Girlfriend never initiates sex or plan anything. Most of the time she is laying still during sexual intercourse? (PTSD interferes)?

[Anonymous]

My girlfriend (18yr) never initiates anything, if she want sexual intercourse she will say in a shy manner “Ehm, do you wanna, nvm...” it feels kinda annoying that I need to take the lead every time. I’ve talked to her in a non-sexual setting, and she’s very submissive and is afraid of being rejected and is afraid of putting me under pressure because she’s unsure if I’ll be honest or go with the flow just to make her happy. (And because of how people pressured her, she doesn’t wanna do the same)

Outside of the bedroom she’s the same. I ask her, “what do you want to do, because I’m all out of ideas!”. And she says, “anything that you want to do”. Basically what makes ME happy. But what makes me truly happy is seeing her taking the lead and plan something we can do, it’s a heavy load for me to plan all the meet-ups, initiate all the sex and come up with all the ideas.

During sexual intercourse I often ensure that everything is fine and that nothing is “out of the ordinary”.
Sometimes she get flashbacks from past experiences and she has fallen victim to guys who didn’t respect her, mainly if she was drugged out on alcohol or if she felt pressured to have sex with them because they wanted to. She’s a people pleaser, and I swear to god that makes me anxious. I empathize with her and feel really bad for her past experience, some people are just cold, and I hate how the world is sometimes. So my goal is to give her what everyone else didn’t. Pure love with 100% trust.
But this scares me, where goes the line between sexual assault and a consensual sexual intercourse if she sometimes fails to say what she feels?
She did say no and interrupted the session 2-3 times already, mainly in the beginning. I stopped immediately and silly enough I felt bad. But now I understand the full picture.

How do I help her take more, I’ve made sure she can grab me and scratch me, nearly hurt me without me being bothered. How do I make her feel like she can do more without being scared?

[Anonymous]

Keep reassuring her. Tell her that she can speak her mind. Tell her it’s okay to have opinions and choose what she wants to do. That’s all the advice I can give because reassurance goes a long way for some people. I empathize with her as well, I feel like a mirror image of your girlfriend because of personality and past.

[Asker]

It’s rather complicated how she’s been carved because of her experience. And sorry to hear you’ve also been dealing with similar stuff. I didn’t understand the seriousness of the matter until I got her, and I actually came to work in distress, blacked out at the toilet and had my workmates looking for me. When I got back to reality they said I’ve been gone for 1 and a half hour. All because I felt so strong about the things she had told me, almost as if I suffered through her. But I’m asking since you feel yourself in her situation, what would made you feel like you could take more room in the relationship? Is it a trust thing, that she need to build more trust and get time to understand how I work, or do you think we’ll eventually come around this? I’m no therapist, but I believe there are obstacles me and her can jump over together, and further advice would truly be appreciated. She’s everything to me. I hope you understand my situation as well as hers. (Side thing, I told her and I tell you. She told me she was a ”broken soul”. I told her she’s a beautiful mind and the ones who are broken are the ones who hurt her. A human who allows themselves to do such horrid things is the true definition of a broken soul. Remember you’re not f*cked up, the world is fucked up and don’t blame yourself for anything they have done to you, so sorry)

[Opinion Owner]

Thank you, and I totally see your side too, it’s hard to be the one trying to help someone who has been through awful things from previous partners/people. Honestly, it’s a mix of a trust thing and eventually coming around. I know it takes a long time to fully trust someone, even if you love them with all your heart and soul. I’ve been there. Sometimes it takes a while to even be fully comfortable with your partner after this, you can fully love someone but there’s always a part of you that is guarded up and not ready to let down and be vulnerable again. It takes time. A lot of time. I know you two can get through this together, you just need to keep the patience and understanding. She is probably a very submissive and anxious person in general, and this trauma has pushed it to the point where she needs others to control everything so she feels more comfortable. That takes a while to break through. However, I am sure that deep inside she wants to do certain things (like eating at a certain restaurant) but doesn’t care either way because she wants you to be in control… It’s not necessarily a bad thing to people please, but when it comes to the point of where she will go with the flow of everything, there will be points in her life where she is in discomfort and won’t speak up. That is something that you will need to talk to her about. My ex would always tell me to do a gesture or something to let him know when I am not comfortable with something, without actually saying anything. He told me to squeeze his hand quickly 5 times. Try finding something like that to do. It could be during sex, in public, during a conversation, anything. It is hard to over come these things, it takes time and a lot of help from outside sources as well.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like it's been easy for you to get a girlfriend most of your life

[Asker]

I’m usually not the type to try getting into one. But with her I felt this strong connection.

[Opinion Owner]

Yeah that's because a lot of guys enter their twenties as virgins