Cynthetiq

She stated,"However, due to recent events, I NEED him to be there for me, to be able to talk me through stuff."

Talk you through what? What is he responsible for in your psychological well being in a 6 month relationship? Are you engaged, betrothed, common law married, destined to be married? Otherwise, why is it his baggage to deal with now? I'm of the opinion at this point in time he still has choice to decide if he wants to deal with it or not. Now I'm not suggesting that he vacate the relationship because he can't deal with you, on the contrary maybe he too needs to go to counselling to learn how to deal with this.

He should have some as well since he needs to understand how to deal with your situation. Family and friends of alcoholics have alanon, the idea is similar.

While you may not like it, it is so. Guys have a hard time understanding feelings period, let alone nuances of feelings. They can't tell the difference between green and teal, purple and lavender, blue and periwinkle. While she needs to be honest, the SO may also have a say in here as to whether or not he can deal with this honestly. Ultimately it boils down to communication between the two of you. While you may be getting guidance here, he too needs to get his own guidance.

He may not have had any experience with it. IT doesn't make it a fuck up, it's how people learn. I'd have to go with possibly the idea that is going around this boy's head could be,"Great, now I'm stuck what the hell do I do now, if I leave her now I'm an asshole." So now he feels compelled to stay with her when in reality he doesn't want to not because of this reason but because of other reasons of incompatibility.

Boys can and will decide for themselves what they are willing to deal with, from a person's past to their eating habits. Your "6 months" statement sounds like now he's stuck in this situation and no longer has freedom of choice to decide if he can or wants to deal with this, to decide for himself if he wants to stay or leave the relationship.

And he needs to be able to vent his frustrations as well. He needs to be able to say, "I cannot be there for you at this moment. I need to regroup myself so that I can be there for you."

Agreed to a point, I'm of the firm opinion that "Where ever you go there you are." Geographical solutions to problems you have with your own self will continue to manifest themselves where ever you go.

Now, ultimately it's not your responsibility to help him figure out how to communicate with you. It's *HIS* responsibility. You trying to figure it out is you controlling it when it's not yours to control.

My suggestion is that you both go to counselling, individually and together. While the group conscious here is well and good, I think that this situation is too fragile for the nuances of the individuals, there's too many details that we do not know nor ever will.

To share my own experience, I never met someone who was raped until I moved to NYC, and turned out it a girl I was dating admitted to me that she was raped in the past. I was celibate at the time, so sexual intimacy wasn't an issue for me.

But I was ill equipped to deal with the emotional roller coaster she was on. She'd start crying uncontrollably when we'd just be sitting together. Sometimes she'd start crying as we were kissing. We'd talk about it as much as she was willing but again, I was and (am still) ill equiped in dealing with the matter. We dated for about 6-8 months.

I tried best as I could to just be there, but ultimately I determined that I just couldn't deal with other things about our relationship such as the fact she was geographically undesireable (lived on one end of the F train and I lived on the other) was much more intwined with her family than I wanted from an SO, etc. I spoke to her about it frankly and honestly making sure she understood that it wasn't about her admission to being raped.

Ironically she and I are still friends after 10 years, but we decided to leave the relationship stuff behind us. I don't know what she did for the man she dated after me who she eventaully married, but I have faith that they discussed it at great length.

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