When they are consistent, until they aren't

There is so much positive in your update, and I hope you've stopped for a minute to be proud of yourself and recognize that you've done a bunch of hard work and taken good steps forward! Things don't get completely fixed overnight and it's still a process that you're in the middle of, but there's a lot of progress here and that's always nice to read.

Reading through the post, I think you're at the next step in your process and figuring out where to go from there. You've had good insights both from yourself and your therapist, and now you're at this point:



The thing is, the first sentence there is absolutely true. Consistency doesn't guarantee anything, though it filters out the definite non-starters and time wasters. It is still only part of the equation, though. That doesn't mean you're doomed, but it does mean you're now working on the next part of the equation: working on being okay and not abandoning yourself if you've taken your guard down and things didn't work out. There's no way to date without any risk or vulnerability, and in my experience a lot of insecures are attempting to control for that. Even posts here, the fears often come down to "how can I date without getting hurt." And that isn't about filtering perfectly or keeping up your guard until the right moment, it's just about not abandoning yourself and being strong enough in your identity and connection to yourself to know you'll be okay even if it wasn't the right person for you.

Another thing about your experience is, when someone says "this has happened before," especially when he said it happens often... believe them! It means it has little or nothing to do with you, and it's their issues that existed before you came around and haven't been dealt with yet. I've had guys totally flip on me after early intimacy, and I blamed myself, but it was their problem not mine. And I wasn't saying that just to make myself (or you) feel better, it took a lot of time and experience to look back on it and understand that. If you're just not sexually compatible with someone, there are still ways to communicate about it and even separate or end things that still make both parties feel heard and respected. When the ending of a relatively short-term dating situation ended poorly, due to lack of communication or feeling disrespected, it was usually because someone (one or both of us) was emotionally immature or unavailable, and was going to happen eventually regardless of what the other person did. Again, you cannot perfectly filter for that because sometimes it takes 1-3 months, or more, for things to come out, especially in insecure pairings.

This isn't a bad thing. The sooner a bad match shows themselves out, the better, even if it hurts in the moment and for some time after. Believing that when you have an insecure attachment style is HARD, but it got a little easier each time as I learned to really listen when someone was saying it's not you it's me, this isn't the first time, etc. etc. They step aside, and yes, it can be frustrating to know that now you have to restart the search, but you're also now open and available to find someone who isn't going to flake out on you instead of building a foundation of trust.

I do agree with your therapist, that this guy maybe wasn't love bombing you. Or at least wasn't aware of it if he was. The end result is, it didn't matter, the bigger picture is he wasn't emotionally stable or perhaps available enough to be ready for an actual relationship. It didn't work out, and that's okay. It sucks because it was meeting some of your needs while it lasted, but that puts a light on where you can be more grounded in yourself so that you don't need that kind of fleeting validation. That doesn't come instantly, either. In my thread about dating after I earned secure, I still was attracted to insecure avoidants for a bit longer, and I needed to consciously assess and course correct until I was secure enough that the types of behaviors I was attracted to fully changed. It still took maybe a year AFTER I earned secure to stop falling into those traps.

So you're getting there! But it's still one step at a time. It's okay that this experience was more for learning than longevity and that you didn't choose perfectly this time. Part of dating is a numbers game, and your experiences have already been improving, so you're on the right track, and it's okay to not be at your destination yet. That doesn't mean you are doing anything wrong or you're damned if you do or don't and should close yourself back up. It just means waiting until you feel like dusting yourself off and trying again with someone else and gaining more traction and confidence in yourself with each new experience.

I don't think you need to second-guess yourself here about this guy, because you did the right thing, just based on how he pulled away afterwards while saying the opposite of what he was actually doing instead of acting like you're on the same team. You can trust yourself here more than you think!

Have a look at what this may have been like from his perspective. Thats something insecurely attached people really struggle with, making it all about them. Its what insecurity is about.

ED has a very negative impact on the man. wchh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/tre.827#:~:text=Psychological%20impact%20of%20ED%20on%20the%20individual,-The%20psychological%20impact&text=A%20single%20occurrence%20of%20ED,was%20a%20sense%20of%20emasculation.

Again, it's not about you, and what you did to make him feel safe or unsafe. The article doesn't mention the partners fault in how a man with ED feels. However, you also cant assume how he took your comment about moving on. Regardlessz the feelings are inherent with the condition.

When you approach situations from a "me" perspective, that can come across, people read you just as you read them.

Nevertheless, it's a learning experience.

You two had not built trust or any kind of intimacy that would enable you to work through deep issues, this literally happened in a month and the first time you had sex. Having an issue like this crop up early is a major challenge and if he didnt feel comfortable to proceed that's understandable IMHO. I think you expect too much too soon here in terms of his ability to address a major problem with you.

And to be honest I would never feel safe working through an issue with someone who is fearful, insecure, and looking for something to go wrong so they can take it personally and make it about them. I guarantee your lack of stability and safety comes across because your approach is insecure. This is not to bash you but just offer a perspective that there is more work to do and this is not time to give up.

Sure, communication is needed in order to navigate a relationship. But this is a very new dating situation between a couple of people with insecurity, and it's not personal that it fizzled when a problem came up. It's not like if he would have shared more vulnerability with you it would have fixed your insecurity. You're describing dating as a very scary experience and you won't get what you're seeking from that place. Your fears will be actualized and reciprocated actually.

I get it is hard when you run into a guy with ED, not to take it personally, but I am going to give you another perspective. I have found the MORE a guy is into me and the better connection we have, the more likely he is going to struggle with ED and performance anxiety. My male friends have all said the same thing. It's also partly an age thing, as we age things don't work the same down there.

I've learned that anytime a guy can't perform I should ignore it, do other fun sexy things, and if they seem less enthused stop and cuddle or change the activity. This is the one time where I think communication is not needed. Many guys once you take the pressure off and show it's no biggy will deal with that anxiety on their own, often within the same session. Once I have showed them I am a safe place to have issues, they will bring it up in their own time and place.

Thanks again everyone for sharing your perspectives. Definitely food for thought. I'm seeing the discussion leaning towards the assumption that ED was certainly the problem. But how can we tell? He said it wasn't about us being intimate, despite the timing seemed to suggest that. He said he thought we were probably more friends and needed time to figure that out. While I understand why you are thinking it's because of ED, which is definitely possible, maybe it's something completely different. I'll add that seeing him as struggling with shame for ED doesn't help me move on, I guess I'm trying to find other reasons to help me do it.

I’ve just reread, and not wanting to harp on about ED, but early on, it really messed with my head. I really questioned myself and gave myself a whipping over something I couldn’t control.

I understand this doesn’t help you in your journey of moving on, but I’d say it would be at least some part of the momentum being lost, which is a him problem.