Functional Romantic Relationships Possible?
I’m over 16yrs removed from it. Have you been able to have a reasonable romantic relationship and possibly a family?
Healthy attachments?
What did it take to get there?
Posted Apr 27, 2023, 7:36 AM UTC
114
35 years since it happened, and it still messes with me occasionally. You can DM me if you would like to talk
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I'm coming up to about 7 years since then and still single largely by choice. I've been trying to work on it from building trust in myself through a platonic and emotionally intimate angle meanwhile.
And while there's been several who were interested in me I really wasn't in a place to embrace their approaches well (sometimes not even realizing a person of likely mutual interest invited me out to dates while I was afraid of crossing semi-professional boundaries with her), or wasn't interested and looking either.
But it's uprooted a lot of other nuances to developmental trauma that also needs work so on the bright side I've seen those can be improved and figured out with time for myself.
And on the rare occasions where I felt like trying to put myself up on a dating app, I also added "demisexual" as a descriptor to ideally give me buffer time for slowly approaching sexual engagement. But I genuinely feel like I've been deteriorating by not having been able to attain suitable counseling, and am at a point where I kind of want to also be open about saying that I'm still recovering from past SA, and someone would either have to tolerate me going through a lot of therapy or explore some kind of coercive kink to sort of get me to maybe disarm, discern the differences, and recalibrate myself.
So I basically have stayed isolated instead of putting people through any of that which has pushed me over to sort of escalating sexually bulemic/addictive intimacy avoidant patterns. :/
But that said, I know there's at least a few people who have found me worthy even when I wasn't or actually in shambles and deteriorating.
And it was refreshing to heard from one woman who was falling in love with me that she respected my boundaries and appreciated me speaking up about what I needed when I was not able to accept her offer or feeling triggered by how often we were communicating. We're still close friends and I'm grateful for that.
Because before then, several past friendships that escalated into unwanted potential romantic relationships that I declined turned into a relentless and emotionally exhausting erosion of my boundaries and in one case even manipulating others in my friends and broader social circle to keep them away from me out of jealousy.
I just wish I could make sense of and trust in/act further on the healthy opposite to some of my intrusive harmful impulses that anticipate being on the receiving end of sexual abuse.
All in all though:
Intimacy is intimacy whether platonic, romantic, emotional, or physical.
If you're finding ways to be fully present with another person and sharing or exploring one another plus a mutual direction with each other's experiences, I think that's how a good healthy relationship is supposed to be.
A healthy romantic relationship simply adds making one another committed priorities, with the potential likelihood of having a different depth of access to physical and emotional vulnerability and expression with and for one another.
When mutual respect genuinely exists at a level of maturity that you work to seek and uphold, eventually you'll find others who are not only willing but glad to reciprocate and honor your needs and boundaries too.
So if you find yourself in any of those capacities and courageous enough to show up and share your presence in some way, I believe good things can unfold naturally when the time is right.
A lot of this is relatable. Therapy has helped me rationalize stuff, but i need to see a lot from someone for the baby steps . I can say from experience you can control boundaries, escalation rate, and limits with kink.
I would be wary of brats who are not empathetic and on the more demanding side. They have potential for the relentless boundary degradation.
When I do pick people it winds up being a train wreck so I don’t trust my ability to do that.
I really need to see some level of emotional + life work ethic before I’m ok with telling someone how I feel about them. Even still, the most tremendous amount of patience is required by them. Does that level of patience and belief exist?
I'm not sure if you're asking for emotional/life work ethic from others or for yourself (or maybe ayne both? For me I can definitely see and identify myself as wanting a bit of both to inspire me to commit further even if it feels like the onus in society is ultimately on me for the relationship be a responsible one--though responsible isn't necessarily the same as loving so maybe it is both that's really needed).
I think there's a both non-mutually exclusive dynamic here. If anything it's a polarity of two necessities that you'll need to identify the smaller steps and dance with plus learn how to catch and eventually keep balance whenever one side or the other swings too far.
Like telling someone how you feel about them is a matter of courage with honesty/transparency and perhaps emotional self awareness. Which can be practiced and applied at any time.
If you're able to articulate and convey where you are, even if it's uncertain about what's going on inside you, while also expressing what you know you appreciate about someone that is what ultimately matters in a healthy relationship at almost any stage.
Like a mature partner will pick up on it and respect that from the start that you're emotionally intelligent and communicative even if the intelligence and communication you're expressing is "hey, Im excited when with you, also very confused and terrified probably because of a mix of past trauma that I need time to get curious with and embrace, and also enjoy being present with you as I challenge the things that prevent me from fully enjoying our company together." It might not come out like that verbatim, but the ingredients can happen in a sincere conversation for sure.
AND that can help your prospective partner to calibrate their own patience and even hold space for those moments. Which is in some regards a privilege and can better build genuine intimacy through such vulnerability and raw honesty as long as you're not imposing expectations that they be the one to do the healing work for you.
After all, a real romantic partnership is basically premised on committing to compassion over extended periods of time, which to me is what defines patience.
Whether it's learning how to work with another person's body to soothe and pleasure each other for sex, or constructively leaning into conflict and standing/walking with and by someone in their suffering and joys it all takes patience to have the privilege of witnessing and being available to those kinds of opportunities together on top of building the relationship itself through shared experiences together.