I (28F) recently married my partner (M28) of 6 years. Several year prior to this relationship I was living with a partner who mentally and sexually abused me.
In the beginning, our sex was great and I felt like I enjoyed myself, but once we started living together I started to revert back to feeling really uncomfortable about sex. I am in therapy and actively addressing my PTSD and trauma, but I miss having sex that didn’t feel planned or awkward.
We stopped having sex once I opened up to him about dissociating during sex bc I wasn’t enjoying it (instead of speaking up.) He’s said he’s afraid of hurting me, and since then I’ve noticed a huge decline in his willingness to initiate or continue when I try to initiate. For the last two years we’ve had sex maybe 3-4 times a year. Our wedding night was great, and I thought things would improve from there. However, it was just a fleeting moment… I feel like I’ve killed our sex life.
Has anyone gotten through this? Any advice about getting out of your own head? I have a really hard time relaxing and end up over-focusing on my partner. I get extremely uncomfortable when the focus is only on me, and “just don’t think about it” and isn’t working.