Picture someone who says yes to almost everything. They're helpful, they're loyal, they always show up. And yet there's always some reluctance. A headache. A tiredness. They take forever to get out the door. Underneath all that yes is a wagon load of resentment about being asked in the first place.
This shows up in bed exactly the way it shows up everywhere else. They think they want intimacy. They say they want it, and they probably mean it. But when the moment comes, their body does something else. If you ask what changed, they may genuinely not know.
This is episode four of the specific attachment wounds and erotic emotions series, and it's about what happens when a small child's no was not allowed. Around age two to five, we're supposed to discover that we get to decide things for ourselves, at least sometimes. When that gets squashed, or love is conditional on compliance, life turns into a series of obligations. The autonomy that never got a legitimate outlet goes underground into slowness, procrastination, and quiet resistance.
A lot of people with this wound have to be allowed to say no before they can find a yes. Not as a preference. As a requirement.
In this episode:
- Where the freedom wound comes from, and the two very different directions it goes depending on whether compliance actually earned love
- What it feels like from the inside, including the pride in enduring and the fury about having had to endure
- Why procrastination and slowness are the body's protest response, not a character flaw
- Why welcoming a partner's no is one of the most erotic things you can do, and why it's non-negotiable for this wound
- The paradox of chosen restraint, and why submitting to control you selected can feel like freedom
- Why dragging your partner into anything is the worst available strategy, and what to do instead
- How to start telling the difference between an obligated yes and a real one
There is nothing wrong with you. This was a wise strategy for a small person who wasn't allowed to have preferences. You're allowed to have them now.
Topics: sex feels like obligation, people pleasing in relationships, resentment in relationships, saying no, attachment wounds
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