Trouble connecting emotionally after brakes are hit during sex

My (29M) GF (28F) and I have been in relationship for a year and have had a sex life that I would describe as up and down. Sometimes we have great sex a few days in a row, and then we won’t be intimate for two weeks. While I do think that I have a higher libido, and would generally be happier with more sex, this is not the issue I am writing about (although it might be important context). What I am finding difficult lately is that when we do start to get physically intimate I would say there is a 3/5 chance that it at some point she will get “scared” (her words) and ask to stop having sex. We of course then stop. This can happen at most moments during sex, it can happen just when we are lightly kissing and starting to feel a bit more intimate, it can happen when things start to get a bit more explicit and I touch her more sexually (even after getting explicit consent e.g. “can I touch your breasts”), or even if she starts touching me sexually and I start to get turned on. And it can also happen further down the line in the middle of penetration or something more intense. I want to be clear that we are not doing anything out of the ordinary and everything is based on active consent, I am not demanding sex, we are not doing anything overtly physical (like bondage or choking) where she is in physical danger (although of course I understand that it can feel dangerous to her for other reasons), we are just going from a slow build up of finding each other attractive, getting a bit turned on, and then slowly building up from there. But some of these times, at some point along this progression, she will just stop everything and tell me she is scared.

We have talked about the causes of this at length. We have also both read “come as you are.” We have identified several potential “brakes,” such as her wanting to be in control, her feeling like all I want from her is sex in that moment, us needing to move slower through foreplay and build up, or her feeling like she can’t just let herself go when she is feeling in to it. And we have tried implementing strategies for all of these with varying degrees of effort, and varying degrees of success. Although sometimes it is just easy to lose focus in the heat of the moment, and forget something. For example, sometimes even she will just start going really fast through foreplay, I forget to remind her that she wants to slow down, and then at some point she will get scared and then we will stop. And while this has been difficult, and I would love to hear advice on this, it is not entirely the problem.

My biggest issue is what to do after we stop. At this point we may have been intimate for over an hour. We may have built up slowly and intimately, talking about how sexy we find each other. She will often do things she explicitly knows turn me on. And I just find this so wildly sexy. Just knowing how in to each other we are. I can be so turned on at this point. Sometimes we will be in the middle of penetration or oral, or even right after she has an orgasm, and then we just stop.

And I just do not know what to do at this point. At one time I will feel so much love and affection for her, also empathy that she is struggling with this, but at the same time I am frustrated, can sometimes feel rejected, and overall am just really turned on.

And I am not saying I have to orgasm every time for sex to be nice (although feel free to tell me that I am just lying to you here, because I might be), but it can just be so abrupt when we stop. It feels like we go from flying down the highway at 100km/h to going in reverse. It’s not her just saying she doesn’t feel like going any further, and doesn’t want to continue until I have an orgasm. She is having an intensely negative emotional reaction and stopping all sexual interaction.

After the brakes are hit she will ask me to hold her. Sometimes she will cry. I try to be there for her. I try to not focus on solutions in that moment. I am trying to just let things feel difficult. But I honestly just sometimes can not focus on anything else besides being horny. And I also really notice that in that moment I struggle to regulate my emotions or be emotionally present. I just really feel like we are existing in two different worlds. This can obviously cause problems because she is looking for emotional support, but it is hard for us to emotionally connect. We will try and process everything, sometimes we will try and talk, but in the end I always want to be more physical again. And the way she describes the feeling after her brakes are hit there is 100% no chance of any more sexual intimacy that day or night. So what do I do? I have never identified myself as hyper-focusing on sex. Sex is an important part of relationships for me, and if we don’t have sex for a week or two I notice it, but it is not something that I think negatively impacts my relationship. And in the past I have been in relationships where we had similar amounts of sex and it was not an issue. But after like an hour of intimacy, I feel like I have a reptile brain saying that I can’t be emotionally compassionate because I’m just too horny. I just honestly can’t say if this is a legitimate feeling. Or is this fucked up and I need some deeper work to just be able to turn off my sex switch and change modes. Together we have discussed this a bit, but in these moments I know she already feels so guilty for stopping, and I want it to feel as guilt-free as possible for her to ask to stop. So while I do open up a bit because I believe emotional transparency is always best, I have not yet felt comfortable going so deep into how frustrated I feel, and how I honestly do not know how to act after the brakes are hit.

I hesitated to ask for advice. This feels like something similar to a lot of posts with partners of different libido levels. But here we have similar libidos, but we are just struggling to work through this together.