I’ve been with my girlfriend for 3 years.
She suffers from very low self-esteem and hates the way she looks. She’s very pretty but inside she’s destroying her self.
She is also showing signs of depression and we have reached rock bottom.
Basically, over the last year, she has completely gone off sex and doesn’t have any urge to”pounce” on me. I thought it was just a phase and got on with it. Time has passed and we are still just like friends, nothing has changed in that department but I found myself yapping at her about everything. In she has been irritated towards me as we have been taking everything out on each other. I hadn’t realized she may have been depressed and have probably increased the problem. About a month ago I found out that she had slept with a work colleague 3 times. She said she had hated herself for doing it but it had just happened. She isn’t attracted to him but he made her feel wanted. Being very insecure and hating herself, having sex those times made her feel better about herself…for a small amount of time. I understand why she did it and she as sworn she is telling the truth about everything. She can’t justify how I can fancy her and want her when all the magazines show airbrushed women. It doesn’t matter how much I try and reassure her and support her as in her head she believes the thoughts she has. I want nothing more than to become intimate with her again, but I don’t see how I can change things with her when she feels so unhappy and unattractive inside.
About 6 months ago she went to her GP about not having a sex drive but she said that the doctor wasn’t helpful. We are now at the stage of splitting up as 1) she doesn’t know if we are ever gonna be happy cos she’s so unhappy inside 2) If she goes to see a GP and they say she is depressed then it could affect her job.
She also feels no one can help, I’ve looked up a few websites and she has the signs and symptoms of depression but without going to see a gp then what can we do?
She says I’m probably the best boyfriend she’ll ever have, and apart from the bad points of me yapping about everything (which I have now stopped for over a month). I’ve tried to support her but she is becoming more irate with me and saying that I’m annoying her when I try to talk with her. She is now confused that maybe it’s just me that makes her not want to have sex with me but on questioning her she admits she doesn’t get horny over anything else. She very rarely pleasures her self now and doesn’t know why she doesn’t want to do things with me. It’s like she is a zombie now and is uninterested in doing anything, she also likes to just be alone in her own company.
I’m the only one that knows how she really feels inside and even then she says she doesn’t tell me everything. I know the good thing is that she knows it’s unhealthy to think the way she does but she just doesn’t see how talking to someone will change the way she thinks.
If she has tried to say how she feels her mum just tells her to stop being silly. Everyone knows she’s pretty and at 22 she should be enjoying life, not destroying herself with her negative thoughts.
Has anyone had any experience of this sort of thing or have I just got to face facts that I can’t help her if she won’t try and help herself.