Confusing Past with Consent??

[tocktick]

Hi, I have some complicated issues that I'm still trying to work through from my most recent relationship. I've come to terms with the fact that my partner was manipulative - he would make me feel like garbage, and then ridicule me when I spoke up about things that upset me. He had problems with ED as well, and would tell me that they were my fault. He would say that I had to do "something different" to keep him aroused, but I had to figure it out on my own because if he told me what he liked it would just turn him off. So, by the end of the relationship I felt pretty helpless and stupid.

Also around the end of our relationship, a few mornings after we had been intimate, he would tell me that he hadn't wanted to have sex the night before. I feel immensely guilty about this, because I feel like I coerced him into doing things he didn't want to do, even though I totally thought he was consenting. It's been a long time since we broke up, and we don't really talk anymore - should I ask him whether he feels like I took advantage of him, or should I work through it on my own?

[Heather]

Welcome to the boards, tocktick.

I'm so sorry that this was something you experienced, the whole works.

With what he said about having sex when he didn't want to, did you ever talk about that at the time? And, after the first time he said, that, did you make a point of asking more verbally with sex? If so, I'd say your bases are already covered, and so far as talking with him, there's really little left to do here, especially since you two didn't establish a friendship since AND it sounds like he's not a sound person for you to be in contact with anyway.

Is this about what you need for yourself? If so, it might be most productive if we talked to help you work out what you need around that and how to find it without getting back involved with someone who was, from the sounds of things, abusive in some ways.

[tocktick]

I did talk with him about it - at that point he said he wasn't bothered by it. I would stop to ask him after that, which annoyed him (again, not the most healthy relationship).

An important point in this is that about a year ago, my sister was assaulted by someone she knew - I'm terrified that I made him feel the way she feels, even though he didn't seem to think it was a big deal at the time. I'm scared that I'm in the same category as the person who assaulted my sister, even though I wasn't trying to hurt him

[Heather]

Honestly, given the other dynamics you are reporting, and what he said when he did talk about it, it sounds to me like this was probably less in earnest than it was another kind of manipulation, or attempt to make you feel bad. Otherwise, I don't see why he would have been annoyed at you making bigger efforts to assure consent, he would have been grateful.

Someone who has assaulted someone has not asked for consent, or if they have, and have gotten a no, did what they wanted to anyway. That very clearly is not you.