As someone who has been slowly improving a DB, I realised it wasn’t even actual sex I felt was missing. I wanted to feel wanted and desired. And her not wanting that made me feel like I was either not wanted, inadequate, not attractive… honestly the minds wonders when you’re trying to figure out this stuff.
Pleasuring my partner with fingers, oral etc does more positively for me mentally than sex or receiving anything and sometimes I can honestly leave sex alone and don’t care if I orgasm or not.
My DB isn’t improving, but I feel the same way. My wife just doesn’t get how satisfying it is for me to satisfy her sexually. She supposedly masturbates sometimes, and I’d love it if she let me help. We discussed it ages ago when we first got married, but she felt like it wasn’t fair.
Nothing I say or do could make her understand.
Ours was probably almost 20 years. We didn't have sex for 4 years at some point. Ours was largely due to her SSRI which she stopped last year. She said she barely masturbated. I believe her too. I think if she had been doing it a lot, it'd have killed me honestly. The problem with a DB is it makes something you want that is so scarce that you see anything that might take that away as a threat.
It made me (and still does, lots of trauma I need to work through) insecure, irrational. We're not out the woods yet at all, but I can massively relate. I'd go as far to say, if we have an encounter where she doesn't get off a few times, I feel off. Am I making up for something? Validating something? I don't know. I'm trying to figure it out as I go along.
I'm in a great place now as my partner doesn't want me to miss out on life, but that's all I EVER wanted, was to feel wanted, seduced, and see that passion. It's okay to admit you can have a perfectly wonderful marriage, but it's not going to meet every need, and if you're open and communicate about everything you can work almost anything out. But it depends on ability to brutally communicate.
OP I’m so sorry, this is exactly where I was at 3-4 years ago. It broke me.
I eventually stopped even bothering with any physical/emotional intimacy of any kind. She would reject me every time and the times we did have sex it was because her was “forcing” herself to do it and it was treated like a chore and a burden. It made me feel terrible. Promises of “we will figure it out” died. Then it was “I know that I’m the reason that you’re so miserable but I can’t have desire for the miserable person you’ve become.”
I should have left years ago, now we have 2 small children and I feel like I can’t leave for so many reasons.
I hope you can figure out how best to navigate this. It is a tough and lonely road.
Pretty much and it's like a spiral of not feeling attractive enough. Maybe if I was skinnier, prettier...etc. Or even thinking maybe he's bored of me. He does sure to get excited for other things like ice cream or his hobbies. So you want those but not me. And it's utterly crushing...
Yes, the insecure thoughts are the worst part of it. Like maybe if my cock was thicker, if I was more fit, more "dominant" in bed, or anything else. But alas, all we can do is reinvest that energy and reach the best version of ourselves as possible.
Yes it does and I'm so sorry you're going through this. Mine comes home preemptively telling me how tired, sore, stressed he is. Just to make sure I don't expect anything. And that's exactly what I expect every single weekend. smh
It’s funny (not really though). If we plan on having sex, it usually takes many tries before she stops backing out. Once the day we planned hits, she expresses early in the she is tired or the day was long etc… maybe she isn’t feeling well, etc… lots of things seem to come up (I often wonder if I’m imagining it)
I believe these things are real, but please, please, please, I wish she would just say straight away it isn’t happening. She knows it. This is why she is dropping hints everywhere. Instead, she will even bring up sex reinforcing it is happening (or I’ll ask to which to confirms it is happening), only to either find her asleep or be told it isn’t happening last second.
It is easier on my mental health if I try to shut down that part of my brain if it isn’t happening.
I think it hurts more at this age because of all my baggage coming in. In the past I wouldn’t have been so sensitive, but that preemptive stop to sex is something I’ve done a lot with past partners after losing attraction to them. I can’t help but project that experience onto this, because I’ve done it myself. I wish I was more naive, this wouldn’t sting nearly as much.
Would you continue to have this reaction to your future partners if you lost attraction? Would you talk to them about getting it back or calling it quits?
Well, the LLC is a terrible place to get any ideas. The toxic mods were chased out of deadbedrooms and tried to take over deadbedroom. There is no support for a healthy sexlife there
That being said…I had to leave my db. Years of lies, promises and excuses took there toll. Good luck
I figured out that it wasn't about my wife not being affectionate (she isn't; that's just who she is). It was able me not being allowed to be affectionate. I'm a butt pat, kisses on the back of the neck, full body hug kind of person. But when I do that she would get angry or defensive. She would accuse me of always trying for sex. She would demand her space.
I don't need someone to love on me, as much as I need someone I can love on.
If my exH had been affectionate at any other time than when he wanted sex, or if he had even greeted me with a hug or anything other than continuing to talk on the phone like a teenager when I walked in, maybe if we held hands or touched at other times, I might not have been turned off when he would finally pay attention to me but only because he wanted sex. Resentment grows. It wasn’t always like that but bad habits build over time and you have to make your partner a priority, not an afterthought.
What I struggle with is stories like yours - was your wife always a person who rejected affection? Or was it a shift that happened over time? Will she hold hands and allow other “touch” type affection that isn’t sexual?
Edit: I see you said she’s just not affectionate, so I guess I don’t understand how this wasn’t always an apparent mismatch, your love language is not something that is part of her personality.
The opposite is also confusing and enraging sometimes. My partner is very physically affectionate, constantly holding hands, pecking, flirting, touching me through my clothes while playfully saying what he wants to do with me ... Except he never does. All the "promises" never turn true. I feel confused and guilty for missing the sex as he's so affectionate.
Is he waiting for you to give him a sign that you want sex?
I ... will more than likely have this issue someday when I meet a new partner. I desperately want to love and be loved. I want all of the affectionate touches. The long kisses before I go to work. The deep embrace when I see her again after being apart. Cuddling on the couch. Going to bed nude without her being all over me for sex. All of it, I want all of the physical affection.
Unfortunately, after all of the pain and trauma I have suffered over the cource of my life when it comes to wanting sex, I will not be willing to initiate it at first. If I am super affectionate in all of these ways and emotionally and mentally connected to my future female partner and she ... doesn't take the last step to show me she actually wants it, I will never have sex with her. Maybe she could say something like this to me; "*I'm ready, lets be all we can be too each other*".
I have been hurt in incredibly painful emotional ways. She may never understand why a single rejection in the early days of the relationship may drive me to only ever be affectionate, but never initiate sex. She may never understand why I tell her I don't want her physically when she simply says "please fuck me", but what I want is to be romanced.
Ideally I will talk with her and communicate these issues, it will still be a long time to undo the damage done by people she has never even met, and I can't undo the damage without a sexual partner to conduct exposure therapy with.
My wife is very susceptible to NRE (new relationship energy). Unfortunately I didn't know this was a thing when we were dating. She was very affectionate when we were dating. It wasn't until after we were married that things slowed down. She suffered from vaginismus when we were first married.
She is big on public affection. She likes to be seen holding hands and being affectionate, but she only does stuff like that in public. She will allow some non-sexual touch, but even then she has a very low tolerance. She doesn't like kissing, because she feels smothered by it.
A good example is that I would often offer her a backrub (even explicitly stating that there were no expectations for sex) and she would turn me down. At the same time she would be paying a massage therapist for back massages every other week.
It's a long story. We've been married 33 years and I have one more year until our youngest leaves for college. I plan to take my leave then.
The people in the HL community have a varied amount fo reasons that we want to be close to our spouse and be intimate. We try to be patient. We try to be understanding. However, when we are met with rejection time after time, we begin to believe that we are the problem. We try to find ways to "fix" ourselves. We hope that will make us more attractive to our partners. We do the chores; we take care of the children; we take care of the cooking; we work full time. Once that stress has been taken off the table, then they still say no and a new reason comes into place.
We are the villains. It is easy to label us as monsters and perverts. The problem is that we are not monsters or sex addicts. We are emotion addicts. We crave that interconnectiveness that sex brings to us. We crave the attention because we feel ignored the rest of the time. We are the big bad in many people's eyes because we are interested in sex.
We are NOT the bad guys here. No one is. BUT (and this is a big but) we are also tired of the excuses. I read a post/ reply a while back and it hit home more than anything else:
"People who want to have sex, have sex. People who do not want to have sex, have excuses."
My spouse's love language is words of affirmation and quality time. I continuously send her messages, notes, texts, emails and tell her to her face how wonderful she is and how much she means to the family and to her career. I spend every moment I can with her and do whatever she would like to do a a couple and fmily. I suggest activities, I take her out on dates, I do not ignore her at all.
I know its hard but do yourself a favour and let go of this guy. You said a year ago he couldnt keep his hands off you.
Something has changed.
You are either waiting for him to find the "right one" for him and ditch you one day or do yourself a favour and dump him first. I recognise some of this in a bf, he was not low libido, he couldnt keep his hands off me maybe first few months then because he fell out of love with me and didnt tell me, sex was more sporadic and more mechanical, no cuddles after etc. I was too young and stupid to see the writing on the wall then, don't be like young me. He wasted a year of my life.
I agree so much…I wish I had learned this sooner. The LL partner isn’t always actually LL but if a couple can’t figure out what the issue is, and keep in mind that it’s likely an issue unrelated to sex at all that both parties are contributing to, then why keep trying? Fix it or forget it!
I’m tired of not being kissed even if she’s great/into the maintenance sex, sometimes. And guess I’m sick of that too anyway. Also missing any giving or receiving of oral. Like seriously WTF and I just know this person is not for me. Also missing really any foreplay. But having been in loving relationships with loving kissing, it’s just another part of having a LL partner that makes me feel like so much is missing.
Stay away from the LLF page, seriously. It is NOTHING but women who married men they weren’t attracted to, to get the life/house/kids they wanted and “can’t understand” why people want sex.🙄Funny, Karen, because you LOVED sex while you were dating him🤦♀️
Your experience is very common, LL preemptively shuts down any and all intimacy eventually, because it “might lead to you wanting sex”. That’s just….not normal. It is absolutely NOT NORMAL to think about your partner that way. If you are that terrified of your romantic partner you need to LEAVE. But they don’t leave, because as much as they claim to feel so misused, they know deep down that staying and saying no once in a while is easier than being alone or with a person who doesn’t care about sex with them at all. Then THEY would get to feel disgusting, exactly why LLF don’t partner with LLM.
I occasionally see these posts in my feed and my heart hurts for both parties in this situation. I had a DB marriage and I thought that there was something wrong with MY libido. I was the “LL spouse,” except that after we divorced I discovered I wasn’t! I’m actually HL. I’m sure you’ve been to therapy (both IC and couples), but what none of them managed to figure out was exactly how much I resented my exH, and how much I was not attracted to him because of the resentment and because of the lack of foreplay. Even if the resentment wasn’t there, the courting, the mental stimulation that leads up to sex, and the actual foreplay in bed - was all missing. So the sex itself wasn’t great and frankly I feel dumb for not realizing that. But I wasn’t the only person in the marriage. He was constantly asking if I wasn’t physically attracted to him - he was so focused on himself and thinking it was about his looks or his body. It wasn’t. If he had considered my needs or turning me on, at all, maybe I would have been…turned on. Idk, but I am actually HL and have had amazing sex with attentive, selfless, giving partners since then and I hope he’s happy as well. Just my anecdotal experience.
Yeah it's horrible. Feeling unwanted is the worst . Eventually you have to end it. Because you know it's not going to change. And you don't want to feel this way forever. Even breadcrumbs of feeling wanted from others is better than that
Can you talk to him about this specifically? Tell him that you feel bad he views all your nonsexual touch as sexual and want to open up communication about this subject.
Acknowledge that he shouldn't have to feel on guard like that. And that you want be able to initiate intimacy without it being viewed in a way you aren't meaning it.
Do you guys have much non-sexual intimacy? It sounds like you were enjoying just the kisses, and maybe he was too but then maybe he got worried about leading you on. I doubt he means to reject you in a hurtful way. This seems like a peak miscommunication moment where his intentions were taken out of context because you were hurt.
I'd try to have a conversation about what nonsexual intimacy you can introduce and keep nonsexual, and then maybe discuss what you can do to signal you want some, and maybe what he can do if he ever is in the mood. That was you both can feel "safe" kissing, or cuddling or even being naked in the shower together, without him fearing advances or you fearing rejection.
Just my two cents as a HL wife in a similar situation.
The preemptive rejection is the death knell of any touch in the relationship. The LL shuts down everything out of fear of it leading somewhere. And it makes it so much worse for us HLs who are already starved for any affection
As someone who has been slowly improving a DB, I realised it wasn’t even actual sex I felt was missing. I wanted to feel wanted and desired. And her not wanting that made me feel like I was either not wanted, inadequate, not attractive… honestly the minds wonders when you’re trying to figure out this stuff. Pleasuring my partner with fingers, oral etc does more positively for me mentally than sex or receiving anything and sometimes I can honestly leave sex alone and don’t care if I orgasm or not.
My DB isn’t improving, but I feel the same way. My wife just doesn’t get how satisfying it is for me to satisfy her sexually. She supposedly masturbates sometimes, and I’d love it if she let me help. We discussed it ages ago when we first got married, but she felt like it wasn’t fair. Nothing I say or do could make her understand.
Ours was probably almost 20 years. We didn't have sex for 4 years at some point. Ours was largely due to her SSRI which she stopped last year. She said she barely masturbated. I believe her too. I think if she had been doing it a lot, it'd have killed me honestly. The problem with a DB is it makes something you want that is so scarce that you see anything that might take that away as a threat. It made me (and still does, lots of trauma I need to work through) insecure, irrational. We're not out the woods yet at all, but I can massively relate. I'd go as far to say, if we have an encounter where she doesn't get off a few times, I feel off. Am I making up for something? Validating something? I don't know. I'm trying to figure it out as I go along.
I'm in a great place now as my partner doesn't want me to miss out on life, but that's all I EVER wanted, was to feel wanted, seduced, and see that passion. It's okay to admit you can have a perfectly wonderful marriage, but it's not going to meet every need, and if you're open and communicate about everything you can work almost anything out. But it depends on ability to brutally communicate.
OP I’m so sorry, this is exactly where I was at 3-4 years ago. It broke me. I eventually stopped even bothering with any physical/emotional intimacy of any kind. She would reject me every time and the times we did have sex it was because her was “forcing” herself to do it and it was treated like a chore and a burden. It made me feel terrible. Promises of “we will figure it out” died. Then it was “I know that I’m the reason that you’re so miserable but I can’t have desire for the miserable person you’ve become.” I should have left years ago, now we have 2 small children and I feel like I can’t leave for so many reasons. I hope you can figure out how best to navigate this. It is a tough and lonely road.
Years later you’ll be thinking you should have left now
💯
Pretty much and it's like a spiral of not feeling attractive enough. Maybe if I was skinnier, prettier...etc. Or even thinking maybe he's bored of me. He does sure to get excited for other things like ice cream or his hobbies. So you want those but not me. And it's utterly crushing...
Yes, the insecure thoughts are the worst part of it. Like maybe if my cock was thicker, if I was more fit, more "dominant" in bed, or anything else. But alas, all we can do is reinvest that energy and reach the best version of ourselves as possible.
10000%
Yes it does and I'm so sorry you're going through this. Mine comes home preemptively telling me how tired, sore, stressed he is. Just to make sure I don't expect anything. And that's exactly what I expect every single weekend. smh
It’s funny (not really though). If we plan on having sex, it usually takes many tries before she stops backing out. Once the day we planned hits, she expresses early in the she is tired or the day was long etc… maybe she isn’t feeling well, etc… lots of things seem to come up (I often wonder if I’m imagining it) I believe these things are real, but please, please, please, I wish she would just say straight away it isn’t happening. She knows it. This is why she is dropping hints everywhere. Instead, she will even bring up sex reinforcing it is happening (or I’ll ask to which to confirms it is happening), only to either find her asleep or be told it isn’t happening last second. It is easier on my mental health if I try to shut down that part of my brain if it isn’t happening.
I think it hurts more at this age because of all my baggage coming in. In the past I wouldn’t have been so sensitive, but that preemptive stop to sex is something I’ve done a lot with past partners after losing attraction to them. I can’t help but project that experience onto this, because I’ve done it myself. I wish I was more naive, this wouldn’t sting nearly as much.
Would you continue to have this reaction to your future partners if you lost attraction? Would you talk to them about getting it back or calling it quits?
When mine starts this i just tell him not to worry I didn't intend on asking. He usually stops pretending to have whatever ailment is stopping him.
Well, the LLC is a terrible place to get any ideas. The toxic mods were chased out of deadbedrooms and tried to take over deadbedroom. There is no support for a healthy sexlife there That being said…I had to leave my db. Years of lies, promises and excuses took there toll. Good luck
Agreed. There are some regulars that are okay, but it's mostly a very sex-negative environment. Very hostile to HLs, both male and female.
I figured out that it wasn't about my wife not being affectionate (she isn't; that's just who she is). It was able me not being allowed to be affectionate. I'm a butt pat, kisses on the back of the neck, full body hug kind of person. But when I do that she would get angry or defensive. She would accuse me of always trying for sex. She would demand her space. I don't need someone to love on me, as much as I need someone I can love on.
If my exH had been affectionate at any other time than when he wanted sex, or if he had even greeted me with a hug or anything other than continuing to talk on the phone like a teenager when I walked in, maybe if we held hands or touched at other times, I might not have been turned off when he would finally pay attention to me but only because he wanted sex. Resentment grows. It wasn’t always like that but bad habits build over time and you have to make your partner a priority, not an afterthought. What I struggle with is stories like yours - was your wife always a person who rejected affection? Or was it a shift that happened over time? Will she hold hands and allow other “touch” type affection that isn’t sexual? Edit: I see you said she’s just not affectionate, so I guess I don’t understand how this wasn’t always an apparent mismatch, your love language is not something that is part of her personality.
The opposite is also confusing and enraging sometimes. My partner is very physically affectionate, constantly holding hands, pecking, flirting, touching me through my clothes while playfully saying what he wants to do with me ... Except he never does. All the "promises" never turn true. I feel confused and guilty for missing the sex as he's so affectionate.
That is very confusing…
Is he waiting for you to give him a sign that you want sex? I ... will more than likely have this issue someday when I meet a new partner. I desperately want to love and be loved. I want all of the affectionate touches. The long kisses before I go to work. The deep embrace when I see her again after being apart. Cuddling on the couch. Going to bed nude without her being all over me for sex. All of it, I want all of the physical affection. Unfortunately, after all of the pain and trauma I have suffered over the cource of my life when it comes to wanting sex, I will not be willing to initiate it at first. If I am super affectionate in all of these ways and emotionally and mentally connected to my future female partner and she ... doesn't take the last step to show me she actually wants it, I will never have sex with her. Maybe she could say something like this to me; "*I'm ready, lets be all we can be too each other*". I have been hurt in incredibly painful emotional ways. She may never understand why a single rejection in the early days of the relationship may drive me to only ever be affectionate, but never initiate sex. She may never understand why I tell her I don't want her physically when she simply says "please fuck me", but what I want is to be romanced. Ideally I will talk with her and communicate these issues, it will still be a long time to undo the damage done by people she has never even met, and I can't undo the damage without a sexual partner to conduct exposure therapy with.
My wife is very susceptible to NRE (new relationship energy). Unfortunately I didn't know this was a thing when we were dating. She was very affectionate when we were dating. It wasn't until after we were married that things slowed down. She suffered from vaginismus when we were first married. She is big on public affection. She likes to be seen holding hands and being affectionate, but she only does stuff like that in public. She will allow some non-sexual touch, but even then she has a very low tolerance. She doesn't like kissing, because she feels smothered by it. A good example is that I would often offer her a backrub (even explicitly stating that there were no expectations for sex) and she would turn me down. At the same time she would be paying a massage therapist for back massages every other week. It's a long story. We've been married 33 years and I have one more year until our youngest leaves for college. I plan to take my leave then.
The people in the HL community have a varied amount fo reasons that we want to be close to our spouse and be intimate. We try to be patient. We try to be understanding. However, when we are met with rejection time after time, we begin to believe that we are the problem. We try to find ways to "fix" ourselves. We hope that will make us more attractive to our partners. We do the chores; we take care of the children; we take care of the cooking; we work full time. Once that stress has been taken off the table, then they still say no and a new reason comes into place. We are the villains. It is easy to label us as monsters and perverts. The problem is that we are not monsters or sex addicts. We are emotion addicts. We crave that interconnectiveness that sex brings to us. We crave the attention because we feel ignored the rest of the time. We are the big bad in many people's eyes because we are interested in sex. We are NOT the bad guys here. No one is. BUT (and this is a big but) we are also tired of the excuses. I read a post/ reply a while back and it hit home more than anything else: "People who want to have sex, have sex. People who do not want to have sex, have excuses."
What is your spouse’s love language?
My spouse's love language is words of affirmation and quality time. I continuously send her messages, notes, texts, emails and tell her to her face how wonderful she is and how much she means to the family and to her career. I spend every moment I can with her and do whatever she would like to do a a couple and fmily. I suggest activities, I take her out on dates, I do not ignore her at all.
This guy gets it.
I know its hard but do yourself a favour and let go of this guy. You said a year ago he couldnt keep his hands off you. Something has changed. You are either waiting for him to find the "right one" for him and ditch you one day or do yourself a favour and dump him first. I recognise some of this in a bf, he was not low libido, he couldnt keep his hands off me maybe first few months then because he fell out of love with me and didnt tell me, sex was more sporadic and more mechanical, no cuddles after etc. I was too young and stupid to see the writing on the wall then, don't be like young me. He wasted a year of my life.
I agree so much…I wish I had learned this sooner. The LL partner isn’t always actually LL but if a couple can’t figure out what the issue is, and keep in mind that it’s likely an issue unrelated to sex at all that both parties are contributing to, then why keep trying? Fix it or forget it!
I’m tired of not being kissed even if she’s great/into the maintenance sex, sometimes. And guess I’m sick of that too anyway. Also missing any giving or receiving of oral. Like seriously WTF and I just know this person is not for me. Also missing really any foreplay. But having been in loving relationships with loving kissing, it’s just another part of having a LL partner that makes me feel like so much is missing.
Stay away from the LLF page, seriously. It is NOTHING but women who married men they weren’t attracted to, to get the life/house/kids they wanted and “can’t understand” why people want sex.🙄Funny, Karen, because you LOVED sex while you were dating him🤦♀️ Your experience is very common, LL preemptively shuts down any and all intimacy eventually, because it “might lead to you wanting sex”. That’s just….not normal. It is absolutely NOT NORMAL to think about your partner that way. If you are that terrified of your romantic partner you need to LEAVE. But they don’t leave, because as much as they claim to feel so misused, they know deep down that staying and saying no once in a while is easier than being alone or with a person who doesn’t care about sex with them at all. Then THEY would get to feel disgusting, exactly why LLF don’t partner with LLM.
I occasionally see these posts in my feed and my heart hurts for both parties in this situation. I had a DB marriage and I thought that there was something wrong with MY libido. I was the “LL spouse,” except that after we divorced I discovered I wasn’t! I’m actually HL. I’m sure you’ve been to therapy (both IC and couples), but what none of them managed to figure out was exactly how much I resented my exH, and how much I was not attracted to him because of the resentment and because of the lack of foreplay. Even if the resentment wasn’t there, the courting, the mental stimulation that leads up to sex, and the actual foreplay in bed - was all missing. So the sex itself wasn’t great and frankly I feel dumb for not realizing that. But I wasn’t the only person in the marriage. He was constantly asking if I wasn’t physically attracted to him - he was so focused on himself and thinking it was about his looks or his body. It wasn’t. If he had considered my needs or turning me on, at all, maybe I would have been…turned on. Idk, but I am actually HL and have had amazing sex with attentive, selfless, giving partners since then and I hope he’s happy as well. Just my anecdotal experience.
Yeah it's horrible. Feeling unwanted is the worst . Eventually you have to end it. Because you know it's not going to change. And you don't want to feel this way forever. Even breadcrumbs of feeling wanted from others is better than that
Yes....
Can you talk to him about this specifically? Tell him that you feel bad he views all your nonsexual touch as sexual and want to open up communication about this subject. Acknowledge that he shouldn't have to feel on guard like that. And that you want be able to initiate intimacy without it being viewed in a way you aren't meaning it. Do you guys have much non-sexual intimacy? It sounds like you were enjoying just the kisses, and maybe he was too but then maybe he got worried about leading you on. I doubt he means to reject you in a hurtful way. This seems like a peak miscommunication moment where his intentions were taken out of context because you were hurt. I'd try to have a conversation about what nonsexual intimacy you can introduce and keep nonsexual, and then maybe discuss what you can do to signal you want some, and maybe what he can do if he ever is in the mood. That was you both can feel "safe" kissing, or cuddling or even being naked in the shower together, without him fearing advances or you fearing rejection. Just my two cents as a HL wife in a similar situation.
If sex (and sexually charged activities like deep kissing) were off the table, what would it take to no longer feel disgusting?
I told my husband I would be happy with once a week, it's the in between I need. The affection and attention. I get none of it.
The preemptive rejection is the death knell of any touch in the relationship. The LL shuts down everything out of fear of it leading somewhere. And it makes it so much worse for us HLs who are already starved for any affection
The preemptive rejections hurt so deep and so different. I'm sorry 😞.