*names have been changed to protect the innocent*

Dear Stella,

I'm having a real hard time with my friend Jess.

I am in an open relationship and have started a friends-with-benefits relationship with Jess.

Recently Jess and his wife separated, and he's having a hard time dealing with the changes.

We hang out about once a week and I don't know how I feel about all this.

He's a really nice guy and he's respectful of me, but I'm honestly not attracted to him. I like him more as a friend. If I told him 'no' he'd be fine, but disappointed. It goes against everything in me to disappoint anyone. It's not like I don't enjoy myself I just don't need to do any of that stuff. But if I don't I won't have anything to offer and he won't want to be around me.

I know he has a high sex drive, so even if we aren't doing anything. I know he is hoping for something. All these expectations on me to perform give me heart palpitations. I just feel like a horrible disappointment. Even when I succeed it's just a future failure, because I've raised the bar to an impossible standard for myself.

So I go along with whatever he wants to do. But, in doing so, I'm fostering resentment for him in my heart. He sees my resentment and responds by being a little meaner to me.

If he tells me "You can say no if you want" or asks me if I want this. I'm likely to say "yes of course I'm fine." Because it's humiliating to not be able to just speak my mind. If I said, no actually I don't. Then I'd be faced with, "Well, why didn't you say something earlier?"

I'd rather be what someone else wants and feel miserable than get what I want and risk hurting them.

I feel like the only purpose I have in this life is to make others feel better about themselves. And the only way I know how to do that is by being the basis for comparison.

I want to just tell him, and sometimes I start, but then I end up arguing against myself. Putting myself as the bad guy, trying to convince him to blame me.

This is how all my relationships go. I put them in a situation where they will hurt me, I allow it, deny that I've been hurt, foster resentment toward them, they start treating me badly, and that's my excuse to end the relationship.