Dear Prudence,
My girlfriend, “Lara,” is a nurse who regularly works 60-hour weeks in the COVID unit. We moved in together six weeks into shutdown, partly so I could make sure she was resting, eating, and occasionally getting some fresh air. Things got a little better over the summer, but they’ve ramped back up again. The death of a patient she has a particular connection with often hits her especially hard, and on those days she’ll come home, take a shower, eat a little something, then asks me to make love to her and hold her until she falls asleep. This makes me uncomfortable because on those days, she doesn’t seem to participate in sex. She responds to my touch but doesn’t want to kiss, and almost as soon as it’s over, she will dissolve into sobs and I hold her until she falls asleep. Sometimes I will stop because I don’t think she is into it, but she will plead with me to keep making love to her. She always seems fine the next day, and when I check in afterward, she says that she knows it’s “awkward, but it helps” her. She doesn’t know why, but it feels like that’s what she needs. She doesn’t want to talk about her patients or what happened to trigger the emotions.
She does talk to a therapist once a week and will schedule an emergency session if she is feeling especially drained. At her therapist’s suggestion, she also keeps a notebook where she writes about the patients she has and the ones she has lost to help her process. We go on regular runs and bike rides, enjoy making dinner together, watch TV, and have an otherwise normal sex life. She genuinely seems happy, except for these episodes, which are becoming more frequent. How can I best sup port my girlfriend? Should I keep doing what she is asking me to do, or should I refuse and try to get her to process her feelings another way? After “making love” to her like this, I often just feel like I am taking advantage of her or just using her body, even though she is asking me to. I don’t see how this is helping her but I don’t want to assume to know better than she does.
—Overwhelmed Girlfriend