I'm in love with and living with a woman who was sexually abused for years by her older brother. Then she got into a string of relationships in her teen years where she was used, nobody caring about her feelings, or outright raped by her boyfriends. Then she started into the BDSM scene.. and was mistreated there.
I love her, more than anything. I value her as a person, I like the person
she is, I respect her, try to be nurturing, try to show her what I have to offer her is different from what others have given her. She says she loves me, says she loves me as a man, and as a father figure (I'm in my 30's, she's around 20.) When we first started dating, she asked me to take complete charge.. to order her around, I refused.
I have serious self esteem issues, all my life I've been looked down on because of my weight and a slight disability. Here is the problem:
When we get intimate.. she accepts pleasure from me just fine (It took a while), but when it is time for me to receive something, anything in return... She freezes up and loses interest, or gets an expression of pain in her eyes and I ask her to stop. It hurts me to feel as though she doesn't want to touch me, the woman I love, who loves me... I've asked her about it. She says she's afraid I'll "get used to it", or "start taking what I want". I'm NOT that kind of "man". I want her, of that there is no doubt. But I won't take, I won't even accept what she offers unless it's free, I want her to want me, to want me the same way I want her. Nothing less is fair.
At the same time though, I often cry myself to sleep because I feel I'm being punished for the things others have done. I understand her difficulties, but at the same time I wonder if she even really wants ME, or just a safe place, until something better comes along.