My Partner’s Trauma Is Preventing Us From Being Intimate

I 25M and my partner 31F have been together for over two years now. When we started dating, she was married ( we are in a poly dynamic) and over the last year her entire life has been turned upside down. She was forcibly kicked out of her home with her son by her now ex wife and divorced, her mother and her aunt were murdered, and my partner who is disabled also had her cancer come back, and had her disabilities worsen to the point that her doctor said that if she keeps trying to force herself to work, she’ll be in a wheelchair by the time she’s 45.

She also ended up getting so sick she almost died as well. She’s basically lost everything. So many things have gone wrong, and I’ve been helping her to pick up the pieces. There have been some severe depression, anxiety and trauma responses as part of this process, which I expected. But the one thing that I didn’t expect was how severe the lack of intimacy would get. I had no idea how badly my partner was treated by her ex wife, I had no idea how severe the abuse was. And it was horrible. Mental, physical, emotional, that woman was the absolute devil behind closed doors, and my partner is still suffering because of it, even a year removed from the marriage.

She’s completely and totally uncomfortable with intimacy most days. Physical touch is something she can’t stand because of what her wife did to her. She’s admitted she’s not comfortable with expressing emotions as well, because she and her wife were together for ten years, and after being suddenly abandoned, in her mind “if I don’t show affection, it won’t hurt when you decide to leave too.” And sex is completely off limits because her body and mind still associate them with her ex wife and the things her ex wife demanded, so to her, sex is suffering, and something to try and disassociate from instead of something that brings pleasure.

I want to be very clear here, as someone that’s also gone through severe abuse and trauma, I completely understand these things and I’m not mad about them whatsoever. It’s my job as her partner to support her and her needs and respect her while she’s struggling. I’ve been making sure she goes to her doctors appointments, helping her put her life back together bit by bit, and encouraged her to go to therapy and she was in therapy for a few months before her medical benefits got cut. So she’s TRYING. She’s been doing everything she possibly can to get healthy and stay healthy, life has just been dealing her a poor hand.

I’m just really, really struggling with the lack of intimacy. I’ve discussed it with her and she apologized profusely, and said she feels like she’s broken, because every time she thinks about intimacy all she feels is negative emotions, guilt, and her trauma comes back, so she can’t do it, she can’t enjoy herself. I made sure she knows I’m not upset with her, and that she isn’t broken. And that’s genuinely how I feel.

But internally I’ll admit, I feel robbed. I feel robbed of the best version of my partner. I feel robbed of intimacy, and I feel so jealous of her ex wife that had the best version of my partner, and hurt her so badly that she became a shell of herself. Because I remember the woman I fell in love with two years ago. I remember that she came and made the first move on me, instead of waiting on me to do it because she knew I was too shy to speak up.

I remember her sending me porn gifs and saying “I want that to be us”. I remember her teaching me about her kinks and fetishes and giving me learning resources so I could get educated on them and we could practice them safely. I remember the woman that was confident, aggressive, dominant, and pursued me every single day. And then I look at her now, shy, scared, anxious, withdrawn, nervous, and terrified that I’m going to abandon her like her ex did.

I’m not going to. I love her with every fiber of my being, and I’ve been here with her through everything these last two years, and I’ll stay here. Even if her disability continues to worsen and she does need to be in a wheelchair, I’ll happily take care of her. If I have my way, one day if I’m lucky I’ll make her my wife. So I’m not going anywhere. I just feel so lost. I miss being pursued. I miss emotional reciprocation. I miss feeling lusted after. I miss her. And I just don’t know what to do, because I know she isn’t mentally or emotionally in any space to give me what I need right now, and that’s not her fault, I’m not going to punish her for it. I just don’t know how to keep pushing through. I am giving her, and this relationship everything I have. And I know she is too. She just unfortunately doesn’t have much to give. How do you keep going in a relationship where you’re not getting the affection you need, but only because your partner doesn’t have the emotional capacity to provide it?

TLDR my partner went through some severe trauma, and now does not have the emotional capacity to provide intimacy to me in the way I want and need to receive it, and the lack of intimacy is getting harder and harder for me to handle.