(TW) How to tell if I was sexually abused or just not ready?
Hi everyone, my therapist has recently suggested I may have been sexually abused, and while I trust their judgment and feel ready to explore this in our sessions, I am curious to hear from other people who may have been in a similar situation. I understand there can be a lot of nuance to abusive relationships, not every form of abuse is "severe"/"obvious" like people may assume, self-doubt is par for the course, etc. etc. but I am still hesitant to use this word for myself if it may not be accurate.
I've looked far and wide for definitions and examples of sexual assault, abuse, coercion, and manipulation, but none of them feel like they totally fit my experience. My ex never forced me physically, never whined/begged/guilt-tripped to wear me down, never acted out to punish me for rejecting him, never threatened me. He would stop if I asked to stop. With a few exceptions that I can remember, he would usually ask me before starting something. I never felt like he was trying to control me.
The things I feel icky about when I look back on our sexual dynamic are mostly subtle and more of a weird gut feeling. My ex had a seemingly insatiable sexual appetite and I constantly felt like he wanted more from me even if he didn't say that explicitly. Most times when we were kissing or cuddling, I felt like I was automatically bracing myself that he would want to do something else. I didn't have the words for this at the time, but it was pretty overwhelming. I had no sexual or dating experience at all before him, whereas he had a ton. I told him about my background and that I wanted to take things with physical intimacy slow. We did at first, but it also sort of felt like I was usually playing catch-up trying to learn the next thing that he wanted to do. Another part of this that messes with my head is that there were plenty of times that I enjoyed it or initiated it myself. But most of the time I genuinely felt like he cared more about feeling like he was really good in bed than trying to figure out what I liked for my sake and not his ego.
I for sure have trauma around sex, but the thing I am confused about is whether I was abused and if I can really blame my ex for making me feel this way. I feel like I will never know for sure if he was setting out to take advantage of me or if he just also was young, didn't know how to handle our relationship, and was just expressing what he wanted/how he felt, not actually trying to make me do anything. I have worked on forgiving myself for not understanding my own body and being more aware of my own boundaries at the time, and I realize it is not "my fault" if I didn't know how to communicate about this very well. But I have a hard time believing that he did any of this on purpose, which makes me think that while it might have been unhealthy, it might not have been abusive. Any tips for how to tell the difference?