Was I sexually coerced? Is that assault?

[buggy3]

I was in a relationship with a girl for about 6 months. I am a girl too. I have been thinking a lot and realized she was not a good partner at all. Ive been finding it hard to enter new sexual and romantic relationships and have been thinking about some times in my old relationship. She would get upset, kinda sad and pouty if I didnt have sex with her so every time we hung out I would have sex with her. It was my choice but I did it because it felt like she didnt wanna hang out with me if we didnt. There were a lot of times where I did something [Edited due to board guidelines-Sam] even though its really agaisnt my values and what I want for myself, I did it because she would get sad and upset if I didnt and would say that I was her girlfriend so its weird if I dont. One time we were making out and she started to put her hands up my shirt and I stopped her and she barely talked to me for the rest of the day. When I tried to call her out on these things she would always say I was making her feel like a shitty person. Now I am talking to someone new because its been a while but im realizing I was more affected than I thought. Was that sexual coercion? If it is how can i stop it from still affecting me in my future relationships??

[Sam W]

Hi buggy3,

From everything you're describing here, it does sound like your ex used a lot of coercion and manipulation to get you to do sexual things you didn't really want or weren't comfortable with. For the record, being someone's girlfriend doesn't obligate you to do ANYTHING sexual with them, let alone one particular thing that they want that you really don't.

As for how to deal with the ways this is still affecting you, can you tell me a little more about the ways in which it's doing that?