What a nightmare (TW SA)
My boyfriend committed a sex crime and out of the blue wanted to stop being intimate with me this is before I found out he committed it. He’s in prison and when he gets out he doesn’t plan to have sex with anyone he says. And the fact I want one person must make me a sex addict and he is threatening to leave me if I don’t go to a SSA meeting. Fast forward I talk to a real sex addict that is the head of the program near me and he says I’m not even close to being a sex addict and there is another program for families impacted by a family member with sexual addiction and refers me over. He said sounds like he’s projecting his own mistakes and crimes on me. I really do love him and I’m trying to forgive and move on but I’m not sure a celibate relationship is for me. It’s hard to believe he even wants that with committing that crime. He told me nobody is that sad all the time and this SSA will make feel better or I should get my meds adjusted. He’s a bit bipolar he said I was special to him and last time we talked he said girlfriend is just a word. I feel like I’m in the middle of the ocean alone and everyone tells me just to leave him but it’s hard when he’s been my world for awhile.
@littleHemlock6093
He was your world - then he committed a sex crime and was imprisoned. Before he was caught, would he have been your world if you knew what he was capable of? If someone is your world based on missing information, then you're ascribing your world to another in which there's a significant void. It sounds like you’ve invested your entire heart while he’s withheld an important part of his.
Regardless of his plans, does he have a right to threaten you? If he’s unwilling to offer you a healthy relationship, what does a future with him look like?
By any stretch of the imagination, can his sex crime conviction qualify him to diagnose you as a sex addict?
While dealing with this issue, you have valid reason to be sad “all the time.” Medications aren’t intended or expected to remove reasons for a person to be genuinely sad.
Forgiveness is good, but if it leads to ongoing manipulation and gas lighting, co dependence takes its place. Such a relationship dynamic makes a healthy partnership impossible.
You’ve demonstrated an amazing level of compassion and willingness to forgive, and doing so can help release a great deal of pain, but forgiveness is more effective and healing when you’re no longer vulnerable to being hurt by someone.
I think talking to your therapist is a very good idea. Med adjustment may be indicated, but certainly not on the basis of what your boyfriend says.
Feel free to message me if you wish.
