I [25F] lost my sex drive after a year of rejection from my boyfriend [34M] and now intimacy feels overwhelming. How do we rebuild this?

My boyfriend (34M) and I (25F) have been together for about two years.

When we first met in 2024 we were in more of a situationship. During that time we were having a lot of sex and my sex drive was very high. I wanted the relationship to become official but he didn’t at first. Toward the end of 2024 I told him I was going to leave if things didn’t become official, and that’s when he committed.

After the relationship became official, things changed a lot sexually.

Throughout most of 2025 I was the one initiating sex and getting rejected frequently. It hurt a lot and made me feel unwanted. When I brought it up he would say he didn’t feel emotionally connected enough or that we had been arguing. We ended up going to couples therapy because the intimacy issues were creating a lot of tension between us.

Earlier this year he finally told me the real reason. He said he had a porn addiction and that after he stopped watching porn in 2025 his sex drive basically disappeared.

In some ways that explanation helped because I had spent a long time thinking something was wrong with me.

But now the situation has kind of reversed. My sex drive is basically gone.

For context, years before I met him I experienced sexual assault and my libido disappeared for a long time after that. When I met my boyfriend it came back, but after the year of rejection it feels like my body shut down again.

Now when he tries to touch me sexually my body often feels overwhelmed instead of turned on, especially if he goes straight for my nipples or genitals. I still want emotional closeness with him, but sexual touch feels complicated and my body just doesn’t respond the way it used to.

I’m trying to understand how we can rebuild intimacy in a way that doesn’t feel overwhelming for me and doesn’t create more resentment between us.

For people who have been in a relationship where sex disappeared after a long period of rejection or emotional conflict, what helped rebuild intimacy and desire?

Relationship length: about 2 years

TL;DR: My boyfriend and I had a very active sex life when we first met, but after a year where he frequently rejected sex (later explained by a porn addiction and low libido) my own sex drive has now disappeared and sexual touch feels overwhelming. How can we rebuild intimacy after that kind of dynamic?