how to accept comfort and know when u need it

just got back from seeing T. shes had me do a lot of hw based on trying to identify emotions within myself. today i received hw to receive comfort from my wife. now i give her comfort all the time. i hold her, hug her and would do anything to help her be happy, but i dont know how to take comfort in those same embraces.

i give it willingly but i dont know how to take it.i know in those embraces i should feel a comfort and safety ad caring just as she does, yet i dont. i dont know how. nothing has ever been about me adn ive always been just let everyone else come first and theres never any me.im really struggling with this and its very upsetting that something as simple as comfort i cant even take.

i feel i have no one to relate to. there literally is no one in the world who has gone through all i have. there are ppl who have similarities and ppl who have gone through some of it yet no one who could 100% kno what it feels like or anything. i am in a world on my own with millions of ppl around whom i cannot relate to.

i never learned comfort and how it feels to have someone there who cares and loves unconditionally. its awkward because i give my wife all of that and then some but i have no idea if its the same coming back. i am so clueless and out of touch. i mean seriously how broken am i that i cant take comfort in a damn hug.

no one need bother answering, there is no answer only my mistake of living.

I don't think living is ever a mistake.

It sounds to me like the issue here is trust. In order to accept comfort, we must be willing to let down our guard. Comforting someone else does not require that we trust them, only that they trust us. You will never be able to know for sure 100% that your wife cares and loves you unconditionally in the same way that you do for her, however you give her the opportunity to show you that she does care by opening up and allowing her to comfort you. Even if your experiences are so unique that no one else has gone through them, that does not mean that you cannot be loved unconditionally. Relating to someone isn't necessarily the same as truly knowing what they've gone through, it's like empathy, putting yourself in someone else's shoes.

My boyfriend is a childhood sexual abuse survivor. He spent most of his life stuck in sex addiction and acting out trying to recreate his trauma. He didn't connect with people on any level really. He thinks he might have been in love once before but he's not sure. He met me when he was 40, that's a pretty long time to never have emotional intimacy! He has learned to open up to me and find safety in our relationship in a way he was not able to in his past relationship. I'm not saying that your experience is the same as his, only that I have seen that it is possible for someone to open up and trust on a deep level that did not initially feel comfortable or even possible for them.

If you believe that your wife loves you, give her the opportunity to be there for you the way you have been for her. Maybe it would take something like just lying in her arms for an uncomfortable amount of time, like 10 minutes. Doing that over and over might help you become more comfortable? Does the hw tell you specifically what to try to receive comfort or is it just to "receive comfort"? That's kind of vague, I hope your T gave you more direction. On some level, you must want to work on this because otherwise you would have rejected the hw your T gave you. You might be surprised if you try it!

My T did give me some direction. She told me to ask to be held whether it be in and embrace like a hug or spooning it didn't matter. She said I could set a timer for 1min if it made me feel better.

I don't really feel it to be a trust thing. My wife knows the majority of my past. It's more of a every time I think of asking to be held she's in a bad place and she is in need of my comfort. We hug all the time and just stand there hugging. But for some reason I don't feel it proper accepting any comfort when I'm giving it, be it a hug or cuddling or anything. It just never feels like I should ask for comforting when she's In need of comfort.

There could be some empathy going which could cause you to fee the need for comfort when you are comforting her. Don't be afraid to ask no matter what the scenario.

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