u/LightMode2025

I’m 29 and have been in a relationship w my girlfriend (F25) for a few years. In the beginning, things were intense, affectionate, and sexual. Over time, especially since moving in together, intimacy has almost disappeared. We still cuddle, care for each other, and function as a team in daily life, but romantically sexually it feels almost gone.

My girlfriend has a difficult past and seems to get very activated when I bring up intimacy. She says she needs more emotional safety and presence from me first before she can open up physically. I, on the other hand, feel like I need physical affection and intimacy to even feel emotionally connected in the relationship.

I also come from a difficult family background myself, so I know this dynamic is not just about her. My father was an alcoholic, and I was mainly raised by a single mother in Germany. My mother herself grew up with a lot of abandonment, her own mother left her behind at a train station and ran away, and my mother ended up in a children’s home at 15. Today she is very overprotective and has strong abandonment anxiety. So I feel like I grew up in a family system shaped by fear, instability, and emotional survival.

What makes this harder is that whenever I try to talk about what’s missing, she often becomes overwhelmed, cries, or brings up older wounds and trust issues. It feels like the conversation quickly stops being about the present and turns into pain from the past. I don’t think she’s doing that on purpose, it feels more like a protective reaction

At the same time, I’m starting to feel chronically unwanted and more like a close friend or roommate than a romantic partner. I know trauma can affect safety, closeness, touch, sexuality, and conflict. I’m just struggling to understand whether this is something that can genuinely heal, or whether trauma is shaping our relationship in a way that makes us fundamentally mismatched.

Has anyone here experienced a relationship where trauma/PTSD responses made emotional and physical intimacy really difficult? What helped, and how do you tell the difference between “this needs healing” and “this just isn’t working anymore”?

TL;DR: My girlfriend seems to need emotional safety before physical intimacy, and I need physical intimacy to feel emotionally connected. Conversations about this often trigger old pain and protective reactions in her. I feel unwanted and stuck. Could trauma/PTSD be driving this dynamic, and can it be repaired?

I’m 29 and my girlfriend has ADHD. We’ve been together for a few years. In the beginning, things were very intense, affectionate, and sexual. Over time, especially since living together, intimacy has almost disappeared. We still cuddle and function well day to day, but sex and physical affection have dropped off a lot.

Her position is basically she needs more emotional presence from me first in order to feel safe enough for physical intimacy. My position is almost the opposite: I need physical affection, touch, and intimacy to feel emotionally connected in the relationship.

One thing that makes this hard is communication. When she talks, especially when she’s stressed or activated, it can feel very fast, unstructured, and nonstop. I know that’s not her fault, but sometimes I genuinely struggle to follow, and then she experiences me as emotionally absent or not really listening. So I shut down, she feels unseen, and we both get hurt.

She also has past trauma, so I know ADHD is not the whole story. But I’m trying to understand how much of this dynamic is ADHD related overwhelm communication style, how much is trauma protectiveness, and how much might just be incompatibility.

I’m starting to feel more like a roommate or close friend than a romantic partner, and it’s making me sad.

Has anyone here been in a relationship where ADHD communication patterns + trauma + intimacy mismatch all got mixed together like this? What actually helped?

TL;DR: My girlfriend has ADHD and needs emotional safety before physical intimacy. I need physical affection to feel emotionally connected. Her communication can feel intense, fast, unstructured, I shut down, she feels unseen, and intimacy keeps disappearing. Is this ADHD, trauma, incompatibility, or all of it?

Hey Folks,

I’m 29 and my girlfriend (F25) and I have been together for a few years. In the beginning, things were intense, affectionate, and sexual. Over time, especially since moving in together, our intimacy has almost completely disappeared. We cuddle at night, but that’s basically it. We’ve had sex maybe twice this year.

The problem is that we both seem to need different things first. She says she needs more emotional presence from me before she can open up physically. I feel like I need physical affection and intimacy to even feel emotionally connected in the relationship. So we’re both stuck waiting for the other person to give us what we need first.

She has a difficult past and gets very hurt when I bring this up. I also know I’m not perfect.. when I feel rejected for too long, I get frustrated, distant, and sometimes passive aggressive. At this point, I honestly feel more like I’m living with a close friend or sister than a romantic partner, and that makes me really sad.

We still care about each other, do thoughtful things for each other, and function well in daily life. But I feel chronically unwanted, and I don’t know if love + history are enough when the romantic or sexual part is almost gone.

Has anyone been in a relationship where one person needs emotional connection first and the other needs physical intimacy to feel connected? Can this actually be repaired, or is this just a basic incompatibility?

TL;DR: My girlfriend and I love each other, but our intimacy is almost gone. She needs emotional closeness before physical intimacy, I need physical intimacy to feel emotionally connected. We both feel unseen in different ways. Is this fixable or are we fundamentally incompatible?