Is it possible to date someone who invalidates your sex?

[Herstory]

I'm just curious if it is possible to date someone who discredits your way of sex and experiencing pleasure. If you have different perspectives on what sex is, could you still have a healthy relationship with them? If they discredit the experiences you had and your sexuality, can you still date them? For example, I've met men who don't consider the sex I have with women to be sex because no penis is involved. Could I date someone who discredits that part of my sexuality?

[Heather]

Of course it's possible to date them and of course you can. It just seems pretty unlikely you'll have a happy, healthy relationship with them, and it certainly seems nigh unto impossible you'd have a satisfying sex life with them.

Being sexually different is so not the same as invalidating, denying or dismissing the sexuality and sexual experience and wants of someone else. We can have healthy relationships and satisfying sex lives with people who we're different from.

But here's the kicker: WHY date someone who does this? This is a big, screaming red flag to me of a relationship or interaction that at best, will be substandard, but more likely is just going to be seriously bad news. I would suspect that if someone chooses to date someone who is like this with them that something is seriously wrong, whether that's about someone being deathly afraid to be alone, about someone who has survived kinds of abuse and hasn't yet gotten very far in healing from it, or about someone who doesn't accept themselves or what they want sexually, so they let in others who don't, either.

We talked about you separating from a partner who is bad for you and about taking a break from dating: have you been able to start on either of those things yet?

[Herstory]

I haven’t told her yet, mostly because I haven’t had the time, but also because I’m scared what she will say and/or do. I think this fear comes from being in many abusive relationships in my past and it feels silly to feel scared to do it, but I am. As soon as I do though, I’m taking a break from dating and focusing on myself. I just wish I had the courage and strength to end things.

[Siân]

Hi Herstory, it's good that you're able to recognise and name that fear. I'm sorry that those things happened to you and are making things hard now.

I know breaking up with someone can feel impossible hard. I also know that you can do it. In your other thread, Heather suggested an email as a way to break up that will help you maintain those boundaries. What did you think of that suggestion?

[Herstory]

She doesn't have email, so it would have to be through text.

[Herstory]

Also, I left some of my stuff at her place.

[Heather]

It’s reasonable to feel afraid of breakups from abusive people: this isn’t about you being cowardly. It’s probably both about you wanting to protect yourself and about post-trauma.

If you want your stuff back, might you have a friend who could go with you for that part?

Also, seriously on the email? Not even for work? I trust you, that just sounds shady to me on her part. All the same, if text is what it has to be, then it can be text. This is about what you need to do for yourself to both end this but not have to risk your safety. You get to do what you need to here. <3

[Herstory]

I finally got the courage to do it, but now she keeps asking me why and telling me to stay. She says that she’ll change her behavior and that she didn’t mean anything that she did. Also, that she feels I’m going to leave with a bad impression of her and she wants more time to fix it.

She also is making me feel bad that I broke up with her through text. She says that she thinks I never valued her because I did it through text and she wants me to call her to end things. I don’t really feel comfortable with that.

[Herstory]

She then told me she never wants to see me again and now she’s saying she wants to see me and is telling me to meet up with her and stay with her. I really don’t know what to do.

[Heather]

I'm sorry that she is reacting like this, but I'm proud of you for being able to do this. I hope her reaction isn't eclipsing any pride in yourself for taking this step. It was a big one!

Personally, it sounds to me like you need to shut this avenue of communication down, at least for right now. Her behaviour is very clearly not healthy, and also doesn't give any indication you were wrong. In other words, you left this because you didn't want to be in something unhealthy and toxic: she's showing you with these behaviours you were right in your choice, because she's not reacting in healthy, caring ways.

You have a couple options to shut this down:
1) You can just block her number, full-stop.
2) You can turn off notifications of texts from her and not read them.
3) You can ask her to stop texting you, either period, or within a certain time limit, like by asking she please give you space and not text or otherwise communicate with you for at least a week so you can both just process the breakup before trying to resolve anything.

Do you want to talk about what you can do to manage your feelings of guilt? It happens that we often feel guilty or bad after breaking up, even when it's right, and even when someone isn't behaving like she is. Obviously, managing those feelings by going back on a breakup isn't the way to do it. We can talk about how you can deal with those feelings in healthy ways if you like.