Can't tell if what my GF did was assault, a mistake, or a result of poor miscommunication
Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2024 5:45 pm
Hi there.
I've been struggling with really bad anxiety since I had a mental health crisis in Halloween 2023. My relationship with my gf of 9 months (I am nonbinary) has suffered because of this and we've stumbled into more conflicts but have strived to come back together despite us not being able to see each other as often as usual.
It's important to note that my gf is really avoidant and tends to shut down and withdraw during conflict and she has struggled with believing that I am criticising/judging her. Dating has never been on her radar so we have struggled to match expectations of each other as I seem to know mine and she doesn't.
This New Years we booked a hotel together and celebrated it together. Sex has been anxiety inducing to me lately and since Halloween we haven't done more than make out and she has never pushed me for more. We started making out on NYE and it got heavier. I broke away to say that I was nervous to have sex and she affirmed that and told me we didn't need to do anything other than kiss if that was okay for me, which it was. After that, the kissing became a little heavier/heated until I started to feel overwhelmed and started to give what I thought were physical cues that I wanted to scale things back. She didn't pick up on these and my anxiety was going a mile a minute - I thought at worst she's ignoring the cues I'm giving and at best she just isn't recognising them which also didn't feel good. I wanted her to pick up on how I was feeling but she continued until I pulled away.
Immediately I knew that I needed to tell her how I was feeling - which was that I felt unsafe during that moment and wanted her to pick up on it - but I was nervous. I felt sick (which is common for my anxiety) and went to the bathroom. After taking some time, feeling nervous because I didn't want her to shut down or withdraw after I told her this, I told her (through the closed door because I was scared to do it face to face) that I felt she hadn't picked up on how I wanted to slow things down and it had made me feel bad. She then shut down and withdrew. I tried to initiate our process for 'checking in' when she withdraws like this but she didn't engage, and eventually I came out and we went to bed. We had a bit of a conversation where I admitted that I had felt unsafe and that I wanted her to pick up on how I was feeling. What upset me was that she replied that somestimes it's hard to always accurately read people physically but she apologised. She also told me that she worries that I'm not what she wants but stressed that I also need to process how I feel about what happened as I initially had felt unsure about how I actually felt about what happened while we were kissing. The next morning, we basically didn't speak at all and she left without telling me - I only knew because I texted her asking if she left and she said yes.
I know all of this sounds bad, because it is and the way she handled things made me feel horrible. When I got home she called me and gave the exact response I had wanted - which was a profuse apology both for how she made me feel and how she reacted to it. She said she didn't want to have sex, she didn't pick up my physical cues I was giving her even though she should've been paying closer attention, and that withdrawing wasn't the right thing to do and she should have given me space to feel whatever I was feeling rather than making the situation revolve around her withdrawing. I told her that her response that sometimes it was hard to always physically read people didn't make me feel any safer, and that it felt like she had basically said that this could happen again. She accepted this and apologised that she spoke so generally, she definitely didn't want this to happen again and she was only speaking generally in that moment and she understood that saying that wasn't helpful in the moment. She said she left th morning after without telling me because she felt like she'd basically assaulted me while we were kissing. I expressed that I was scared to tell her how I had felt because of how she might react and we both acknowledged that that wasn't healthy.
She feels extremely guilty and ready to leave the relationship because of what has happened. She said it was safer to leave the relationship if I wasn't sure if I felt assaulted and if how she acted after that moment wasn't acceptable to me. The hard thing is that I'm still not sure if an assault feels accurate to me (which she says isn't good either and I agree), and if anything I'm more upset about how she reacted to me telling her that I felt uncomfortable which she has acknowledged full responsibility for.
My state of anxiety that I'm trying to recover from has made it really hard for me to process exactly how I've felt about what happened. I've read up on reactions to assault but it has felt dizzying - I'm worried that my love for my girlfriend has clouded what could potentially be an assault. To me, it feels more like it was a result of poor communication around what I was uncomfortable with/a lack of confidence in clearly telling her and her unintentionally crossing a sexual/intimacy boundary.
My anxiety has made me second guess a lot of things and I have had to refamiliarise myself with lots of things that have felt scary or overwhelming like public transport, sleeping and eating. My girlfriend says she wouldn't be comfortable if after this experience she became something I felt unsafe around or if I felt I had to refamiliarise myself with her but wants to know if this experience is something I'm open to moving forward from and making sure doesn't happen again.
I'm worried my anxiety is messing with my perception of what happened and if I trying to cover for my girlfriend. I have a session with my therapist on the 9th but I really would appreciate any thoughts on this.
I've been struggling with really bad anxiety since I had a mental health crisis in Halloween 2023. My relationship with my gf of 9 months (I am nonbinary) has suffered because of this and we've stumbled into more conflicts but have strived to come back together despite us not being able to see each other as often as usual.
It's important to note that my gf is really avoidant and tends to shut down and withdraw during conflict and she has struggled with believing that I am criticising/judging her. Dating has never been on her radar so we have struggled to match expectations of each other as I seem to know mine and she doesn't.
This New Years we booked a hotel together and celebrated it together. Sex has been anxiety inducing to me lately and since Halloween we haven't done more than make out and she has never pushed me for more. We started making out on NYE and it got heavier. I broke away to say that I was nervous to have sex and she affirmed that and told me we didn't need to do anything other than kiss if that was okay for me, which it was. After that, the kissing became a little heavier/heated until I started to feel overwhelmed and started to give what I thought were physical cues that I wanted to scale things back. She didn't pick up on these and my anxiety was going a mile a minute - I thought at worst she's ignoring the cues I'm giving and at best she just isn't recognising them which also didn't feel good. I wanted her to pick up on how I was feeling but she continued until I pulled away.
Immediately I knew that I needed to tell her how I was feeling - which was that I felt unsafe during that moment and wanted her to pick up on it - but I was nervous. I felt sick (which is common for my anxiety) and went to the bathroom. After taking some time, feeling nervous because I didn't want her to shut down or withdraw after I told her this, I told her (through the closed door because I was scared to do it face to face) that I felt she hadn't picked up on how I wanted to slow things down and it had made me feel bad. She then shut down and withdrew. I tried to initiate our process for 'checking in' when she withdraws like this but she didn't engage, and eventually I came out and we went to bed. We had a bit of a conversation where I admitted that I had felt unsafe and that I wanted her to pick up on how I was feeling. What upset me was that she replied that somestimes it's hard to always accurately read people physically but she apologised. She also told me that she worries that I'm not what she wants but stressed that I also need to process how I feel about what happened as I initially had felt unsure about how I actually felt about what happened while we were kissing. The next morning, we basically didn't speak at all and she left without telling me - I only knew because I texted her asking if she left and she said yes.
I know all of this sounds bad, because it is and the way she handled things made me feel horrible. When I got home she called me and gave the exact response I had wanted - which was a profuse apology both for how she made me feel and how she reacted to it. She said she didn't want to have sex, she didn't pick up my physical cues I was giving her even though she should've been paying closer attention, and that withdrawing wasn't the right thing to do and she should have given me space to feel whatever I was feeling rather than making the situation revolve around her withdrawing. I told her that her response that sometimes it was hard to always physically read people didn't make me feel any safer, and that it felt like she had basically said that this could happen again. She accepted this and apologised that she spoke so generally, she definitely didn't want this to happen again and she was only speaking generally in that moment and she understood that saying that wasn't helpful in the moment. She said she left th morning after without telling me because she felt like she'd basically assaulted me while we were kissing. I expressed that I was scared to tell her how I had felt because of how she might react and we both acknowledged that that wasn't healthy.
She feels extremely guilty and ready to leave the relationship because of what has happened. She said it was safer to leave the relationship if I wasn't sure if I felt assaulted and if how she acted after that moment wasn't acceptable to me. The hard thing is that I'm still not sure if an assault feels accurate to me (which she says isn't good either and I agree), and if anything I'm more upset about how she reacted to me telling her that I felt uncomfortable which she has acknowledged full responsibility for.
My state of anxiety that I'm trying to recover from has made it really hard for me to process exactly how I've felt about what happened. I've read up on reactions to assault but it has felt dizzying - I'm worried that my love for my girlfriend has clouded what could potentially be an assault. To me, it feels more like it was a result of poor communication around what I was uncomfortable with/a lack of confidence in clearly telling her and her unintentionally crossing a sexual/intimacy boundary.
My anxiety has made me second guess a lot of things and I have had to refamiliarise myself with lots of things that have felt scary or overwhelming like public transport, sleeping and eating. My girlfriend says she wouldn't be comfortable if after this experience she became something I felt unsafe around or if I felt I had to refamiliarise myself with her but wants to know if this experience is something I'm open to moving forward from and making sure doesn't happen again.
I'm worried my anxiety is messing with my perception of what happened and if I trying to cover for my girlfriend. I have a session with my therapist on the 9th but I really would appreciate any thoughts on this.