'AITA for deciding to become temporarily celibate 1.5 years into a relationship?' UPDATED

"AITA For deciding to become temporarily celibate 1.5 years into a relationship?"

I am a 29F and dating a 33M. We’ve been dating for 1.5 years and Living together for almost a year. I used to be really insecure when I was younger, and I self medicated by sleeping around because I liked feeling wanted. Surprise, surprise It didn’t help my self confidence at all and made me feel worse.

Luckily, I don’t have have a lot of the Confidence issues I used to have. I was still really just starting to work on myself when I met my BF and he really showed me what a healthy relationship is supposed to be like. He’s the first guy I’ve met who I feel loves me for me, and not just how I look and what they can get from me. I was very honest with him about my past and he was super supportive.

We have had a pretty normal physical relationship the whole time we’ve been dating. This is my longest and healthiest relationship, and last year I realized that my past had really done damage to me. I didn’t want my past to continue to affect my present or future so I started seeing a therapist to work out some of my issues.

In therapy, I realized that I have always used my ability to please my partner in the bedroom as a yardstick for my worth in a relationship. Not how kind I am, not how well I treat them, nothing else. This was very unsettling to me.

I decided a couple months ago that I wanted to TEMPORARILY explore a non-physical relationship. I want to feel confident in my role as gf and as myself as a person on my own without relaying on my ability to please or obsessing about it. I want to make sure we are developing emotional intimacy without the physical side.

Most importantly, I want to be confident that when we start back up sleeping together that I’m confident in myself. It’s been 2 months of celibacy after almost a year and a half of being physical every day. I feel like I’ll be ready to pick that up again soon, but not yet. I’ve been honest with my bf with my reasonings and have assured him I’m still attracted to him.

So far he’s been patient with me, way more so than I thought he’d be. Some of my friends, however, think I’m being disrespectful to him. After all, we spent over a year having a normal physical relationship and out of the blue I decide to put a pause to it.

I’ve also heard that it’s fine if I want to be celibate but it’s selfish of me to force him into it when that wasn’t our original deal. AITA for putting the breaks on my physical relationship with my boyfriend for an undetermined amount of time over a year into our relationship?

What do you think? AITA? This is what commenters had to say:

[deleted] said:

NAH. If you’re both okay with it, I don’t see the issue. I see where your friends might be coming from but he’s fine without being physical and your relationship is still fine. Don’t let other people make you doubt yourself when it’s not even their business.

CatherineConstance said:

NAH, you can do whatever you want, but I'm going to be honest and say that I would be pretty annoyed if my bf did this and depending on how long he was wanting to do it for I don't know if I would stay with him. Being physical isn't everything in a relationship but it's a big part of a relationship for a lot of people and I wouldn't be cool with my partner taking that away for no reason, simply to "work on themselves."

(It would be different if there was a traumatic experience or illness or something, but in this case specifically, I really wouldn't be on board with it).

Again, you can do whatever you want and you should NEVER feel like you have to do anything you don't want to, but you also can't expect your bf to stick around during this soul searching. If he does, that's awesome! But if not, I would say you don't have a right to blame him for it.

OP responded:

That’s fair, and I appreciate your opinion. I posted on this board because I wanted honest, differing opinions so thank you! It’s a good point for sure.

[deleted] said:

Partly NAH, and partly YTA.

NAH: No one should be forced into being physical if they don't want to. Period. Your reasoning is weird and seems irrational, but that doesn't make you an @$$hole.

YTA: You unilaterally changed the dynamic of your relationship without considering what he wanted. You are sacrificing his happiness for your own.

ellieefry said:

NTA. You and your boyfriend agreed to temporarily be in in a celibate relationship. Who cares about what your friends think. Your romantic life is not their circus and not their monkeys.

And bapadious said:

YTA I'd say your BF is pretty annoyed by you slapping a physical ban on your relationship, but is putting on a brave face for your sake. You say it's to better your mental health, so I'd say that's why he's not making a fuss. But I reckon another few weeks of celibacy and cracks will start to appear. As much as you want to believe that everything is hunky dory, I doubt he's seeing it the same way.

She later shared this update on the situation:

I wanted to post an update, since the response to my post was overwhelming and people have asked. I appreciated how passionate people got and even though I was not labeled TA, the people calling me one had valid points that I took to heart. I appreciate people taking the time to respond, even if it was hard to hear. And for giving me honest unfiltered opinions which was what I needed.

I’m happy to report that my boyfriend and I ARE still together. We are now back to sleeping together, after almost 4 months of celibacy. It had been a month or so longer than I thought when I originally posted. I feel that this break really helped us connect on a deeper level.

It has been more awkward than I thought to get back into being physical after not being physical for so long as people warned me about. But it’s getting better with time.

We don’t hook up every day anymore, it’s toned down quite a bit and I think we both feel less pressure, which was another thing suggested to me on my post. Going through this was tough, but made both of us realize our relationship is worth fighting for. We are even more serious now.

A lot of people called me an @$$hole for making a unilateral decision, and they were right. However He was clear that this should have been my choice because it’s my body so I don’t think he held that against me as much as was assumed on my post. But he didn’t appreciate the blindside (fair).

People suggested me setting an end date which was a good idea. I decided on not choosing a date to for sure start being physical again because that would be counter productive, but a date that we revisit the idea. we discussed everything at length that was brought up in the comments of the post I asked him to be honest with me.

There was some yelling out of frustration, But ultimately we were ok and he was patient. We decided that if we weren’t sleeping together by July (I let him decide) we would have to see if we needed to try something else or if it was time to part ways.

Luckily we never had to have that talk. But having a date to at least revisit things was a huge help. I also continued to check in with him. It was very, very far from idyllic. But we kept communicating which was key.

Overall, I’m at peace with my choices. I feel super confident, I know he’s with me for me, and most of all I learned how much value I bring to the relationship. I’m glad I posted that, because had I not I’m not sure I’d have gotten to this point if I hadn’t taken the advice I got. There were things brought up in my post that I never would have thought about on my own.