Been lurking for about a month, and finally made an account...hi.

Hi there.

Might be triggering to partners, might not be. I don't know what trigger warning system is in place for partners trying to heal, so if anyone can educate me on that and on everything I need to know about using this site, I would really thoroughly appreciate it.

This is also going to be long, for which I apologize.

On the 10th of this month, my boyfriend and I will have been together for two years. I really love him. A whole lot. But I'm struggling with all of this, I really and truly am.

I started noticing little things that were off about him a little over 6 months into the relationship. This is the only relationship I've ever had, and so I just kind of dismissed it as a weird sort of hallucination type of thing, that maybe I was imagining he was blatantly checking women out in front of me or maybe I was imagining that sex was very "wham, bam, thank you ma'am" and that it was normal for sex to be that way, very rushed and very focused on his wants, needs, and resulting pleasure. I just kept on trucking on, because I didn't think anything was wrong.

My first hint was him unlocking his phone to look something up while at a casual dinner with friends, and seeing a scantily clad woman just on his screen, courtesy of good ol' Imgur. I can specifically pinpoint that night as the night that I began to doubt him, and that I began to doubt myself. He looked me in the eyes and told me that woman was on his screen because he just happened to swipe from the previous post on the front page or trending page or whatever and she just happened to be there. I pretended to believe him, both to him and to myself. But deep down I had a feeling.

The next few months were wrought with socially anxious tendencies that I haven't improved since and that I'm worried may never fully go away, if ever. I want to both cover myself up so no one can see all that I lack, and also unabashedly bare extra skin in the same way. I can't be in a room without automatically identifying anyone who outwardly appears female and sizing them up based on the features I know all men, especially PAs, notice and intrinsically desire, and then compare them to myself. I've gotten so good at it that the multiple therapists I've had the past several months have been shocked at how proficient I am in the art of comparing, and rather quickly too. Not that this is something to boast about, of course - it just seems worth a mention in how affected I became from one simple incident.

Then the month of June came and everything changed. June started the cycle of breaking up and getting back together. June started the realization of what really had been happening under my nose the whole time. I went over to his mom's house to spend the day with him. I wasn't feeling well. Periods have always been difficult for me - painful and heavy. I had just gotten onto birth control pills and so while the severe cramping was lessened, I still felt a significant amount of pain at that time and even felt nauseous. I went over to his mom's house with the expectation of spending a leisurely day together in bed, cuddling, watching anime, nothing sexual. Not even giving oral sex, as I simply was not in the mood for it. I began to feel fatigue while we were watching, so I asked if we could take a break and nap. We did, but then he started to get antsy. I could feel his breathing change and I could feel his heartbeat. Then his hands were all over me and I felt I really had no choice but to comply. Next thing I knew I was reluctantly giving oral and I suppose he felt it was lackluster, because he just felt a pressing need for penetration. I'm not a person who is comfortable with sex in the beginning and middle phases of my period, so I knew what he was asking. For some reason, at that point in the relationship, the word "no" was something I couldn't utter to him in that context, and so I simply did what he asked, and neither of us really liked it. It hurt. And I knew almost for a fact that he was doing it because of his undying love for a particularly beloved star that he publicly decreed to Imgur he thinks is too pretty for P. I was doing it to be like her. I was doing it to be what he wanted.

But it wasn't enough. I don't know whether he took care of himself before or after I was already in the house (probably after), but later on while playing games on his phone, after accidentally double-tapping the home button, there it was. Clear as day. All out there for me to see. When he came back into the room, I remember trying to keep it together. I remember telling myself to stabbing pain in my chest was an overreaction. I remember choking on the lump forming in my throat. I remember getting quieter and quieter. I don't remember the details of what I said to him to let him know I knew. I dont remember the hurtful words he said to me, but I do remember they were accusatory and borderline gaslighting, because I remember my friends' reactions to his words were sheer anger. I told him to enjoy the taco dinner I was supposed to eat with him and his mother, and left right as she happened to be getting home.

That was the beginning of June. A few days later I got a half-hearted apology and a promise it wouldn't happen again.

It happened again the night before my wisdom teeth extraction. This time with live media. I lost it. Called him at work. Yelled, screamed, cried. He had the gall to lie to me initially until I could name the titles of pictures and videos and names of girls and usernames. He hung up on me after that. Determined to equal the playing field, I posted myself on Reddit, chatted with other men, and did a live camming session myself. Then I went to sleep and went under the knife the next day. As more time passes since the difficult recovery from the surgery, I lose the details of what it all was like. I remember feeling a painful gaping hole in my chest. I remember going in and out of sleep over a couple of days, and I remember filling that hole in my chest with the comments and messages from the numerous seedy men on Reddit. I remember making promises to make personal videos and wear specific clothing items they would buy for me. One man actually did purchase something (that I had to return once I reconciled the relationship).

I never outgrew that need for validation from men other than him. I think that's my biggest struggle as a partner in healing. I now base everything off of societal standards I know are foolproof. I want to force my body to be a different, more universally covetable shape. I want to change my skin color to be the one no one can resist. I want to change everything about me, from the obvious to the subtle to the unnoticeable. I just want to be what I know his brain actually wants deep down, because I just no longer feel that it's me. Over and over he's promised me "never again." Over and over it's been a lie. Over and over it's been a call-to-action for what I need to make perfect in myself, things I should have perfected before ever even meeting him so that I could have prevented all of this from happening in the first place.

I can honestly say without falter that I hate myself. I hate that I am not enough. I may be enough emotionally, but I've never chemically been enough for him because of his choices. I may never ever be chemically enough for him because of the way society is set up to trigger men nonstop. That is one thing that really hurts and frankly makes me wonder if a relationship with any man is ever even worth it at all in a world designed for real-life woman to never be enough.

He became a Fapstronaut about a month ago. I'm really proud of him, and I notice changes in our sex life already. I feel more pleasure now that he's trying to focus on my pleasure more. I feel more comfortable having sex with him, whereas before he started, I would dread it. But a girl has needs, and so does he, and if I didn't fulfill them he knew where to go, because he'd go even if I didn't. I've developed a weird arousal issue due to overthinking things... I'm just a mess of a partner and I just want to heal.

I know I can never fully go back to being what I was before I knew. But I can get as close as I can to the fully trusting, mostly confident woman I used to be before this.

Thank you for reading.