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I think a good way to understand the evolution of the relationship is to look at the different functions and roles it served for us, and how they slowly withered away and got replaced.
For starters, I think we were friends for some time. I’m a little confused how the relationship started, but at some point she began to fill the role of a parent. A lot of this had to do with my mental health. She would even communicate with my parents and relay what was going on
With me when I wouldn’t talk with them about my issues. She offered emotional support and performed a lot of parental functions like comforting, organizing, guidance, and even problem solving things with my social anxiety. It was an odd dynamic with her putting a lot of work in
Some parts of this faded away with my personal development, but a lot of my progress took a long time. For instance, my social anxiety lasted far beyond the main part of my eating disorder. Eventually, these became mostly irrelevant parts of my life and her role
Sex is an area worth bringing up I think. We started doing sexual things and I think I was often playing either the role of the initiator or the person to convince it would be fine. Which is really really gross looking back. I suppose I was young but still
I think it was largely a part of the environment, my parents house. It was worrying for her and it felt like she would play the role of being overly cautious. Unfortunately I think the way my brain understood the dynamic was that both of us wanted to be sexual, and we both played
A part in the negotiation. It’s definitely not ideal consensually. I don’t want to give the wrong idea, it’s not like I raped her. To some extent the story I told above was true, we both did want it, but she was rightfully worried about the environment.
We continued having sex even during a break, which I think was very weird and like quasi-dating. I wish I could remember more, but I don’t think that was very smart. Our communication around sex I think was always very poor in the moment, but I think we tried to talk outside of
Sexual environments and I think those were responsible. I’m not sure if it was a drastic or gradual shift, but eventually, we basically stopped having sex. I know this happened at least in college, and it’s possible before that as well. Maybe after our other break it was odd.
Regardless, she ended up feeling not good about sex, probably due to how poorly it was handled earlier. Sexuality used to be a very important part of our relationship I think, and eventually it withered into nothing. (Which obviously I am and was okay with, just finishing roles)