I’m freaking out so bad I have so so so many struggles and fears around intimacy with my boyfriend that it truly feels like I don’t want to have sex with him but I do I want to so badly and I want to enjoy things with him so much. But yet I can only enjoy it when I really really focus on it so doesn’t that mean I’m forcing it??? Like if I just try to do it without thinking about everything I won’t be able to enjoy it so does that mean I’ll never be able to truly let go of that bc I don’t actually enjoy it? I don’t want to have sex with a girl not at all and I don’t want anyone else to be with my partner like that but me. So why can’t I enjoy it freely? Like if I don’t focus on it I won’t even want to. I hate myself , I feel like a monster and like there’s something wrong with me.

My boyfriend and I started dating a little over a month ago. We’ve now started discussing the next step in our relationship: intimacy. It feels quick, but we’ve known each other well over a year and we were really close friends before dating. I don’t feel ready for sex yet but we’ve started with baby steps. While kissing, my mind started to wander and he started kissing my chest (he asked first, I gave consent, and I was comfortable with him), but frankly I was bored. There were parts that were good and parts that could use some work. I didn’t tell him what felt good and what didn’t like I should have and when he asked my mind went blank. The other night he came over for dinner and we began to talk about it. He started crying and saying how he didn’t want to disappoint me. I felt so shut down because I felt like I was the one in a vulnerable situation and I was the one that wanted to talk but there I was, taking care of him. I ended up communicating what I wanted and I appreciated that he cared enough to ask and listen but at the same time he didn’t really listen because he was caught up in his own emotions. All day long I cannot get it off my mind, seriously. I looked down midway through the day to see I had dug my fingernails into the pad of my pointer finger to the point where there was a deep mark. I have felt extremely anxious and like an awful girlfriend. I do not want to have sex with him if the thought of not doing well kissing my chest upsets him to the point of tears. I just felt bad for not enjoying myself and not telling him that, but I got frustrated that he almost… victimized himself? I feel like I’m manipulating him someway and I just don’t know how. I also feel bad for not being attracted to what he was doing and I’m scared it will lead to losing all attraction. Please help, am I awful for feeling frustrated that he cried?

In lack of better wording, Sometimes I really just feel like I don’t understand myself and I want to. So I can fix it. I’m looking in the mirror and I’m body dysmorphic, I want to see myself when I was younger and physically healthier but cant. I used to be on birthcontrol, and it made me gain 70lbs and I haven’t been able to feel the same about my body ever since then. Somehow since allowing my ex to semi control everything about our sexual relationship, I have developed a complexity of desired intimacy with myself constantly alone. Because I feel like I want to be in more control with how my sexual feelings affect me. I can’t get sexual gratification from my self sometimes even though, and then I turn to peopke. And then it turns to; I can’t be satisfied by anyone, and I haven’t had sex within a loving relationship for a long time. Because well I have been going through a lot recently. And most of the encounters sexually were in fact not in relationships, but I didn’t feel the satisfaction I was looking for and it just didn’t make sense. I have to have all the right emotions or else the moment gets ruined. If I don’t feel love for them, if I don’t think they are attractive, if I don’t like how they react to seeing my body, if I don’t like how they interact with me during the sexual encounters. And since this is so difficult I All together just don’t desire to have sex with anyone most times I feel mentally aroused. Speaking of just mentally aroused, it confuses me that my body will be physically aroused all the time and beg for satisfaction and it’s a cold burning sensation pleading for constant attention. I hate it. I can’t help but wonder why that exists when I haven’t been mentally aroused. But when it happens I can’t seem to satisfy it and neither can other people. And that somewhat altogether made a plethora of issues in my last relationship because my ex dealt with feelings of guilt and or resentment towards themselves for not being able to satisfy me.. and I would be crying from days on end recently in fact from trying MYSELF to release that feeling, but I’d try to the point my body grew sore. .. I hate it. Genuinely I feel disgusted and want to get help on how to stop this. It’s going to ruin the much healthier relationship I have now just gotten into down the line and I don’t think I can handle that. Not again.

I feel so lost. My boyfriend tries so hard to help me, but nothing seems to work. Every time he reassures me, my mind finds another doubt. He asks me, “So you’ve been questioning if you love me for almost 2 years?” and instead of feeling comforted, my mind jumps to “Maybe I just can’t accept that I don’t love him.” I keep telling him every thought that comes to my mind, hoping for relief, but it never lasts. I feel anxious, disconnected, and stuck in this endless cycle. He tells me that if I truly didn’t love him, I wouldn’t care so much about these thoughts. But still, my brain won’t stop questioning everything. I don’t understand why I feel this way. Why does it feel like I’m forcing something? Why do I feel like I can’t just know how I feel? I want to feel okay. I want to be present with him without analyzing every moment. But no matter what I do, my mind keeps telling me “What if you don’t love him?” I feel like I’m stuck between wanting clarity and being terrified of what that clarity might mean. It feels so real, and I hate it. I don’t know what to do.