Current point with FA. Intimacy....

Kibbins, After 1.5 years, I believe that the possibility of getting the changes you want resides on you strengthening yourself, and setting very firm boundaries. You would need to be in a position emotionally and practically, to walk away for periods of time. I have seen this work, but only DA's can pull it off usually. You would have to be as strong as that, but make your moves meaningfully and explain them to him.

Its very likely he's going to continue to jerk you around on the sex front. Have his mind distorted by porn, making things worse for you. Make you feel second to his friends. Come and go.

Think: what would you need, to walk away, to make a point?

I have walked away around 3x now, it did bring some results but not a ton. He also tries to “break up” once a month or so stating I don’t deserve my needs not being met and he needs to work on himself, but sometimes it feels like a test for security on my end. Also sometimes i see holidays as triggering for him bc then he will feel he needs to invite me to things and he compartmentalizes his life a lot and doesn’t like me around his family/friends. I’m afraid I will have to do this eventually to finally get us into couples therapy....

kibbins "has anyone ever had a DA/FA return to having a somewhat normal sex life after going thru major deactivation periods in that area?"

No.

"Is it normal for an avoidant to have so many normal close friendships but keep partner at major arms length?"

Yes. Some insecures are triggered by family, some by romantic partners, some by friends, some by all of the above. Sounds like yours isn't triggered by friends as easily.

elizincali "xouldnit reallt be that they’re not into us that way?"

It could but it probably isn't. There's a lot going on if the partner truly has an insecure attachment issue. But just because it's not about you doesn't mean it's compatible or easy to solve.

It's not uncommon for avoidants to withdraw sexually. This has happened to me, twice (both FA), and it destroyed my self-confidence because I blamed myself. But it had nothing to do with me, and I know that because things started great for extended periods of time, and both got physical with me again multiple times long after the breakups (followed by pushing me away again). I don't think you'd do that if you totally lost all attraction to someone. Or, at least, I wouldn't. You would do that if you were both being kind of co-dependent and both had issues (I was AP at the time, they are both still FA, and there has been no funny business with either in a very long time! definitely since I earned secure).

Anyway, there are also many other examples in threads on this forum of people dating insecure avoidants who can give them either emotional or physical intimacy, but not both. In fact, this is so common that some people who experience the loss of attraction came up with a term for it: "freysexual."

Think about it this way. Avoidants fear engulfment. All the insecure attachment styles fear being vulnerable and have difficulty achieving true openness and intimacy. Anxious attachment systems get hyperactive and flooded when overwhelmed, but avoidant nervous systems shut down when feeling overwhelmed or engulfed. If you have a debilitating fear of engulfment, it's going to be very, very difficult to be able to look at one person and feel comfortable being intimate with them in every way. It's scary to have one person be a friend and lover and partner etc. all rolled into one. What happens if they leave one day? And you lose all those things because you loved someone completely and maybe got a little dependent on them? For someone who would get overwhelmed by that idea and is conditioned to expect people to disappoint them, who is inclined to have a nervous system that shuts down in times of distress, some distancing mechanism is going to go up for self-preservation. And in many cases, if your nervous system shuts down and you are physically deactivated from someone, your sex drive is going to get shut down with it. When this is all a subconscious process, you're not going to understand why that happens, but it does serve the purpose of inhibiting healthy connection with your partner. ie, losing your sex drive keeps you safe from being engulfed, in a dysfunctional way. This isn't anyone jerking you around or being distorted by porn, it's a real deep and sad problem with intimacy and attachment that the partner is using porn to cope with (and, likely, to avoid).

This is tricky, because the person who withdraws sexually has to be willing to see that the issue is coming from within themselves. It's really easy for people who have always been this way their whole lives to say, I wouldn't lose my sex drive with the right person but I've not met them yet. Or, I'm attracted to other people still, just not you, so it's a you problem not a me problem. Or, I guess I just don't like sex that much if this keeps happening with all my partners. It's easy to believe something like that if you've never really known anything else. In the examples I'm familiar with, those people have never had a long-term healthy sexual relationship -- it was either an unstable and volatile longing relationship or they'd lose sexual interest and withdraw at some point. Dead bedrooms are because someone withdrew and didn't want to work on it, maybe couldn't even see what the core problem actually was and didn't know where to start. In my second situation, I eventually figured out what was happening but when I tried to talk to him about it, he just said him putting any effort in to confront it sounded "daunting" and bailed.

kibbins "And they link sex with shame. Happened with all his previous partners. I have to wonder, let’s say I accepted this, which I would probably eventually go nuts, would he really be ok just leading a sexless life forever?? I wonder if he is even thinking about this at all? Did you ever ask your guy if this happened in previous relationships or you’re the first person he ever got close to?"

I had this conversation with one of the exes, so I will give you a point of view on some of your questions. Yes -- shame came up a LOT in our discussion, but he couldn't figure out where the shame was coming from. He just said I was definitely on to something by bringing up shame and he needed to think about it more. He also said it had happened before, but wouldn't go into detail. But then he'd deflect by tossing out the one time it never happened, which was with a partner who he had a highly chaotic and volatile relationship with who he was pretty sure was cheating on him. He thought about how he pulled away from sex with me a lot, overanalyzed what it might mean, and knew neither of us was ok with leading a sexless existence, but he also didn't feel able to communicate about it so made the decision to never talk to me about it in hopes it would just fix itself one day, and break up with me if/when that didn't happen. And, it couldn't happen since he refused to talk to me about it until months after we broke up.

If you're in this situation and your partner is willing to actually follow through and go to therapy about it, that's incredible. But it's not just going to be a couple's therapy exercise because the root of their sexual problem isn't with you. It's going to have to be, you go to couple's therapy and the partner also goes to therapy alone because it is truly a lot of work for someone who shuts down when things are good with their partner to re-wire that. Accepting that you'll just not have sex anymore if that's not what you want is enabling. (I don't mean, pressure someone for sex who doesn't want it, but I mean walking on eggshells in order to never really deal with it because you think that will make them comfortable.) Sure, it allows things to stay comfortable and less painful in the moment -- while not really being okay in the longer-run, which is going to cause more and enduring pain. In my case, it led to enough rock-bottom pain through a blind-siding breakup for me to figure out how to confront my own attachment issues. So, silver lining? My ex-partners were in pain too, but still not enough to stop avoiding or make any profound changes.

Right now, both of you are settling for on-off incomplete relationships that neither of you are fully okay with, but on some level you don't believe you deserve more. It might be a good example to your partners if you find your own therapists and start going on your own, with no agenda other than working on your own independent issues (this is assuming you aren't already doing so). If nothing else, having been in your situation and gotten my self-esteem battered by it, it would help you get in front of that happening. But if you both also have insecure attachment styles and issues to work on as well, it would only help to attend to your own side of things, for your own health. Loving someone enough to make the choice to keep working through this is great, but staying in a dysfunctional situation because you're "in love" is not. That just leads to toxic codependence.

alexandra. Incredible.

serenity, I'm sure there was some porn as these guys have access to the internet. But we spent a lot of time together and I never saw it. It didn't seem to be a problem at all. And I'm not naive about it, I do know a couple guys with porn addiction issues. It wasn't the driver of the sexual deactivation.

caro, zero other issues with physical affection. Constant cuddling and kissing was still a big part. Which is part of what made me think I could handle it just because sex had dwindled down significantly. Even now, in very platonic friendship, they both still show appropriate friends-only physical affection regularly (initiating hugging hello/goodbye, comfort reaching out like if we're in a crowd and trying not to get separated, etc).

Sometimes, sex is so loaded with expectations not about the sex itself, but about actions in other parts of life. It might be a metaphor for commitment, being roped in. Sometimes there is the shame that comes from erectile dysfunction. That one is profoundly sad. I know that if I’m not mentally right, it takes nothing to not be physically right, if you know what I mean.

caroline, the affectionate gestures have all but dwindled, too, with my FA. i’m lucky to get a slap on the bum and just today in fact when i realized that smallest gesture felt so loaded and confusing, it has helped me realize its time to let go. 😕