>Lack of intimacy and or sex

[PookyBear]

My partner and I started out as friends with benefits and the sex was great at the time and I was his FP at the time and he knew about my other friend with benefits, we had a fight and I landed up seeing my other friend with benefits that night and lost the role of FP and a week later my partner with BPD told me he wanted a relationship and that’s when the sex stopped and all he wanted was for me to give him blow jobs or hand jobs every other night and when I asked if he could help me out with an orgasm I was shut down and then we eventually settled on him taking care of my needs without actual sex once a month but I was still lucky if I got that anyway fast forward and it’s been almost a year and still nothing my needs don’t get met but I am expected to take care of his? So I have now decided that unless my needs are met at the same time as his he can self love himself like I have had to do for nearly a year I am tired of doing everything that he wants and I don’t ask much for myself because I know he is very selfish and if he doesn’t get what he wants when he wants it he goes into a rage and does the whole BPD split thing am I wrong for feeling like this any tips on how I can get him to take care of my needs more often?

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[ThanksForPlaying]

Sex is a whole issue on its own even without BPD involved.

Do his BPD traits show up anywhere else?  Is it just 'splitting' or are there other BPD behaviors you're noticing?

Do you think if you 'solve' the sex problem, the relationship will be manageable for you?

What are the good things you like about this relationship, that make you want to stay in it?

[PookyBear]

He is BPD diagnosed all other aspects of his BPD I can handle it’s just the not getting any sex that is effecting me

[LonelyWife]

Hi,
My husband was like this for awhile. I tried sitting down with him on one of his better days and was honest with him about my needs. We came up with a few compromises. We turned it from helping each other out to having a "bonding" session. We'll hold hands and say I love you afterwards. If we don't do that then he has told me to try and engage him into it, like kissing, listening to music that helps us get aroused. I don't know if that's helpful? I know it's really hard not having sex with your SO. For me as time has gone on and he has been getting treatment the sex has gotten better. Best of luck!

[Pook075]

...and a week later my partner with BPD told me he wanted a relationship and that’s when the sex stopped...

Hello and welcome!

Help fill in a few of the blanks for us here.  How is the relationship outside of the sex?  Do you live together...and do you go on actual dates and such?  Or is this more like an "exclusive" friends with benefits type of relationship?

Tell us a little more about the actual relationship so we can give you better advice.

[CoChuck]

I am sorry you are experiencing such a one-sided relationship regarding sex and intimacy. I think it's great you are establishing what you will and will not accept and have firm outcomes if they are not met. Can you follow-up?

I ask that question because I spent 25 years scrambling to become the person with whom my wife was willing to have sex. She has told me she does not feel safe around me because, well, because of my early reactions to her BPD-like behaviors. I was a college football player and lift weights a ton...from the beginning, she has told me I am too big for her (of course I would have liked to know this BEFORE we married).  Regardless the excuse, nothing changed. I even lost 30 pounds, with 12% body fat with no success. She has NEVER initiated physical intimacy with me..I mean never. If anything happened I had to start with an hour-long massage. About 1% of the time I was rewarded with sex.

I can remember the year before we were married and one 3 month period after about 15 years of marriage we had wonderful sex. Then it started again. Either I challenged her and faced her wrath and a wall of criticism or I accepted it, reducing the number of things for which she can be angry.

Now, I have learned to let things slide and to ask for what I need. If the consequences are great, I let them go. Unfortunately, I am no longer attracted to my wife. After 35 years of criticism, body shaming, and more, I have lost interest.

If you are going to stay in this relationship, learn all you can about BPD and how to interact. I have learned a lot about communication and how to stay involved without engaging in the criticism from people on this site.

I like that you are setting limits regarding sex. Is your limit the bare minimum you will accept or something more? I find my limits are the bare minimum, which causes conflict when they are not met. I am so please with the calm times, I am willing to put up with anything to maintain the peace.

I wonder what other's have had similar experiences regarding sex and their pwBPD?

[CravingPeace]

Our sex life dried up over 10 years ago. I never knew why for a few years I remember back then getting really frustrated. A year or so ago she said it was because i didn't make her feel emotionally connected. I understand emotional connection is important but when I enquired what i needed to do, she would say I should know if I loved her.or she would give me a list when i pushed, i would do those things and it wouldnt be enough.  She said she didnt mean to cut it off for this long. Which means she knew she was cutting me off. Eg. It was deliberate and a punishment.

In couples therapy she said sometging different. She said I liked her to dress up wear heels etc. She said she felt objectified. At the time I thought she enjoyed that too, she used to often wear heels and skirts and looked so attractive to me. If she had told me she didn't want to I would have respected that rather than pretending she liked it and secretely resenting me.

Either way the story has changed on the reason. Anyway I too have lost interest in sex with her. The constant picking, verbal abuse, guilt trips , silent treatment and sulking and manipulation has put me right off. She sais recently she didnt feel sexual towards me, I agreed I didnt. She then got annoyed with me that I didn't feel that way. Clearly it was ok for her to feel that way about me. Its strange sometimes she says stuff like she has been chronically depressed since she was a little girl and she can remember it changing going from a happy girl to very sad. Other times she blames me for the fact she feels depressed. I guess that is the disfunction.

[CoChuck]

Either way the story has changed on the reason. Anyway I too have lost interest in sex with her. The constant picking, verbal abuse, guilt trips , silent treatment and sulking and manipulation has put me right off. She sais recently she didnt feel sexual towards me, I agreed I didnt. She then got annoyed with me that I didn't feel that way. Clearly it was ok for her to feel that way about me. Its strange sometimes she says stuff like she has been chronically depressed since she was a little girl and she can remember it changing going from a happy girl to very sad. Other times she blames me for the fact she feels depressed. I guess that is the disfunction.

I still am fascinated by the 1) the difference between what my says happened and what I say and 2) how her report changes, especially with our therapist. In both instances, I am certain she is not trying to mislead.  Her reality seems to change to protect her sense of self.

Unfortunately, our therapist falls for her reality and we waste so much time with the therapist suggesting we just genuinely curious about each other. Well, my wife is never curious about me, but, of course, she says it because I am not curious. I follow-up with a genuine question, "Can you let me know a time I needed to be more curious so I can do it?" She tells me, "I've already told you so many times, I can't bare doing it again."

My point us, pwBPD truly believe we partners are the cause of things missing in our lives. My great desire is my wife recognized the sacrifice I made for her not pressuring her for sex, in any way, for 30 years. I never had an affair or even considered it. I have been entirely loyal. In her mind, all hope of intimacy ended when I decided to sleep in a separate room. Of course, that was 25 years into our marriage and the only reason I sleep in as separate room is because she complained for years about how hard it is to sleep with me.

Sometimes I am amazed by how impossible it is to tell about my experience with my partner without using multiple pages of text.

[CravingPeace]

I am totally with you. I dont believe she changes her thoughts on what happened or lies deliberately. I believe she truely believes what she says in the moment is what happened, as it changes so frequently it sounds like lies.

I certainly have alot of anger, I am living with so much disfunction in her yet she seems to think it is me (most of the time), she seems to get glimpses of clarity but admitting this is very painful for her. I believed her that I was sick, or had a mental sickness for the longest time.

I realised it only started whrn my relationshio started with her, it was not like this before her, or when i spend time aeay from her. Once I started recording conversations I could see it was not me that helped alot. But having your reality denied and questioned is destabalising.

But the therapist doesnt have that luxury of recordings. So I think believes we are just two regular adults not getting on. She no doubt believes my wifes victim stories are 100% true. Muxh like I guess when I tell negative /victim stories about my wife she believes me. I wonder if the therapist will ever suss it out.

[campbembpd]

My partner and I started out as friends with benefits and the sex was great at the time and I was his FP at the time and he knew about my other friend with benefits, we had a fight and I landed up seeing my other friend with benefits that night and lost the role of FP and a week later my partner with BPD told me he wanted a relationship and that’s when the sex stopped and all he wanted was for me to give him blow jobs or hand jobs every other night and when I asked if he could help me out with an orgasm I was shut down and then we eventually settled on him taking care of my needs without actual sex once a month but I was still lucky if I got that anyway fast forward and it’s been almost a year and still nothing my needs don’t get met but I am expected to take care of his? So I have now decided that unless my needs are met at the same time as his he can self love himself like I have had to do for nearly a year I am tired of doing everything that he wants and I don’t ask much for myself because I know he is very selfish and if he doesn’t get what he wants when he wants it he goes into a rage and does the whole BPD split thing am I wrong for feeling like this any tips on how I can get him to take care of my needs more often?

So sorry - that really sucks. 

Similar boat here. But I've been married for 25 years to my uBPDw. It wasn't always like this, but I assuming like a lot of marriages over the years our sex frequency went down year after year. The past 6 years have been the worst. She started hormone therapy and after that her sex drive was/is actually higher then it was ever before in our marriage but it became very one sided like yours. I would bring up the lack of intimacy once in a while but it never helped and she would get into a rage worse and worse. She would masturbate several times a week or have me help her out but wouldn't touch me but once a month or less (now the avg is far less then that). The last time I brought it up, 4 years ago she told me she would divorce me if I ever talked about sex again (wanting more of it) because it made her feel 'not good enough'. She has a pelvic floor condition which can make sex painful. Still can do it sometimes but it is a big area where she has shame, poor sense of self and seems to be a huge BPD trigger. But her mouth and hand don't cause any issues, it's about her not wanting to.

Eventually I realized that was part of her BPD which I had no idea she had those years ago. Being 'not good enough' is a phrase she uses across different areas when someone 'makes' her feel bad about something (like a husband wanting more sexual intimacy or giving ANY sort of feedback).

So now our sex life is basically I'm at her beck and call and I don't ask. Some weeks it could be daily - usually it's late at night or the middle of the night and she'll wake me up to assist her. She'll use a toy and I'll help her get her O. Then she rolls over and goes back to sleep and I know better then to ask for anything. Once in a while she'll do something for me as well but at this point we've gone months without any reciprocation.

But I would also add that our sex life is just one area where there is little to no reciprocity. It's taken me a long time to step back, really evaluate and see how so much in our relationship is one-sided. Other one sided areas but definitely not exclusive:

• Financially - She's more educated then me but has refused to work more then 10-20 hours a week for years and keeps most of her money, covering her expenses (hair, personal travel, eating out shopping, etc). 100% of my income goes into the finances, I can't cover all our expenses and not only does she not help, she's told me on many occasions that I need to do more to bring in more money (I already work f/t)
  
• Housework - not completely one sided but I do more then 75% of the regular household responsibilities and I work F/T. i.e. 100% of the meal planning, grocery shopping, 100% of the cooking, even preparing her lunches for the week. 100% of the yard work. She will chip in from time to time and a few things are 50/50 but mostly I'm going 80-100% of most things
  
• Any sort of paperwork - passports, taxes, anything involving computers, iphones, math, vehicle renewals, our joint LLC for her side business. All me.
  
• Parent chores - I will give credit that when the kids were young she was super involved in the PTA, she didn't work at the time. Once the kids got to middle school her participation declined. She rarely would drive the kids anywhere. She started hating driving. I was uber dad 99% of the time - school, after school activities drop off and pickup. I counted it and for a time I was spending 8-10 hours in the car a week driving kids around. I was up every day at 6am with the kids making lunches and getting them on the bus (until they were older).
  
• Personal / social time. For most of our marriage she's 100% always done whatever she wanted whether it was meeting friends out a few times a week, taking 1-2 girl trips a year. It's never bothered me at all. I encourage it even. But even trying to block off time to spend with my kids has had bad backlash/jealousy - i.e. she got enraged for a period when the kids and I would watch action movies she didn't like, we eventually stopped watching those if mom was home. When I traveled for work for a while there would be intense anger if I did anything 'fun' during my off time. To the point where I had to stop telling her I was going out for dinner with work colleagues and eventually just hide my activities. Nothing sinister, literally going to disney when I was working/traveling in the area was banned for me to do because she was at home with the kids and it wasn't fair to her. I was expected to pretty much stay in hotel after work. Years ago I used to golf pretty regularly but time and time again I would come home to again an angry wife who even would be encouraging me to go out before I left. I stopped golfing more more then once or twice a year. Sometimes going more then a year.
  
• Accountability. Since most everything is on my shoulders when something slips through the cracks or isn't done correctly it's my fault. I feel like I'm constantly spinning plates. She doesn't have any real responsibility in the house, with money, so when something doesn't go right who is to blame? (hint: me)
  

I love my wife otherwise it would be easier for me to cut the cord. I don't want to see us split up so I'm still working on me. But... I've realized that if she left the house and was gone I wouldn't notice much of a difference in terms of having to take care of a bunch of stuff she did. There would be less for me to do, it would in fact be easier on me, the day to day would be so much easier. From her side though, if I left she would be a bit of a mess because she's been unwilling/incapable of taking care of so much. Her day to day would change enormously.

With all that said I don't think you can really change him or make him see your needs are = to his own. In my situation things have gotten worse over the years, not better. I'm just starting to work on some boundaries but right now I'm just trying to establish not putting up with the rages as much. My hope is pretty low that she'll change. I think if you're starting out you need to setup those expectations early on. If you want/need something in your relationship with him you let him know things need to be more even. The longer you let things go, the further the slide will be and then you'll be in my shoes! .

It's exhausting, it's not fair and I really don't know if I would have started or stayed in this relationship if I knew then what I know now. It sucks, the lack of sex really sucks (or I wish it did). Sometimes I feel like instead of a marriage I have a roommate. And a crappy one that doesn't help out much or pay any bills. 

Suggested reading: Stop Caretaking the borderline or Narcissist, Stop Walking on Eggshells, & The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder.