My Support Forums - View Single Post - Getting rid of a fetish that's destroying my relationship

dytikos · 09:25 AM

I'm coming to accept that there may be no "getting rid of" this fetish entirely, but I would still like to do everything in my power to control it to a level that's tolerable for my girlfriend. Mindfulness seems promising and like it could help me to control my thoughts and urges, which has been a big part of this situation. Thank you for suggesting that, medievalbushman. I'm hoping that I'll be able to find multiple methods for managing this fetish or parts of it, like the thoughts, urges, looking at things I happen to see, etc.

I feel myself having varying levels of acceptance over my fetish. Sometimes I get no urges to partake in it and I would like to get rid of it and feel purer, I guess, while other times I get turned on and think back to things I used to masturbate to and get urges. Sometimes the urges get to the point where I feel a part of me that wants to be single just so I can masturbate and feed my fetish again. I feel guilty for that. My girlfriend means a lot more to me than my fetish and masturbation and I shouldn't ever want to leave her. During times when I don't have any urges, I am glad that my girlfriend doesn't accept my fetish, as I don't either. But when I do have urges, I don't feel shame or dislike for my fetish, and I'm more inclined to accept it. As I stated in my first post, we have had a lot of problems during our relationship, and we still are dealing with them. We've been very close to breaking up multiple times over several different things, and one of the more recent times was over my feelings about my fetish. She said that she couldn't stay with someone who thinks the things I think about or find attractive are okay, so she would only stay if I promised that if we one day broke up, I wouldn't go back to masturbating and partaking in my fetish. I've noticed that my periods of urges often seem to happen around near-breakups, as maybe that part of me feels like it will be "free" soon, and I start to think about masturbating and my fetish again. Anyway, because of the urges, I struggled to promise for a while, but I eventually reached a state of mind where I could think clearly and I realized how much more she means to me than a stupid fetish, so I promised. The problem, however, is that I don't stay in this clear state of mind all of the time. When I get urges again, I begin to doubt my ability or desire to hold up that promise, which she knows about and finds upsetting, not only because of my desire to embrace my fetish, but also to break the promise.

I don't see my girlfriend accepting my fetish or changing her feelings on it anytime soon, which, medievalbushman, includes "tolerating" it. Based on both of your replies, it seems that I haven't described the situation well enough to accurately represent my girlfriend's position in it. Although she probably would like to lose weight (like many others, I'm sure), that's not really a primary goal for her. I think she would much rather be happy in her own body and feel accepted, which my fetish does anything but. You say that I should support her in her struggles, but she doesn’t feel comfortable sharing that with me, as it probably would turn me on and give me urges, as much as I want to help her and be there for her. And there is one detail I’ve left out until now that is probably more important than I thought. My girlfriend suffers from depression and I think that plays a big part in the situation as well. The fact that I can’t always be there for her is a big issue for her, as she feels a need to be more or less dependent on one person at a time and she wants to be able to talk to me about everything. I also haven’t accurately shared the effect that my fetish and other problems in our relationship have had on my girlfriend either.

Possible trigger:

She has taken to self harm to help cope with these issues, and I’m extremely worried about her as I fear that she may have permanently damaged one of her wrists at this point and if it continues, it will get worse. I believe she has developed a dependency on cutting for emotional relief, and she even does it sometimes when she doesn’t feel the need to just so she can upset me, because she feels like I don’t care unless she does it… Yes, we have a lot of issues. She has also begun to have recurring suicidal thoughts over the past few days because of problems between us, including my fetish.

I should probably go into those as well. Throughout our whole relationship, I’ve made a lot of mistakes and done a lot of things that upset her. I have lied a lot, broken promises, not shown her that I care, not gone out of my way to make her feel special, among other things. I personally feel like she has helped me to change a lot as a person and I am as honest as I can be now, but I still upset her a lot in many ways, including failing to keep promises and making her feel special. I am not a good boyfriend and I never have been. She has given me so many chances and I still haven’t changed my ways enough to make her not miserable all of the time. And the thing is that I could change. If I really applied myself and tried with everything in me, I know I’m capable of being better. But I just haven’t so many times. And why do I do that? I’m making the love of my life hurt herself and want to kill herself because I’m just lazy? Am I this awful of a person? She deserves so much more than all of this and I don’t understand myself.

Well at this point, this thread may as well not even belong in Sexual and Gender Issues anymore. I’m not sure what to do now. I don’t know how to add spoiler warnings either, so I hope a mod can do that on the self harm and suicide triggers. Thank you two for the help.