TL;DR: Despite all of the extraneous stressors in his life, my boyfriend always makes me feel loved and secure and like my feelings are valid. Coming from a history of toxic relationships, I sometimes need a little extra reassurance that everything is OK and he delivers without fail. I will never be fully deserving of this man

Little backstory, sorry it’s a little long: my boyfriend Scott and I have been together for a year and a half, living together for 11 months. We have an amazing relationship, he’s my best friend and a true partner. I have a history of toxic relationships so it took forever for me to fully trust that this was what it seemed to be, but it really is. We never fight, and if we have a disagreement we always talk it out so that no one ends the day feeling anything other than loved and supported. Doesn’t yell at me, belittle me, invalidate my feelings, or call me names. I know he doesn’t deserve a cookie for not doing those things, but I’ve been so used to it that part of me still expects it. But he has never once made me feel that way. It has truly been a dream of being with him.

We have had a very active sex life, literally it would be every single night, sometimes multiple times a night. Throughout the day we would be giving each other looks and quick touches to let the other know that we were looking forward to later. Amazing sex, always. I was using the Mirena IUD for the first year we were together but the hormones just weren’t working for me. I was moody, it lowered my sex drive, I was just overall not feeling great. So we talked about it and I decided to switch to the copper IUD back in April. Literally within a week after switching all my hormonal symptoms went away. I was so much happier… Then within 2 months that IUD slipped out of place and I had to have it removed. My doctor didn’t think that another IUD was a good idea since this is not the first time one has slipped on me, so I started using NuvaRing. I fucking hate it. I’m getting all those hormonal symptoms back that I had with the Mirena, and I’m ready to throw it out the window. It has definitely put a damper on our sex life, as well as making me and sometimes irrational. I find myself snapping at Scott for absolutely no reason, Little things make me angry, and even though he says and does all the right things I just can’t be calmed down. And I have days where I feel like if he touches me I’m going to jump out of my skin. This is how I was feeling with the IUD before, so we talked about it and he suggested it has definitely put a damper on our sex life, as well as making me and sometimes irrational. I find myself snapping at Scott for absolutely no reason, little things make me angry, and even though he says and does all the right things I just can’t be calmed down. I have days where I feel like if he touches me I’m going to jump out of my skin, but then there are days when I want to be close to him and the poor guy is just being slapped back and forth not knowing which version of me he’s going to get day to day. This is how I was feeling with the Mirena too, so we talked about it and decided I would be better off not being on anything hormonal. He said if I didn’t want to go back to the copper IUD for fear of it failing, he would be fine just using condoms until we figure something out more long term. He’s just being so supportive and wonderful about the whole thing when I know it has to be frustrating for him too.

Scott is entrenched in a nasty custody battle for his 2 year old son, his ex is making his life a living hell. His mother just got a lung cancer diagnosis as well, so he’s under a tremendous amount of stress. We haven’t been having sex, and I noticed that he also hasn’t been as affectionate with me throughout the day as he usually is. When he gets super stressed out he usually gets particularly affectionate, almost clingy but not in a bad way. But lately he hasn’t been. I started to feel a little distant from him so I decided to talk to him about it. He told me he would love nothing more than to be close to me but that he didn’t want me to feel like he was pushing affection and trying to initiate sex if I wasn’t interested. He said he would rather wait until we figure all my hormonal stuff out and go from there so that we are both 100% present when we want to be close. I told him that was totally understandable, but that I just wished he had said something to me before so I didn’t start to feel distant and worry that maybe he was pulling away. Again, I know he’s under a ton of stress so I definitely understand. We both apologized for making assumptions without actually talking to each other right off the bat, and ended the call feeling a lot better. A couple of minutes after hanging up the phone, I got this series of texts. I can’t even with him (Excuse his occasional grammatical errors and run-on sentences, he typically uses voice texting and is a terrible proofreader 😂)

I encourage everyone to find themselves a partner who makes them feel like this. There are no words