Fear of Intimacy?

Post Reply New Topic

Sorry to bother you all again, but if I ask any of my friends for advice I'm just going to get NT answers, so....

Chris has expressed to me that he's fearing sexual intimacy, and this is a problem that he has had with many women he's been with. He's also said he'd really like to have sex with me but that it causes him distress.

Is this behavior any of you have experienced?

Thank you for your help as I try to learn to understand him better

Intimacy and autism can be strange bedfellows. A lot of people with autism don't even want to hug or even shake hands. So going as far as sexual intimacy can be, well, distressing. Like with a lot of things it's something a person with autism can want and not want simultaneously. Or perhaps want and yet somehow also be uncomfortable with. I don't know how long you two have been together, but it's probably going to take a long time for his autistic barriers regarding intimacy to dissolve.

Yes. It's normal. Nothing to worry about. Just take it easy.

A tip: create production values.
# A movie he likes.
# A nice massage (I'm not suggesting that women has to be obliging and give massages to their partners. Indeed, I use to give them and I'm a man. And massages have the advantage, at least for me, of creating intimacy without visual contact).
# A nice ambient with candles and scents.
# And so.

Remember that you do not have to "go all the way" straight away.

Do intimate things without the pressure that it must end with full sex.

Find out what he likes and let him know the same for you.

This should be reciprocal but you will probably need to do most or all of the talking.

We've already had sex, but he told me after doing it that it was the first time he had felt passion and felt completely comfortable being with a woman and that really scared him. I think this has in turn caused him distress because he's not sure of how to react? He has a history of "bad" girlfriends who have mistreated him and cheated on him, and so because he thinks in patterns he's expecting me to do this and it's freaking him out that I'm not doing it and I'm being nice to him and treating him like a partner and not a slave.

I don't really know what to do here.

Well good sex is good and bad sex is not worth the bother, but this sounds like some form of self denial or lack of self esteem. Does he feel he is not good enough to enjoy this?

Just keep it practical and avoid analyzing it too much or maybe he would prefer to be submissive?

He does prefer to be submissive, not just in bed, but in the context of the relationship itself. And yes, to answer your question, he does have feelings of inadequacy about his "size" and about his ability to perform (both are absolutely fine) because of mean girls. This is making it very hard for me because it's like no matter how often I tell him the issue keeps coming up.

Just because he has confidence issues and fear of intimacy does not mean they are related. You can have one without the other.

I'm not overly submissive (maybe a little bit in some contexts but, overall, not really, more like desiring symmetry and equality), nor am I concerned about size. I honestly don't know where I stand because I avoid locker rooms due to social anxiety and honestly don't care.

So fear of intimacy may have nothing to do with any of these self-esteem issues. It may be a completely different issue.

It's going to take some time to get his confidence level up.

I still feel that my first post about this may help you, just play out different options without the pressure of full sex. This might reduce his need to judge his performance and for reassurance.

Experiment with whatever takes your fancy, good luck.

Nielson - I think you're right about mood and atmosphere and I'll definitely take that into consideration. Thank you.

Greb - He's a very old yet in some ways very young 23. I'm 25 and he's my first younger boyfriend so it's a bit of a learning experience for me in a lot of ways.

Well, he's very young. He had no time to be really damaged by 'bad' relationships. He's probably a bit untrusty and scared, but it shouldn't take more than a few months to get over it, as maximum.

A detail: it's unfair that you make all the work. At the end you can feel tired of it. He has to make efforts too.

Check this, it can be interesting for you.

http://www.aspiestrategy.com/2012/11/as ... rce=feedly

Greb - In 23 years he's been engaged once and the girl, from what I've heard from both him and a mutual friend, was both mentally and physically abusive. He's also been raped by a few girlfriends and inadvertently got himself into prostitution (naivete at its finest as he explains it). And apparently, most of his girlfriends have cheated on him. So yes, despite age, there's a lot of bad baggage there.

I feel like we do an equal amount of work learning each other. I don't present it that way I guess but there have been a lot of times that he's had to overreach and come out of his own zone to understand me.