A month ago, my girlfriend informed me that she didn't want to be "penetrated" any more

what so she's throwing in blumpkins for the bargain?

oh GOD andrew you're filthy.

(xpost)

I think it would make a difference, yes. I suppose I do feel resentful, I think it's a touch self-indulgent to severely restrict your sex life with your boyfriend for at least a month while you "talk through" some issue with a therapist. Makes me wonder what the therapist is telling her. I don't know. Maybe it's the frustration talking.

On the other hand, "nothin' but blowjobs" hardly seems like a proposition that warrants much pity.

No Mr. Mime, you didn't tell him to tell her how he's feeling. You told him to "tell her to grow up." There's no feeling there, just a hostile attack.

One thing I'd avoid doing, seriously, is putting a time limit on it. If the experiment is specifically only for a month, then no worries, but if that's her estimate, don't turn up with champagne, oysters and a studded cock ring at midnight on the 31st and expect her to be ready for you, or you'll just end up resenting her and making her feel like shit.

you're an asshole. In fact many people on this thread are acting as such. I went through the same thing with a boyfriend a few years ago. Up until then sex was very unplesant for me and I basically went along with it for his sake. I was raped as a child.

My therapist at the time suggested I take a hiatus. It lasted about six weeks. While that didn't solve all of my problems right away it was very good for me to realize that I could, and had the right, to do that. That right there was a big step for me to get over the past.

NP, perhaps you should go to a therapy session or two w/your girlfriend so you can understand her problems and she can understand how it's affecting you. Talking with her about it in a non-judgemental way is a hell of a lot better idea than asking these yahoos.

Seriously cannot get this image of Barry out of my head now. Ugggh.

also ignore Markelby, showing up with champage, oysters, balloons, streamers, a mariachi band and a studded cock rin on the 31st is a must

There's something about the way people have been approaching some of the threads on ILE over the last few days that's left a bit of a nasty taste in my mouth. There's something very bad fratboy American comedy about the whole thing at the moment.

Umm, basically Mark OTM - respectfully is the way to go about this.

Why does she need to justify it? It's her damn body and if she doesn't want to have intercourse she doesn't have to. That doesn't make her a bitch or anything. She's still trying to look after his needs in other ways. And if he can't accept her reasons or doesn't want to wait for her to sort herself then nothing's stopping him from leaving and finding some other penetration-friendly girl.

Like I said, NP needs to talk with her about this, not us.

many x-posts

no, chances are you wouldn't. It might have been fine from his end but if the gf felt this was neccesary OBVIOUSLY not all was fine from her end.

I've had bad therapy experiences too but that doesn't mean the whole idea of therapy is a wash.

Get yr head out of ass, Andrew.

It is a big issue though. I was young when I went out with her and fairly inexperienced, and the idea that i should spend my whole early 20's in celibacy working through someone else's problems (some of which she said she couldn't speak to me about, which is another terrible shutting out: you can't even help with the problem that is affecting both of you) was unappealing. Fundamentally though i believe the whole relationship suffered.

i would say, wait it out for a few months, see if you can deal with it. it could get better, it could remain the same. A few months without sex won't kill you, and you'll feel more secure over what you did in the long run...

She at least has a professional relationship with a therapist. You are asking largely anonymous people on the internet. Whose advice is likely to be more useful? Above all else, try to be understanding. Whatever else, you don't want to look back at this and realize you were an asshole.

what if her issues are bogus?

however NP your mistrust of therapists...naturally there's bad apples in every basket but I think the ratio is often exaggerated in popular culture - it's fair to say that generally speaking therapy is a good thing

btw, what you're frightened of - the destructive version of talking - is more likely if you think of talking with her about this problem as you simply 'confronting her with your feelings'.

While I do think that she has the right to do whatever she wants with her body, and you are not entitled to use it as you see fit, I do think her coming home without warning and declaring a new state of affairs in your mutual sex life without discussing it with you first is totally unfair.

It's one thing for her to be depressed over losing her job. it's another for her to decide that the reason she's been depressed lately is because of some underlying sexual issues because she regrets having sex with an older guy ten years ago, or whatever her situation here is. If her relationship with this guy was consensual, then that is the end of it. She needs to deal with the fact she made a mistake and move on, not blow the whole thing into a massive sexual dysfunction and punish you in the process.

Somehow I get the feeling that if she came home and said, "We have to talk, I made a lot of mistakes in the past and I need to work through them, my therapist suggested laying off penetrative sex for awhile, would that be okay with you?" this would be a completely different thread.

This kind of issue is based on trust and it seems she doesn't trust you because of what someone else did. I would think the next step would be, as she is working through these issues, that she would gradually -- as part of the process -- work penetrative sex back into your sex life.

Unless of course this is all an elaborate way of saying she doesn't like it and doesn't want to do it anymore.

Anyway, it sounds like she has a whole magazine rack full of issues and if you decided not to hang around while she worked through them, that doesn't make you a bad person. (Especially since there's no guarantee that once she works through them all that she'll even want you around then.)

And how that might tie in with not wanting to be fucked physically.

A thought. And I can't possibly know. Anyway, NP, have you thought of writing her a letter, about how you love her and how you fell in love and how you feel now? Just your feelings, not ' I hate it when you do this' accusations , more ' I feel xyz {his emotions} about xyz [ whatever situation}' .

If it's hard to talk it might be easier that way. (Even if it is a case of letting her know how you feel before you walk away.) It might start the communication and dialogue more compfotably than a 'we...need...to...talk...urrgh...' heavy conversational-broacher

I'll shut up now.

I agree. Sam had the guts to share her experiences and gets called 'hysterical' for it. anon is a coward and an insensitive creep to boot.

It's very symbolic, innit. She's probably on the defensive in general, so I wouldn't be surprised by this at all.

Then I guess this means that 99.9 percent of ILX are ball-less dipshits, aren't they?

thank you too NP for sharing more information.

You're feelings and are understanable and with the more info you gave us it does seem like you are trying to find a good solution to this, moreso than many posts here have given you credit for.

Obviously people here have turned the discussion into something larger since we don't know the two of you and really have no place speaking directly to you and advising you.

the only other opinion I would offer is that maybe you should try not to think of yourself as a pawn. Especially when you try to get the discussion going. Feeling that way might make you be ready to act defensivley instead of objectively (as is possible in this situation.)

Whatever happens, good luck. Relationships are tough no matter what's going on.

Not that an idiot like Dan I needs much refuting, but I'll say that the woman I was with definitely experienced repressed sexual trauma coming back many years later. She had been abused by her stepfather in her youth, virtually childhood really, for some time. She had repressed this for a very long time - nearly twenty years. She had never understood why some sexual and similar intimacies made her recoil and react very negatively, until the memories started coming back. It was horrible enough at second hand, and I can barely imagine what she was going through - but I could see the effects on her. I have exactly zero doubt about her honesty in this. It took time before she sorted out her thoughts and memories, and she didn't always find it easy to tell me about it (though she did eventually) and she saw a therapist regularly for a couple of years, which did seem to help her. I was deeply in love with her, and although I could point out that I suffered some sexual deprivation because of this, that was a small price to pay for what she was going through, and I did my best to be supportive and patient - I don't know how good that best was.

I'm not going to project all of that onto the relationship that this thread is about, as clearly everyone is different; but given that I have no reason to think this woman is lying about having problems, and given that I see no sign of her using any of this in some kind of power game, I am inclined to think that she probably really does have some problems and is trying to work through them with her therapist. I've met several therapists over the years, and didn't think any were bad people, but I'm damn sure some were terrible therapists, and some were good ones. I hope hers is a good one, but I have no way of guessing, and I'm not going to assume the person is a charlatan or trying to make things worse.

Finally, I may have been a bit harsh on NP earlier. I would wish that you could think a little more about her, but I do understand why you are upset. I hope you do manage to talk to her and that it is productive for both of you.

I interpret "repression" as being aware of something traumatic that happened, but never properly/completely coping with it.

Well that's what I thought too, but that's clearly what Martin was talking about.

Hi.

As my post refererred to my girlfriend and ex-girlfriend, I decided not to use my real name. I've not even made THIS alias an uncrackable code, but as I know some ILXors in real life, I felt that I would feel more comfortable speaking about the issues of myself and other people close to me, if my ILX name (which, incidentally, IS my real name) was not made too obvious.

I'll bite my tongue with the rest of my thoughts, believe me.

As a side note, I discussed this thread with my girlfriend today (she was drugged and gang-raped at 14) and she thinks NP's girlfriend is being ridiculous.

Personally, I believe that everyone's experience of pain is relative, and just because one incident may SEEM to be much worse than another, that doesn't mean it is for the people involved.

Now stop being such an asshole before I get pissed off.

Thanks.

your choice to include personal attacks in your posting is what caused my response, asshole.

Wowza, she's a burgeoning fountain of sympathy, ain't she?

Alex - don't badmouth my girlfriend, k? I'm not going to make huge generalisations here, but the people I know who have had REALLY bad times tend to be fairly level-headed, and the people I know who have had *comparitively* less hard experiences tend to make the biggest deal out of it. It's just my own experience. And no it isn't particularly sensitive of my girlf, but try and see it from her perspective.

So I should be sensitive to the insensitivity of your girlfriend?

Everyone reacts to traumatic experiences differently. How can you expect people to see things from your girlfriend's perspective when you're not willing to do that for NP's girlfriend?

I do enjoy throwing around "asshole" these days though so don't take it personally.

Me, earlier: "Personally, I believe that everyone's experience of pain is relative, and just because one incident may SEEM to be much worse than another, that doesn't mean it is for the people involved. "

Goodnight Vienna.

Apologies again, Sam, I WAS referring to the back-n-forth and it was not a personal attack (well I suppose using your name made it kinda personal, but I'm sure you're intelligent enough to know what I mean).

"Since then, only oral sex and handjobs."