I've been in a relationship for 8 months with an amazing woman who has a pretty high sex drive. She's been very open with me about everything and has communicated well with me since day 1. What I'm starting to see is that she has seemingly unhealthy and self abusive sexuality in some ways. Here are some examples: - She gets more attracted to me when I energetically start seriously considering leaving her and breaking up - When I'm really into her and expressing my appreciation and love for her, she tends to distance herself sexually - She doesn't take compliments or appreciation very well. In fact, usually after I appreciate her in any way, she'll start talking about how I put her on a pedestal and basically how it's unattractive to her and that she finds it attractive when she looks up to or has to chase a guy - She has a long history of being obsessively attracted to men who only end up leaving her and hurting her. Then, she'll date other less attractive men so that she won't get hurt, but still longs for the sexual attraction that she has with the men who leave her. - She openly expressed fantasies about rape early in our relationship. But I think that's died down a lot since then (coincidentally, whenever I'm rough with her in bed, she doesn't like it and sometimes gets scared) - She went to a party last weekend when I was out of town, and took off her shirt and bra in the hot tub with other topless women, and other clothed men. Some of the men gave her compliments on her breasts, and she was extremely happy about the attention she got. - In our sex life, she's starting to have a good amount of trouble orgasming, UNLESS her and I verbally play out some strange fantasy that she likes (such as, she's a little girl and I'm her father figure and I have sex with her, or she's a hot popular school girl and I'm a shy nice guy who likes her, or I'm a soldier coming off of the battle field and she's a lonely house wife, etc) - Her father and brother were distant and never gave attention to her gorgeous body or sexuality, or her presence in general, so she tends to be insecure about her body, and is seemingly always seeking out attention - especially attention towards her body and sexuality (she has an absolutely amazing body, and she's gorgeous, so this always blows my mind that she's insecure in this way. She doesn't really receive compliments from me when I give them) It has been annoying me consciously and subconsciously how insecure she still is as a gorgeous 35 year old. I honestly just want her to be happy and feel good about her body and her sexuality, but she still seems to need validation and appreciation from people to feel good about herself. I feel sad about that, and I wish I could fix it for her, but I know she has to do it herself. Do you think she has unhealthy sexuality and body image? What would you say are the best ways that I can support her through this process so that she feels sexy and good in her body?
Sounds like she has had years of sexual/physical abuse. There is not anything you can do for her, she must acknowledge that she has problems and get some help.
Could be the result of some sort of physical/sexual abuse, but it could also be purely psychological. It's hard to conclude with so little information about her. I wouldn't say she's necessarily got some unhealthy sexuality in a specific sense. Rather, I personally get the impression that she's simply psychologically unhealthy in general. I'd say the best way to approach this is for her to figure out what's going on inside her own head. She might benefit from talking to a psychologist about herself. Focusing solely on her sexuality might, however, only put one small part of essentially a much bigger problem under a narrow, tiny spotlight, which isn't a good way to go about this kind of stuff in my opinion.
