Boundaries vs pressure. SUPER long, sorry!
I am looking for some advice that may help me make sense of who I am when I am not single. Recently I got into a relationship with a guy rather quickly. I am aware of people thinking someone who jumps so quickly into commitment has issues they’re trying to hide. However when I think of everything I want from a guy he seemed to match up nearly perfectly. I also am aware that things like abuse show up slowly-like the boiling a frog analogy. Anyways I have been feeling as if I might be asexual. I have been in 3 relationships previously. One was my high school sweetheart. He was aware I wanted to wait until we were married to have sex. We were together 2.5 years when he told me he thought I had cheated on him so I had to have sex to prove I didn’t. I explained to him that I was not ready and that I would trust him not to disrespect those boundaries. I was aware of the fact that because I was sexually abused by two people growing up that I freeze up in those situations. He was also aware of my past. Regardless we had sex the next time that we hung out. I ended up forgiving him because I figured since I (naively) believed I would marry him anyways so it did not matter. He broke up with me less than a year later. Afterwards I would go on dates but never more than 3 because I was not ready to be intimate with anyone else. Also my ex would sporadically return asking to make things up with me and after a while I would give in but it never failed that he would end up leaving for someone else after we had sex. Even worse sometimes it would happen when he was in another relationship but I felt like he was going to make it work with me instead. The last few times we had hooked up it felt so cold and hopeless. I was tired of associating something that was supposed to be special with only him so I ended up talking to another guy. I stayed a few nights with him and then I decided to just have sex so it did not feel like my ex had gotten something from me that was worth a lot. It only happened once and even though it was terrible I got clingy and he started to ignore me. I cared about him as a person but I did not really see myself in a relationship with him so I quit trying with him. Afterwards I met a really nice guy. He treated me amazing but I still had issues to work through. He is actually the one who did not seem in a hurry to have sex. I wanted to though even though I didn’t know why. It felt like self-sabotage. So we did and it felt like all the demons were released. I constantly argued with him and he even said the only time I wasn’t yelling at him was when we were having sex. Obviously we ended up ending things. I turned 21 a few months later. I went on a date with a guy I knew from work. He worked with my best friends husband and knew my coworkers that vouched he was a sweet guy. I agreed to meet for drinks. I had my drink and he asked to buy me one so I let him. When he brought it back I let him know it tasted really strong and he just laughed it off. Anyways I drank it and at some point (either that drink or the next) I again said the drink tasted super strong. He let me know that he “thought the bartender may have put a double shot in”. (it wasn’t until months later I realized he had to of asked specifically for a double shot). Anyways before we had met that night I made sure he had my best friends number in case I had drank too much to drive. When it was time to go I walked over to my car and he told me I couldn’t drive. I told him I was going to call my best friend. He told me not to bother her because he could give me a ride. I let him know I wanted to go straight home but his friend jumped into the backseat and he told me he had to drop him off at his car then he would take me home. So he drove to the other side of town and his friend got out and he said he did not feel like driving me home. He brought me to his house where I promptly let him know that I would not have sex with him. He just looked at me and said who said anything about sex. So I went in and asked where the restroom was. When I got out he was lying in bed. I asked if he could take me home now. He told me he had a headache so no. I told him to take a Tylenol and he told me he didn’t take pills because his sister was addicted. He started kissing on me and I froze up and let him but then his hands started wandering. I realized I did not want this and I started to push him off of me. He got very aggressive. He pulled my hair, choked me, put his hand down my throat. He seemed to enjoy that I was fighting back. I was really afraid but I refused to just give in. I asked him to just take me back to the bar and I would have one of the police officers bring me home.. He told me they would not bring me home and once again said brought up his headache that he wanted me to “get rid of”. I must have spent nearly 2 hours there until he gave up and dropped me off at my car. I went home and I actually did not realize at the time how bad the situation was even when my best friends were angry and did not understand why I was still nice to him afterwards or how I was not more upset. I started feeling really reckless and I ended up trying to get back at my ex by talking to his best friend. I got super drunk and hooked up with him. At this point I was at my lowest. A guy from high school started talking to me and he was nice but had no job. I started trying to reach out to places in the industry he was interested in. I wanted to help him succeed. He used to play fight and even though it actually hurt and left bruises I still did not think anything of it because I don’t think he realized that he was so rough. Long story short we had sex and he started to act distant. I tried to figure out what went wrong but he wouldn’t talk to me. Once again he was not a guy I saw an actual future with so I moved on without stressing over it too much but once again felt sex is what made him disappear. ( a year later he messaged me to let me know he actually had gone through my phone and had gotten jealous about guy friends being in it). Around this time my best guy friend who I worked with for the last 3 years started hinting that he had serious feelings for me. I did not want to ruin our friendship and I was not sure I was actually attracted to him. He made quite the impression on my family though and they all rooted for our relationship. He became good friends with my brother and my little sister adored him. I decided maybe I was not attracted to him because he was a good guy so I thought maybe it was time to be in a healthy relationship.
Unfortunately I also decided to get on birth control about three months into our relationship. This really messed with my emotions. I was extremely angry and emotional all the time. This led to arguments about very trivial matters (I threw a huge temper tantrum over very simple things). He lost his patience with me and threatened to punch my car window out and put his hands near my neck and raised his fist but did not hit me and I was not really afraid that he would. It ended up being a really toxic relationship where he involved an older woman from our work that wanted us to break up because she was convinced I hated her ( I am shy and do not smoke so there really was not much time for me to befriend her and I avoid people who talk about people and she enjoyed gossip) and did not like how much time he spent with me at work. She was a new employee and him and I had been very flirty and affectionate at work since I was hired nearly 4 years before. Anyways we broke up and I did something I had never done and jumped headfirst into a rebound relationship. He let me know on our first date that he wanted something serious because he had a 2 year old daughter and didn’t want a revolving door of girls in her life. I wanted to take it slow and he seemed patient enough. He was super sweet. He surprised me with flowers, spent time with me whenever he could, opened doors for me, rent hotel rooms because his job was 4 hours away and he was gone for 2 weeks at a time etc. he would stay the night and try to make moves but he did not seem to get angry when I stopped him. He did continue trying though for about 15 minutes or so. I could not figure out why he was attractive but I still could not feel any desire. We ended up having sex and of course everything changed. There were no longer any sweet surprises. I had to make the drive to his place instead of our usual taking turns. He also started always accusing me of cheating. I tried to be understanding because he told me all his exes had cheated. In fact when his ex-told him she was pregnant she waited a few months to tell him that the baby might not be his. He started telling me maybe I was not “trashy” enough. He developed friendships with females that made me uncomfortable. After a month or so of all this he told me he loved me and was just afraid I would hurt him. He said he missed me and wanted to be with me and knew I wouldn’t hurt him. That lasted less than 2 weeks before he was back to making accusations and ignoring me. Finally we ended things. He reached out a few weeks later to say he missed me but never made any contact afterwards. I wrote him a text wishing him the best and let him know I was moving out of state. He did not respond and I stayed single for what has been 6 months. During this time I have been trying to learn boundaries and wondering if maybe I am asexual because I have had sex with these men and felt nothing. The weird thing is once I have sex with them I develop feelings and constantly want it even if I am not getting any pleasure out of it. Fast forward to the guy I am with right now. I immediately was drawn to him. We had similar upbringings and similar goals. He is in the military but wants to get out when his year and a half is up. We both want serious relationships and he is very sweet when we hangout. I told him I was not in a rush to have sex and he said he was ok with that because he did not want to mess up something with potential over something so stupid. The thing is we ended up going to his house and things got hot and heavy. I seriously wanted to have sex right then and there but I had not shaved and felt weird not being perfect for our first time together. My fear of sex messing things up also probably played a part in it because I feel like not waiting makes me look bad. Afterwards he texted me saying he wanted me but my parents were in town so I told him not that week. He seemed ok with it but once he told me he has been thinking about it since the day we passionately kissed I freaked out and just poured out all the bad experiences I had. He got really frustrated with me thinking he was going to leave if we had sex. The fight got blown way out of proportion and we ended up not speaking for a few days. He has PTSD and goes into blind rage when He gets angry. He has been telling me he misses me and calling me baby and love but refuses to hang out with me. He stated he does not like being teased. He now feels like I am playing games because I I keep making him wait (although I really want to now there is this weird feeling of being pressured). The thing is now I really do want us to take the next step but I do not want our first time to be “makeup sex” and set the precedent for the rest of our relationship to be this way. I have never felt so much chemistry/attraction/desire for someone though.It feels like a power struggle and because I have poor boundaries I do not know how to handle it.
