First Love--- circumstances or sexually imcompatible?

[Dogg]

I had feelings of attraction for her from the second time I saw her and she brought out feelings stronger than I knew I could have for a girl. We were each other's closest friends for over a year while I battled my feelings for her (I just could not come out to myself as gay!). From the day we became friends, I felt like I could trust her more than friends I had had for years. We just clicked, with incredible chemistry. Finally, after many months of drunken flirting and late night talks, I admitted to her my feelings and she felt the same way. I was ecstatic, over the moon.

We completely immersed ourselves in each other but it wasn't enough to hold off the bad things that were happening outside of our relationship. I lost quite a few friends when coming out, who I had thought were my closest support system, my parents reacted badly to our relationship and I lost my close relationship with them. A family member died unexpectedly and it was my first real experience with loss.

I didn't come to her very prepared to be in a relationship. I had never done anything sexually or romantically but kissing before (embarrassing, even to admit online). Even in the middle of sex, I would freeze, feeling overwhelmed, guilty and ashamed. I grew up very religious and would have been ashamed to have sex with a boy, let alone sex with a girl. My girlfriend was completely understanding, would immediately stop without pressuring me and over time, helped me overcome some of those feelings so that they weren't so paralyzing.

Once I overcame a lot of these feelings, our sex life improved incredibly. We were creative and could not stop touching each other. Sex was fun and exciting. Her sex drive was limitless. My libido was lower but I was almost always a willing partner. I had a lot of frustrations sexually, however. While my girlfriend had no trouble coming, I was never able to, even alone. I still enjoyed sex but the frustration built a type of resentment I wasn't expecting. I was also upset, if not consciously, that she had had such an easy time coming out while it felt like I had lost a lot of my identity for a new one that didn't feel comfortable.

A few months after the death of my family member, I started experiencing symptoms of anxiety--- panic attack, unable to eat or sleep, throwing up, etc. I visited a therapist who told me I had a fear of losing people and that I was afraid that I or other people would be destroyed by loss.
During the weeks of my severe anxiety, my mother asked me if I was feeling anxious because my relationship was coming to an end. Her words struck me and from then onward, I started to worry that I was falling out of love with my girl. Was it anxiety or had she struck a chord of truth?

I told her I didn't feel in love with her anymore but upon the point of breaking up, I decided that I didn't want to break up without trying everything I could to fix this. We have been through so much, and I want her by my side now and in the future. We have not taken a break so much as see each other less frequently, maybe four times a week as opposed to every day, and with limited physical affection. Even kissing makes me nervous. Through this all, my girl has been great. Her feelings haven't changed at all.

With all the anxiety, which I am still suffering, to a lesser degree, I have come out the other side with my loving feelings fluctuating day to day, hour by hour. Some minutes I know this relationship is right and others, it is doomed. I can't believe that my feelings have changed so fast!

But now, on this other side of these weeks of trauma, I feel not attracted to my girl anymore. She still talks about how she can't wait until we have sex again but I am, in different moments, excited and then dreading it. Every time I see her, I am surprised by how beautiful she is but as soon as I go home and try to imagine sex again, I get a pit in my stomach. I have read on other threads that if you're not attracted anymore, you should let the other person go. But at the start of our relationship, my attraction to her was so strong, I threw my life and cares to the wind just to have a chance to kiss her on the lips! It is not that it wasn't ever there.

I see other girls walking down the street and I feel attraction to them. I don't think my attraction is dead inside! But then I remember, that even though these other girls as attractive, there is no way they could meet the level of amazing personality my girlfriend has that matches mine more than anyone I have ever met (And I went to an all-girls high school, so I have met a lot of girls! lol.). I don't want to be the type of person that chases relationship to relationship to get that beginning-in-love feeling.

More than anything, I want to fix our relationship. She is the greatest girl I have ever met. We have more fun together than with anyone else I've spent time with. I like her body close to mine, sleeping next to her, watching her put her make up on. We make crazy plans for dates, love celebrating our time together. I want to be by her side when she graduates college, gets her first job, etc. I want to be there for it all.

My therapist says I need to get rid of the fear of losing this relationship and throw myself into it without worrying about tomorrow and I think that helps, to a degree. When I throw that feeling away, I can kiss her, hold her, make out with her, do a little more with her, without any worry.

But am I too optimistic that I will get these loving feelings back, these sexual feelings back after all these negative thoughts about our relationship? I feel like our story isn't over and I want to get back on track to the great relationship I know we can have. But what if my attraction and butterfly in the stomach feeling is gone forever? Please help!

[ssandra]

Hi,

I just wanted to say, that I don't think your feelings have anything to do with your girl.

I think it was more your mother who planted the idea in your head... not your true feelings.

You started dating this girl, and after that you lost friends, you lost the close relationship with your parents, you lost a family member... of course you connect that with your girl, and think if you would not have her, all the rest would not happen either... Especially because your mom tries to tell you that as well.

Enjoy your girl, stop being afraid.

You did not loose things that were close to you. You lost false friends, a fake relationship with your parents. People didn't die because you fell in love.

Try to take things one day at the time, enjoy the time spend together. From the way you talk about her, you sound very much in love.

Love changes, the "in love" feelings goes away, and will only come back once in a while. It gets replaced by a deeper love. Don't worry about falling out of love, that happens to everybody. You sound like you still love her. That is important. Nothing else.

[Miia]

1.ssandra has a good point. do not underestimate the influence that your parents have on you (even so when you happen to be close to them, or in your case, were as you mentioned). since you mentioned college, I take that you are not very old:P no hard feelings, i myself am just 22 and im battling dayly with the grip that my mom and family has over me. it`s not a bad thing, in its essence. it`s just the way things are when you have grown up in a close intimate family enviornment. but be aware and try to notice it. ask yourself if its something your mom thinks or is it what you really think. the values and opinions your parents/family hold, can influence you to a extent you don`t understand yet. plus, your relationship had a difficult background, a lot of people were critical so this might have left a scar and thanks to this you are maybe more prone to outside influence... more open to adapting other people`s opinions (subconsciously).

2. ssandra has another good point. butterflies do go away, and then come back again only to leave for a few weeks, and then return etc.

3. relax. go with the flow. you don`t have to decide anything right now. see where this thing will take you. just go out with her and try to enjoy whatever it is that you are doing... i think that if you forget all this worrying and anaylizing over your relationshiop, then the chemistry will return. you cant be playful and have good sex when you are worrying so much....

[JSB]

Hi Dogg,

It sounds like there is a conditioned link between your anxiety and your experience of sex.

You say you are attracted to other girls, but if you found yourself in bed with them, would it trigger anxiety and resistance? I am guessing this may also tie into why it is so hard for you to experience orgasm -- perhaps you are prevented from letting go and being absorbed into your emotions and physical sensations by feelings of anxiety, doubt and self-judgement.

This might not be about your girlfriend; it might be about intimacy and sexuality in general, or the reaction of friends/family when you came out to them, or about even larger issues, but triggered by emotional/physical intimacy.

[Dogg]

Thanks for the advice, guys. I think you all are right on, at least, I would very much like to think so, since it means that my relationship can still be saved!

Now my only worry is now that I've identified some of the problems in my thinking, I need to find a way to change them. Do you have any advice to get my thinking a little more healthy? I would love some of your perspective on how to take some steps in the right direction.

[Dogg]

And just a second thought, just from reading past posts, there seems to be two camps of people when talking about relationships--- 1. that if you and another person are a good match, it shouldn't be hard work to keep a relationship or 2. that even relationships with great qualities take a lot of work to keep going.

If my relationship is taking real effort right now, does that mean we are incompatible? At what point does relationship maintenance turn into trying too hard to make things work?

[ssandra]

I always see it as a scale..

When the work is worth what I get in return (the relationship), it doesn´t matter how hard the work is.

When I feel that the work is more than I get back, it is time to move on.

What I get back in this case is not from the other person, but the joy and fulfilment I get from being in this relationship.

Another way of looking at it is "would it feel / be worse when I wasn´t with her?" When the answer is YES you can still work on your relationship.

No relationship is without its issues, and all relationships go through fases of troubles.

You have the famous 3 month bumb, the 2 year bumb.... when you first move in together, when you first have a child together.. all these things cause stress in a relationship something to work on together.

But it gets balanced by the good times, before and after.

[JSB]

Originally Posted by Dogg

And just a second thought, just from reading past posts, there seems to be two camps of people when talking about relationships--- 1. that if you and another person are a good match, it shouldn't be hard work to keep a relationship or 2. that even relationships with great qualities take a lot of work to keep going.

If my relationship is taking real effort right now, does that mean we are incompatible? At what point does relationship maintenance turn into trying too hard to make things work?

I believe both are true. yes, I know the statements sound contradictory, but I think that they can both potentially be true if you keep a few things in mind: 1. Is the relationship often/always hard or only in certain circumstances or at a certain phase? 2. Is the relationship hard because of issues/conflict between the partners or because of issues outside of the relationship?

I fundamentally disagree that "all relationships are hard work"; if a relationship is always too much work, it's not a good sign. However, if things are hard because of external stresses, it's possible to change circumstances or learn how to prevent them from influencing the relationship. If an "easy" relationship turns hard, it may signal a new temporary stage that needs to be worked through rather than a permanent change.

In your case, I've never met you or your girlfriend, so I can't say what the cause is, but if your relationship difficulties are caused by your own internal issues/anxieties/reactions rather than the dynamics of the relationship itself, you might as well work to address these issues now in this relationship, no matter how hard it is and regardless of whether the relationship "can be saved", because if you don't, you will just repeat these same patterns all over again in your future relationships.


As for "what to do":


I've found EFT helpful for releasing old emotional blocks/pain.

EFT Home - World Center for EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques)

Brad Yates - Success Beyond Belief


Angela often posts on the forums regarding NLP and other modalities to help shift yourself to where you want to be.


I also think a good therapist could help, but choose someone with whom you have a real rapport, and someone who is sympathetic to and has experience with GLB issues --- it sounds like a lot of your anxiety and tension may have ties to how you were treated by friends/family when they found out you were gay. (I mean "good therapist". There are a lot of lousy or mediocre ones, or skilled ones you might not click with. Don't be afraid to shop around.)

All the Best.