How do I (f25) heal from my parter (m26) often disrespecting my boundaries?

My partner and I have been together for 9 years and we’ve been incredibly happy, but specifically in one area of our relationship, we’ve often run into issues. He has often had a history with pushing my sexual boundaries. I also just so happen to have daddy issues from my narcissistic dad, which has left me with a horribly active freeze/fawn response that shows up anytime I’m nervous. The combination of him pushing my boundaries and me being too anxious to boisterously refuse him has been a recipe for disaster.

We met when we were both pretty young and we’re also both each other first partner, so some growing pains are understandable. However this has been a reoccurring problem. When it first happened he started by fondling me a lot. I don’t recall ever giving him an enthusiastic yes to this. I regret not saying no immediately, but I thought it was normal to be nervous and I should just go along with it. After putting up with it on the occasion for a bit, I wound up explaining that him touching me that way was making me really anxious and we should dial it back. He apologize and stoped, but only for a few weeks or so. Then he’d kind of test the waters, I wouldn’t directly say no right away, and that would just start things all over again.

This would happen on and off for years and years with varying degrees of sexual actions. I always felt like I had to do them for him to be a good girlfriend, and he’d often act very sad/disappointed any time I would imply a no, which often made me give in just to make him happy. I know it’s bad of me to not say no more clearly though, and I beat myself up about that a lot. I just always made myself push through it because I though I was just being nervous, and he would be happy/wouldn’t be sad if I did what he wanted. I thought it’s what I had to do to be a good girlfriend.

And over time this lead to him sexualizing and objectifying me more and more without my permission. He would randomly grope me, spank me, fondle and finger me in my sleep, peek under my skirt, pull my dresses up so he could see my underwear, and say all sorts of degrading and sexual stuff to me constantly, regardless of the situation. I had to completely change the way I spoke because anything that COULD be turned into a dirty joke WOULD be. He would constantly bring up sexual stuff in non-sexual situations, like telling me how much he’d love to get oral, while we were just casually playing video games up until that point. One time he even absentmindedly lifted up my dress while we were in his living room, while his mother and 2 younger brothers were also in the room! It was slowly driving me crazy, and it eventually made any sexual touches or topics completely terrifying or me.

I tried just pushing his hands away and telling him to quit it throughout that whole time, and tried more and more as time went on, but he never seriously did anything to stop or change. He later even told me that he thought I was just being “playful” when I would say no, despite me never implying that. I eventually told him as harshly as I could about all of this and he was completely horrified by the situation once reality set in. Later he said how “he though everything was fine” up until I spoke up. It came completely out of nowhere to him, even though I had spent months doing everything I could that wasn’t blowing up at him to get him to stop.

Now he’s thankfully agreed to completely avoid sexual stuff with me which I appreciate so much. We do still cuddle a lot, but he doesn’t touch me anywhere sexual anymore, and we don’t have any other forms of sex. We still hug and kiss and hold hands too, I just am afraid to have any types of sex or have way too heavy of makeouts for a while until I feel safe to let my guard down again. The only thing is, I fear he’s falling back into old habits. Lately he’s been saying how much he misses intimacy, and how we “felt so much closer” before I told him how I felt. Or he’ll make jokes about how he “just wants to be loved” and these make me feel both terrible for making him feel sad, and angry that he still is trying to push my boundaries. I understand he just wants to feel loved, and I really appreciate all the effort he’s put into making me feel comfortable again, I just fear that he doesn’t truly understand the consequences of his actions and the trauma I suffered as a result, and that he’s just anxiously awaiting the day we can go back to having a hypersexual relationship again.

So yeah, if there are any sort of communication tips or any advise anyone knows of that could help, please feel free to share. I’m currently going to therapy and have been for years now, however my partner never goes to any form of therapy despite me recommending it, and has told me that couples counseling would be the worst thing in the world, so that’s probably definitely out. So now I’m just left to struggle with the worry of if I’m in the wrong for not being loud and direct with telling him no all the time, or if I left this all happen to myself and I’m just being a bad partner by not sucking it up and going back to having demeaning sex all the time.

Sorry this is incredibly long winded and sloppily written, as you might be able to tell from this post, I’m kind of a mess over this all. Also I never use Reddit so sorry if I’m missing any specific etiquette. Any advise or input would be greatly appreciated <3