cognitive
behavioural therapy; I've been seeing him for several sessions since
last year for my anxiety. We've covered a lot of techniques to control
my anxious thoughts, mindfulness, and sensate focus exercises - but I
feel that even though I seem to have the tools and the knowledge to get
through this, I just can't seem to apply myself, follow through on my
promises and make a big effort to turn my life around. I can't even look
at it because it seems so impossible. When I do make progress I look at
what I have left to do and it seems even more daunting, so I run away. I
give up because I can't bear to push through the discomfort. We're
fighting about this on a weekly basis now. The kind of fights where we
scream at each other, in floods of tears, then end up barely speaking
for 2-3 days afterwards. Things get better, I try to follow through with
my promises to keep up the consistent application of the tools I have to
combat anxiety, but then a week or so later I bottle it, end up breaking
my promise and the cycle repeats. Every time we fight I feel us getting
further apart and success seems even further away. She screams at me
because she's in so much pain, beyond breaking point, and I won't just
bite the bullet and confront this head on - and I don't blame her. She's
given me an ultimatum. 2 weeks to get some sort of plan in progress -
something that I will stick to - or we can both look for our needs met
elsewhere. As painful as that thought is I feel I deserve the pain after
everything I've put her through. I've lied, broken promises, put my
needs ahead of hers, and tried to avoid looking at this issue at her
expense. I don't know how to motivate myself to follow through. I start
out with the best of intentions - recording my daily thoughts, spending
some time every couple of days being close to her, using sensate focus
exercises to try to become comfortable with it. But after a few days
this tails off, I stop writing down how I feel, I make excuses to not be
intimate, and stop even talking about it, withdrawing into my shell.
I've only just talked to my Dad about it, I'm so cripplingly ashamed
about it that I haven't mentioned it to anyone else. What can I do to
motivate myself push through the discomfort of anxiety when I can't even
seem to manage it with all the help I'm getting? SIMILAR THREADS Lack of
sex drive
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