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Warning: Sex related. Why is this upsetting me so much?

16 replies

NameChange3278 · 10/08/2025 12:27

DH and I have been together for over 20 yrs. Always had a good sex life until a blip last year (more info below).

DH has started to not be able to cum during PIV sex and sometimes he is not even that hard. He is able to get/stay hard during a blow/hand job.

I am finding it really difficult not to take it personally and am really upset about it.

I’m thinking that either he doesn’t find me attractive anymore or he finds someone else attractive?

I know about death grip and porn use. He said that he only wanks once or twice a week and his porn use is minimal, if at all (I know some people will not believe this but he has never really been into porn even when we were younger).

Before anyone asks, I have good hygiene standards! My body has obviously changed after having 4 kids but I only weigh slightly more than when we were first together. DH has never said anything negative about my body and knows I went through a lot during the pregnancies and births of our children.

More background in case helpful: Last year we went through a rough patch. We started to drift apart, not communicating and basically living separate lives. No one did anything wrong, it just slowly crept up on us until it became the norm to not even talk during a car journey etc.

We had a make or break talk last year and both decided that we wanted to make things work and started making an effort with each other again. Things have been good since then until this.

OP posts:
BunniB · 10/08/2025 12:43

I’ve no idea but have you actually asked him?

ToKittyornottoKitty · 10/08/2025 12:45

Have you asked him?

yonem · 10/08/2025 12:45

Has he had his blood pressure and cholesterol checked?

BreakingBroken · 10/08/2025 12:53

Possible prostate issues?
Sorry OP but it’s most likely not you, over time just as women’s bodies change so do men’s. Mental health wise, why are you so needy and insecure?

NameChange3278 · 10/08/2025 13:23

@BunniB and @ToKittyornottoKitty I did ask and he just said that he didn’t know why. I haven’t asked much more as I don’t want to give him performance related anxiety and cause more issues!

@yonem he recently had a full not via work as he just turned 40. Got a clean bill of health. He keeps himself fit and eats healthy 95% of the time.

@BreakingBroken his prostate was checked, along with his PSA score, during his recent mot and all was fine.

My mental health is ok thank you - just normal stress from everyday life with teens.

I wouldn’t describe myself as needy or insecure and I don’t think my DH would either. Surely it is natural to think it might be down to you if this situation happens with your partner out of the blue?

OP posts:
YesThatsATurdOnTheRug · 10/08/2025 13:29

Happened with my exH when he was having an affair. Doesn't sound like your situation but could be relevant. After it all came out he claimed it was happening with her too though, so maybe just an age thing.. though the fact that it's only PIV would suggest not.

ToKittyornottoKitty · 10/08/2025 13:31

NameChange3278 · 10/08/2025 13:23

@BunniB and @ToKittyornottoKitty I did ask and he just said that he didn’t know why. I haven’t asked much more as I don’t want to give him performance related anxiety and cause more issues!

@yonem he recently had a full not via work as he just turned 40. Got a clean bill of health. He keeps himself fit and eats healthy 95% of the time.

@BreakingBroken his prostate was checked, along with his PSA score, during his recent mot and all was fine.

My mental health is ok thank you - just normal stress from everyday life with teens.

I wouldn’t describe myself as needy or insecure and I don’t think my DH would either. Surely it is natural to think it might be down to you if this situation happens with your partner out of the blue?

You won’t fix it without discussing it between you. I’m guessing you’ve considered trying lube if you weren’t already using it incase it’s a dryness thing?

VimesandhisCardboardBoots · 10/08/2025 13:46

Given that you've been married 20 years OP, I'm going to guess you and your partner are early 40s at the youngest?

I'm male, and unfortunately have not been blessed with a particularly reliable set of equipment for reasons unrelated to age, which means that I've done an awful lot of reading on the subject over the years. I also had an enlightening but TMI conversation down the pub with some friends a while back.

To go into graphic detail. Basically the penis has a sliding scale from flaccid -> semi -> hard. And visually, that's the end of the scale. But it's not, it keeps going. There are degrees of hardness beyond what most women, when looking at or touching it,would consider hard. It's more of an internal feeling, that our penis is throbbing.

As we age, that far end of the scale becomes harder to reach, and we more often have to settle for hard, rather than throbbing. Which is fine for actually doing the job, except that without external stimulus, we can't actually tell from internal feel alone whether we're hard, or losing our erection. Without the throbbing, we don't really know if we're hard.

So as we age, pretty much every man seems to through a crisis of confidence where they're constantly afraid during sex that they're losing their erection, until they come to realise that this is the new normal. I've not had it, or rather I dealt with it back in my early 20s when I realised that it didn't always do what I told it to.

But every other man in that conversation in the pub was either going through it or had come out the other side.

And along with the inability to reach "throbbing", also comes the inability to orgasm. Partly because it's harder to give over to the moment when you're constantly thinking "Shit, am I going soft", partly because most of us just aren't as fit in our 40s as we once were, and partly because without that throbbing feeling, it's just plain more difficult.

And most men generally find blowjobs / hand jobs easier to orgasm from, because they're less likely to be doing all the work, and they involve a lot more friction than PIV. So when we start struggling to orgasm, it's generally during PIV.

So no OP, your husbands issues are unlikely to have anything to do with you, or any changes to your body. Instead, it's all about the changes to his body, and the mental ramifications of that.

Sorry if any of that was TMI, and thank you for listening to my TED talk!

NameChange3278 · 10/08/2025 14:21

@YesThatsATurdOnTheRug he has never given me affair vibes tbh and is very open with his phone. Although I have been on MN for long enough to know that you can never be 100% certain.

@ToKittyornottoKitty you are right and I will talk it through with him tonight when I get home. Dryness has never been an issue but I will get some lube just in case.

@VimesandhisCardboardBoots we have been together for 20 yrs, married for less. He has just turned 40 and I am 38.

Not tmi for me and helpful to have a man’s opinion on it.

It could well be because of what you described.

OP posts:
FeralWoman · 10/08/2025 14:52

Has he had his testosterone level checked? It can start to decrease as a man ages and it will definitely affect erections and orgasms. My DH has low testosterone. He has an injection every three months to bring his testosterone up to the low end of normal. It makes such a difference to his overall well-being and his sexual function.

BTW, the little blue pill can give amazing results! Viagra or similar. The result for DH was like he was back in his early 20s instead of mid 40s. I hadn’t felt it like that in years.

topcat2014 · 10/08/2025 14:56

Stress could be a factor. The body can be under stress, even if in your head you laugh it off a bit.

I left a job earlier this year (not through choice), but am now much less stressed. Blood pressure much lower, and favourable benefits in this topic too.

FeralWoman · 10/08/2025 15:01

An option is to take PIV off the menu for a bit. Touch each other, oral sex, hand jobs, etc instead. A bit of mutual masturbation together. Take the stress of PIV away for a bit. Or do a bit of PIV then switch to other touching of each other. You don’t have to “complete” PIV. It can just be part of sexual activity together.

EnjoythemoneyJane · 10/08/2025 15:36

Very helpful post @VimesandhisCardboardBoots.

Agree with other posters, OP, that this is far more likely to be down to age-related changes to your DH’s body, not yours, and it becomes increasingly common into your 50s and beyond. It’s a difficult thing to broach without him becoming potentially super-conscious of it and exacerbating the problem, but it’s important to be able to talk about it and work things through. Medication is always an option.

I know as the partner of a man with ED it’s difficult not to jump to the conclusion that it’s about you, but in most cases it’s really not. You need to try to avoid taking it personally, as that will only lead to destructive and emotional conversations, when really your focus should be on how to practically achieve a satisfying sex life for both of you.

Zuve · 10/08/2025 15:56

Try spicing up the evenings. Be a bit more adventurous

ginasevern · 10/08/2025 16:44

@BreakingBroken "why are you so needy and insecure?"

Needy and insecure - Wtf? Her DH only gets a hard on with blow or hand jobs. It could be due to his health, an affair, porn usage or the fact he just doesn't fancy her anymore. Of course it's impacting her life and wellbeing big time!

BreakingBroken · 10/08/2025 18:19

as our body ages sex changes the op seems certain it's not affair or porn.
if a woman didn't orgasm each time with piv, no one would blink or make such claims. plenty of women only climax with oral or manual (and reaching an orgasm gets more difficult with age/post menopause) so better the op work on her self esteem and understand it's not about her.
and honestly if he is interested in someone or something else, it's a reflection on him not her anyway.

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