Scarleteen

So 2 months ago my girlfriend and I had sex. It was my first time, and afterwards I didn’t feel any different. Until after she went home, I started to feel weird. It was a mixture of guilt, confusion, and anxiety. I’ve always been an over thinker, and lately I’ve been letting it get the best of me. This summer has been boring for my friend group. They’re usually pretty busy with things while I’m at home laying in my bed. This is where most of my overthinking and panicking takes place. These feelings are leaving me to think that I don’t love my girlfriend anymore, although I do. I know this because I have dreams about us being happy, cuddling, etc. We took a break a week after I lost my virginity to her in June. At the time, we thought that it was because I needed to miss her more. It worked, and a week and a half later, we called off the break. I felt okay the day we hung out after our break. And about 2 weeks after that, we had sex again. After we had sex a second time, I felt fine afterwards. We had sex again that day. It was great until afterwards because “those feelings” started coming back. And that’s where we are today. It’s been 6 and a half days since they’ve started up again , and I want answers as to why I feel like this. I don’t want to think that I don’t love my girlfriend anymore, when I’m reality I do. I love her very much. We’re both 16, but she’s a bit more experienced sexually than I am. Now our relationship feels so much different. It barely feels like a relationship anymore. She says she doesn’t know what’s wrong, but she thinks we’ll get through it, and that it could be because I haven’t been in a relationship of this kind. Somebody please help. I’m confused. I don’t want this to cause me to end a great relationship with a girl who I care about so much.

hi Jacob895

Welcome to the boards.

I can't give you an easy answer to why you feel the way you do - our emotions are complicated things - but we can talk about them a bit and see if we can understand them a bit more. When you say you feel guilt, what do you think you feel guilty about? Same with the anxiety - what worries you?

You say you've spent a lot of time lying in bed, overthinking and panicking. Have you reached out to anyone for help with this? What are you doing to look after yourself? I'm wondering if this is about the sex, or if it's something more general that some self-care might help with. A good place to start might be getting up and trying to do things, even simple ones like going for a walk, or calling a friend, or drawing something. There are more ideas here Self-Care a La Carte. If you can move out of that panicked space, it might give you room to think about what your real thoughts and feelings are about sex and your relationship. What do you think?

Whilst you're figuring those things out, maybe it would be a good idea to hold off on the sex for a little bit? Spend time with your girlfriend doing other things?

I’ve talked to my friends about it and they’ve said that my girlfriend and I should take a break with the sex for a bit. I’m not 100% sure it’s guilt I feel, but sometimes when we’re texting or when I’m around her my heart sinks a little bit. Idk why. It scares me because I know deep down I still love her, but for some reason this feeling makes me overthink and thoughts about having to end the relationship and that I don’t love her anymore come in. I do love her. I’ve also talked to my dad about this. He says that breaking up with her would be a stupid idea, and that it’s normal for the butterflies to die down after a while. Which makes sense. Idk..I woke up today thinking I’d feel much better but I’m still upset.
Plus if I haven’t mentioned this already, the relationship feels different now. It just feels different and I don’t like it. I just want things to go back to the way they were.

Hi Jacob,

While your dad is right that the "butterflies" of a relationship often die down after awhile (this is actually a very consistent phenomenon in longer relationships, where people find the initial excitement of the relationship has worn off), it sounds like your feelings about your relationship do need a little more addressing, since they're still causing you quite a bit of stress (I second Sian's recommendation to do some self-care today if you can). You mention in your first post that you feel like you two barely have a relationship anymore. Can you describe what that looks and feels like to you? What things seem to be missing in the relationship that were there before? And what was the scenario that lead to you two feeling that you needed to "miss her more?"

Would you say that the thoughts about loving her/wanting to end the relationship are tied to sex, or your feelings/beliefs about sex, in some way? And have you felt these kind of hard-to-shake, anxious thoughts about other parts of your life?

I have no certain feelings or beliefs about sex. And what I meant by not feeling like here’s a relationship there anymore, is that the relationship feels different. It’s missing the happiness that we felt before. When I look back on that, we were in school. So maybe once school starts up again at the end of the month, I’ll have enough distractions to keep my mind off of the negative thoughts in my mind. I felt like losing the butterflies meant I had to miss her more.

I see. Since both of you have noticed a change in how the relationship feels, have you talked together about some ways you could try to feel that happiness again? While missing someone can certainly make you more excited and happy the next time you see them, it's not the best substitute for for those bigger conversations about what you both need and want in the relationship. Would you feel comfortable having that kind of talk with her?

Have you had these type of negative thought patterns about other things in your life, either now or in the past? Or is this the first time you've experienced something like this? In other words, are you someone who tends to worry a lot of have a lot of negative thoughts, or is this all new to you?

She and I have talked about this before. I do tend to worry and overthink a lot too. It’s more me that feels different. She’s just concerned and upset that I’m going through something rn.

Got it. What kinds of ideas or conclusions did you two come up with when you talked about this? Do you feel like those talks were productive, or did they a little bit feel like you were going in circles?

Have you ever spoken with a mental healthcare provider about your tendency to worry and overthink a lot? When you find yourself worrying about things constantly, or having negative thoughts that seem to come out of nowhere to trigger those worries, it can be a sign that you've got some underlying anxiety that needs addressing.