I (30M) couldn’t say no to my ex’s (26F) booty call. What now?

A few nights ago, my ex girlfriend (who I had previously dated off and on for 6 years) texted me after a month of very little contact. It seemed innocent enough at first, just sending me something funny that she knew I’d laugh at too. I had been mostly ignoring texts like these. They came at least once a week, but not so often as to be annoying.

This time, though, I didn’t ignore it. I probably should have, but I had a question I needed to ask. I wanted to know if she had started working again and, if she had, whether or not I would be unwelcome at the local diner (where she used to work, and probably would be working again). I’d gotten even more isolated than before since I had broken up with her, and that diner is one of the few places I feel like I can go out on my own without feeling like I’m in immediate danger of some kind. I wanted to start going there regularly again as a sort of exposure therapy to being outside my house.

Well, naturally, that question earned me more than just a straight answer. It turned into a conversation. She talked about her former work and troubles with the people there for a little bit, then she deviated from the subject with a wild curveball: she mentioned that she was really struggling from the lack of sex, that she was masturbating almost constantly and it wasn’t enough, and she asked if I was having the same trouble.

I told her the truth. I’ve never been good at lying to her, and it’s not like me to refuse to answer a question when she asks me right to my face. I was having the same trouble. I’d masturbated 7 times the previous day and twice that morning. It simply wasn’t the same at all.

Her response was to say that she was still taking her pill every day in case I wanted to, quote, “blow off some steam.”

I couldn’t believe what she was saying. I asked, incredulous, if she was suggesting that she’d be genuinely fine with having sex for the sake of sex with no strings attached.

“Sure, why not?” was her reply.

Of course there were plenty of reasons why not. I didn’t want to get into another tangled mess of unclear boundaries and uncertain actions that ended with hurt feelings on both sides yet again, like countless times before. I’d ridden that particular emotional rollercoaster for the last six years, and I felt quite ready to finally get off of it.

My body, however, had other ideas. Far from the first time my biology has betrayed me. Nine orgasms between that day and the day before, and it wasn’t enough. She and I had always communicated better with our bodies than with our words. More than once she had told me that no other man ever fucked her quite like I did, and most certainly not as *often* as I did. Our physical needs had aligned well, and on this occasion that worked against me.

I told her that I didn’t think we should do this because I didn’t want either of us to get hurt anymore, knowing that every time we’d started seeing each other again in the past we’d just been signing up for more heartbreak down the road.

Her response was to tell me that she was actually taking the breakup quite well, and that I’d only been in her dreams a handful of times in the month since. She said she didn’t think she’d get attached, so long as we didn’t ‘blow off steam’ too often.

I told her that doing this would make me feel like shit, because I would feel like I was just using her as a piece of meat to fulfill my physical needs.

She told me that I didn’t need to feel that way – that she was asking for it, after all, and she’d be getting the same thing out of it that I was. I wanted to believe that was the whole truth. I didn’t believe it, but I wanted to. She said she wouldn’t hold it against me either way, that I could just say “no” and it would be fine.

Of course, I didn’t have it in me to just say “no.”

She seemed to suspect I wasn’t certain what to do or what to say, so she changed the subject. What followed was the longest, most in-depth conversation we’d had in years. You see, a major reason we kept breaking up and getting back together is that I’ve always had this particularly toxic character trait that makes maintaining a healthy relationship almost impossible.

I’m capable of speaking openly and clearly with complete strangers and people who I can keep at a comfortable distance, because there’s no real danger of them using that information to hurt me. Sure, in theory they might try to financially undermine me, or assault my reputation, or target the people or things that I love.

But I figure that strangers will do these things anyway, and by a kind of warped logic I give out information almost as a challenge. “Try to use this against me. I *dare* you.” I guess I figure doing that will help me anticipate the form that attacks against me will take. Better that than trying to keep secrets, then being caught off guard when someone uses one of those secrets against me. And even if the attacks succeed… I won’t feel the pain. They’ll hit my armor instead of my flesh. I may crack or even break under the blows, but I will not feel it.

The people I love, though? I keep things from them. It’s only logical. If I let somebody get inside my shell, get close enough to stick a knife in me, it would be insane not to fear them more than those outside. And this girl… she always gets under my armor. If she’s close enough that I can see and touch her, she’s close enough to hurt me. So I hold myself back from saying things that I really ought to say.

When she does something to hurt me without knowing it, I’m afraid to tell her that it causes me pain because if I tell her that, she might do it more. When she does something that I like, I’m afraid to tell her that I like it because if I do, she might never do it again. When she lashes out in anger during an argument, I back down and hide inside myself because I’m afraid of what she might do if I make her more upset. And when she scares me… I’m afraid to tell her that I’m afraid, because I’m sure she’ll think less of me for it and treat me even worse.

Only when she’s at a distance, only when we’re apart and I have no immediate need to fear abandonment or retribution… only then can I tell her how I really feel.

So, that night we talked for a long while. I told her about the problems described above, among other things. I would swear we’d discussed these issues more than once before, on other occasions when we were broken up, and yet much of it seemed to come as a surprise to her. Come to find out that she admits to having a very similar problem, albeit to a somewhat less extreme degree. So often we’re secretly assuming the worst of each other, while being unwilling or unable to speak up about it hoping to be proven wrong.

After that we talked about all kinds of other issues. The things that had caused us to break up this last time, the things that had led up to it… all kinds of shit. I told her in no uncertain terms about how I’m a coward. How just about everything I do in my life is motivated by fear, and everything I *fail* to do is the result of more fear. How I’m more afraid of her than anyone or anything else in the world, because she’s the *only one* who can *really* hurt me.

When we’re together, I’m afraid to break up with her – both out of fear of being alone, and out of fear of what she might do in retribution. When we’re apart, I’m afraid to get back together with her – both out of fear of what she might do to me once I get too close to speak out, and out of fear that I might never get free again.

This time was the worst of them, because now I have a better understanding of why we simply cannot get along long term. Knowing that we both share the same toxic trait to differing degrees, and knowing how that trait makes communication and conflict resolution all but impossible, I no longer have any faith whatsoever that we could *ever* make things work out between us.

Yet at the same time I *wish* we could make it work. I’ve always wished for that. And even knowing it would hurt me, a part of me would be willing to try it again even if the chances were almost nonexistent. But I also know that I make her miserable too, and I don’t think I can bear that on my conscience this time. I’m so very tired of hurting her even when trying to be good to her.

This and a whole mess of other things got thrown around. I was conflicted inside the entire time. We talked. We argued. We fought. I cried. I still don’t know why… or even *how* I still care so damned much. We’ve hurt each other so many times, I don’t know where I can still find tears.

After… god, *hours* of this, eventually we were winding down and she made the halfhearted comment, “I guess we’re not blowing off steam tonight?”

I don’t know what it was, whether it was some of the stuff we’d talked about before or my biology betraying me further or what, but all of a sudden my inner conflict seemed pointless. I guess I felt like she would talk me back into her bed eventually one way or the other.

“Are you saying that offer’s still open?” I asked.

“Sure, why wouldn’t it be?” was her simple reply.

I just sat and stared at the screen for something like five minutes, then.

“Fuck it.” I finally said. “Fine. Unlock the door. I’ll be right there.”

We had sex three times in two hours that night, marking a total of 12 orgasms over the course of 48 hours for me. We fell back on the same old moves with the same ease as if we’d been doing this yesterday, rather than having gone a month without it.

When I went home afterwards, she texted me to say that she cried after I left.

***Sigh.***

She said it wasn’t because of me directly. Said she understood and agreed with the notion that we’re just not going to make each other happy long term because of our incompatible issues. Said she cried not because of me, but because she realized that she would probably *never* have a happy, stable relationship. That she believes she will never be able to trust another man the way she trusts me.

I found that troubling. I don’t consider myself to be particularly trustworthy. Especially given that I always end up making her miserable in the end because we just can’t. Fucking. Talk. To each other.

Then again, of course, there are varying degrees of trust. Apparently no other man she’d ever dated had come even close to being as reliable and trustworthy as she considered me to be.

Christ. For fuck’s sake. How did I let things get this bad? I know damn well there’s no such thing as casual sex. Sex is a messy, tangled up affair with way too many loose threads to not get caught on something. Not that *knowing* that has ever actually saved me from getting myself into trouble.

True to my prediction, she has been acting many times more familiar since then. The next night we didn’t see each other in person, but we stayed up until 6 in the morning talking about all kinds of crap that should have been sorted out years ago. After we finally did go to sleep, as soon as we were both up I went to her house again and we had sex twice in an hour.

So much for ‘not blowing off steam too often’. It seems I can be counted on to do precisely the wrong thing again and again.

She tells me that I still call her “baby” during sex. I don’t realize I’m doing it in the moment. It’s just instinct. She tells me that she still loves me. It’s only a matter of time before I make the mistake of saying I still love her too. I suspect I’m already past the point of no return, but that… well, that’ll make things worse.

Jesus, what do I even do now?

**tl;dr:** an ex long-term girlfriend talked me back into her bed for a booty call and ever since then she’s been acting like she wants to go back to the way things were – even knowing we’re absolutely terrible for each other. I don’t know whether I should give it the umpteenth try knowing I’ll likely fuck it up again, cut contact entirely, or anything in between.