My boyfriend reacts strangely to my assaults.

Hello! I’m unsure what to do, and this is my first time posting on this subreddit.

I’ve been assaulted multiple times in my life at varying degrees, all traumatic and I have distanced myself and coped with them as well I could. I cannot afford therapy, so I’ve been dealing with this on my own for the most part.

I’ve been with my partner for a little over 3 years now (I’m 21f and he’s 23m). I was very open and honest with him about my history, and my boundaries because of those incidents. All of them happened prior to is getting together.

After the first time I told him about my assaults, he has said the following (on different occasions, spread out over the 3 years we’ve been together):

“I don’t like thinking about other people being inside of you”

“It makes me uncomfortable to hear about that”

“There’s two sides to every rape story”

“I’ve been assaulted too, and it doesn’t affect me like that. Why do you let it get to you?”

“I don’t want to hear about that right now”

All of these comments (plus more that I can’t think of right now) have really been getting to me lately. I understand him not wanting to hear about my exes, or any past consensual relationships I may have been in in the past, however I only talk about my assaults when something reminds me of them.

The main reason I’m writing in today is because while I was working last night, a man very close to one of my assaulters came into my work place. He was staring me down, and texting someone. This caused me to spiral, and have a panic attack at work. When I went to tell my boyfriend about it, he immediately shut me down, stating that he “wasn’t in the mood to hear about it”.

I haven’t had a panic attack from any of those incidents in over a year. This was a big deal to me, and for him to shut me down made me feel so much worse about the whole thing. It’s almost like he’s jealous in some way that someone has done things with/to me in the past?

I’m honestly not sure how to navigate this. Anytime I try to have a conversation about it with him, he just shuts it down. I need advice on how to move forward. I’ve moved through my trauma, but I absolutely still have and experience triggers. I need him to be there for me in these moments, but he simply refuses to be. I understand that it’s hard to hear about, but it is even harder to live through. I have nightmares about it off and on, and they only happen after I’ve been triggered. I haven’t been able to sleep yet because I am so afraid. Any advice on how to talk to him about this would be so greatly appreciated.