u/Additional_Space_579

This is something that was brought up to me just now and I really have no idea what to do or how to even handle this situation. In all honesty, I am still a bit flabbergasted so, sorry in advance if the rambling does not make much sense.

As a bit of context, we have been more than friends for almost a year before this and recently, we finally admitted our mutual feelings and started dating together. We live in different countries but only with a 30 minute time difference. This is the first major relationship for both of us, and we both went in, realizing that there might be problems that we would have no idea how to solve and experience new things.

Things were fine at first. She and I are both naturally anxious people, and her especially got overwhelmed by intrusive thoughts about the relationship. She has trauma regarding romantic relationship all her life, both from her father setting an example of being one of the worst father and husband I have ever known, and her first love, who took advantage of her feelings for 8 years. But these anxieties and intrusive thoughts are nothing new for us. We are both very versed on how to handle each other's emotions by now. The real problem started a few days ago. Both of us are asexuals. My girlfriend, even more so, being sex repulsed. She had a dream that I sexually assaulted in her dreams and ever since then, she became very uncomfortable by the thought of me. She started distancing a little, talked less with me, and confining in our mutual friend rather than with me. I was willing to give her some space as she told me about the dream she had, and that she knows how stupid it was that she would be uncomfortable with me, just because of a dream. This went on for a few days, with us having minimal contact, other than occasionally checking up on each other. Today, we finally talked again, and she came clean to me that ever since she had that dream, she had a hard time talking to me, because she was repulsed by me. That every time it seems like we are making progress, her intrusive thoughts just burst in and remind her about the dream, which makes her feel even more repulsed. She did assure me that she did not mean for any of this to happen and to give her more time to sort this out.

All in all, I kind of just wanted to mostly vent, but I really am not sure how to even handle something like this. Every problem we had before, I went in with an attitude that we can solve it but this one just...caught me off guard. If others have similar things happened to them, I would really appreciate getting advice, or even just hearing about people who had similar issues.

This is something that was brought up to me just now and I really have no idea what to do or how to even handle this situation. In all honesty, I am still a bit flabbergasted so, sorry in advance if the rambling does not make much sense.

As a bit of context, we have been more than friends for almost a year before this and recently, we finally admitted our mutual feelings and started dating together. We live in different countries but only with a 30 minute time difference. This is the first major relationship for both of us, and we both went in, realizing that there might be problems that we would have no idea how to solve and experience new things.

Things were fine at first. She and I are both naturally anxious people, and her especially got overwhelmed by intrusive thoughts about the relationship. She has trauma regarding romantic relationship all her life, both from her father setting an example of being one of the worst father and husband I have ever known, and her first love, who took advantage of her feelings for 8 years. But these anxieties and intrusive thoughts are nothing new for us. We are both very versed on how to handle each other's emotions by now. The real problem started a few days ago. Both of us are asexuals. My girlfriend, even more so, being sex repulsed. She had a dream that I sexually assaulted in her dreams and ever since then, she became very uncomfortable by the thought of me. She started distancing a little, talked less with me, and confining in our mutual friend rather than with me. I was willing to give her some space as she told me about the dream she had, and that she knows how stupid it was that she would be uncomfortable with me, just because of a dream. This went on for a few days, with us having minimal contact, other than occasionally checking up on each other. Today, we finally talked again, and she came clean to me that ever since she had that dream, she had a hard time talking to me, because she was repulsed by me. That every time it seems like we are making progress, her intrusive thoughts just burst in and remind her about the dream, which makes her feel even more repulsed. She did assure me that she did not mean for any of this to happen and to give her more time to sort this out.

All in all, I kind of just wanted to mostly vent, but I really am not sure how to even handle something like this. Every problem we had before, I went in with an attitude that we can solve it but this one just...caught me off guard. If others have similar things happened to them, I would really appreciate getting advice, or even just hearing about people who had similar issues.