TTC and Husband can't perform

[Amanda87]

What to do when your clock is ticking, you both agreed you wanna try for a baby but your husband's head is somewhere else that he can't have sex on the fertile days?
We've always had great sex life but since we moved to our new house all he thinks about is the stress of all the stuff we gotta do.
This is getting me so frustrated, anxious and depressed.
His tiny little brain doesn't seem to understand that there's a short period of time when we're fertile and it's a must to have sex on those days. He keeps telling me I'm pressuring him and bla bla.
I'm just so fed up and sad.

@Amanda87 I'm sorry 😞, that does sound frustrating. Does he fully understand the process? I'm 28 and I'm embarrassed to say that due to being on contraception that stopped my cycle for whole adult life I've only just recently understood it all now I'm ttc 🙈. I had to draw my boyfriend a annotated chart from my tracking app!

As frustrating and annoying as it is you’ll do yourself and him and your ttc success a favour if you keep him completely in the dark about when you’re fertile, opks, and anything to do with it. Even say to him that you’re not going to bother with opks and tracking and let’s just have regular sex. (keep boxes of opks out of sight so he doesn’t have to see them. and do what you need to do..! Have regular sex throughout the month and get him used to you initiating it regularly. Just be incredibly horny for a few days a month, do what you need to do to get him in the mood. Essentially you need him to perform and finish which is a huge pressure. It changes the feel and dynamics and makes it v difficult for them. Relax, remove any pressure from him completely...!

Keep a box of soft cups on hand though for you f all else fails..! Get him to finish in it and you put it in. Lots of stuff on youtube about them.

Good luck. It sounds like you’ve onjy just started so remember it could be a long journey so don’t go crazy in first few months..

Take the pressure off TTC by just having sex regularly without any reference to when you are ovulating.

He's a human being! It's perfectly normal for stress to affect him. His "tiny little brain" understands perfectly well.

@Amanda87 it's such a difficult one because you need him to be relaxed and in the mood, however your feelings of frustration are valid.

My advice, remember it's his experience too. IMO you're going to have to bend on this one, because he needs to feel supported and not pressured in order to do what he needs to do ;-)

Have you tried not making it about TTC? We found ourselves in a similar position after a couple of months trying, and honestly the issue can get worse if there's this elephant in the room all the time around his performance. Personally, I approached the issue with empathy and chose to remove as much pressure as I could. I stopped talking to him all the time about fertile days and OPKs, and just communicated to him that "what happens happens this month, let's just see". Obviously I was making sure the couple of times we did it were well within the window. After a month or two he began to feel less stressed about the whole situation and started to bring it up himself "aren't you ovulating soon?" etc. We also switched to morning times, as that was guaranteed to not succumb to the same issues. I appreciate all men aren't the same, but it worked for us.

It was his idea to get more strategic around TTC and told me that we should DTD every other day during my fertile window to make sure. We're now 22 weeks pregnant!

Outside stresses are tough, have you sat him down and listened to what's on his mind? Perhaps he just needs to feel heard and know you're in his corner (not saying you're not, of course). Maybe making a plan of all the things you need to do around the house, not-related to babies or TTC, might help him see the wood for the trees a little bit.

Go well and I do hope you guys find your rhythm again soon :-)

@Amanda87 sorry to hear you’re feeling so down about it. My OH and I decided to TTC by which point I was fully up to speed with the whole process after reading Mumsnet and tracking my cycle. Just how small the conception window actually is was astounding considering we spend all our adult lives avoiding pregnancy as we’ve been taught it can happen so easily!
I am 34 so feeling the pressure to get the 2 or 3 kids in before I’m 40. And my OH is fully on board with having one too but didn’t realise everything that came with it and it wouldn’t just happen in the first month. When we got our first negative pregnancy test, he then seemed to be a bit more on board and paid more attention to all the sciency stuff about conception.

When I officially tracked ovulation this month, I started ‘telling’ him we needed to have sex. When we did, he couldn’t finish and he started to get frustrated and a little embarrassed. He said it was the biggest turn off scheduling it. But in my head, that’s the only way to make sure we’re in the window for a baby.

I did understand. I didn’t want him to feel pressure, so I backed off and didn’t ask again the next day. I didn’t sulk or anything and carried on as normal. However the following day, he seemed to perk up and could see my disappointment. I’m lucky that’s he’s very intune with my emotions and we talk openly about everything.

I think stepping back can sometimes help with the pressure of it all. And slowly introducing new information about the whole process certainly helped for me, like sharing my opk chart and throwing some statistics of the chances of conceiving at him. I let that kind of information sink in for him to process, rather than tell him what it means.

Subtly engineering DTD days around your fertile window so he doesn’t know what likely help too!

Good luck op ✨✨

If he’s feeling stressed now how’s he gonna cope when you have a screaming baby and half the house stuff is still not done....

Does he want a baby or is he going alone with your desire to have one to keep you happy but deep down he’s not really into being a dad?

@VettiyaIruken

He's a human being! It's perfectly normal for stress to affect him. His "tiny little brain" understands perfectly well.

100% agree with this

If he's already feeling stressed the pressure of TTC is probably not helping it does effect men as well. I think maybe not mentioning when the fertile days are and just enjoying sex again might be a start.

I'd suggest not giving him any idea when it's your fertile time then he won't feel the pressure as much

"his tiny little brain" - maybe you need to think about being a but nicer to him! I'm sure he understands perfectly fine - putting someone under pressure is definitely going to make them panic. How would you like it if he said that about you?!

I'd be having a "are you sure you want a baby because I thought we were on the same page here" conversation

If god forbid he's changed his mind then he needs to be honest with you and then you know as it's better to find out than end up on your own with a baby because he can't cope with the responsibility.

I know that's a frightening prospect and not one that you want to hear but you need to know where you stand.

Maybe with the house renovations and covid he's thinking the timing isn't ideal and wants to wait until a better vaccine roll out etc... and you're house is further along with renovations etc.....

My cousin has a 2 year old and desperately wants a sibling for her and ideally didn't want a huge gap but with covid they're not rushing now as they both want the vaccine when they can (they'll be later this year about July/August if estimations are anything to go by) and there's no saying next winter the covid situation will be completely eradicated anyway there's the potential next winter could be Just as challenging as the last one.

I'd be having a chat to see what his concerns are.

@Amanda87

What to do when your clock is ticking, you both agreed you wanna try for a baby but your husband's head is somewhere else that he can't have sex on the fertile days? We've always had great sex life but since we moved to our new house all he thinks about is the stress of all the stuff we gotta do. This is getting me so frustrated, anxious and depressed. His tiny little brain doesn't seem to understand that there's a short period of time when we're fertile and it's a must to have sex on those days. He keeps telling me I'm pressuring him and bla bla. I'm just so fed up and sad.

There is a chance that he understands the fertile window EXACTLY...

I think you need to find out if he actually is committed to this because if you fall pregnant and he is not 100% on board then it can make a relationship very difficult.

In the nicest possible way, I'm not sure I'd want to have sex with someone who spoke about me the way you speak about your husband in this thread. Men are not robots, and their relationship with sex can be just as complicated as it can be for women. So many posts on this board show a startling lack of understanding of the male mentality when TTC - luckily many posters in this thread have the right idea regarding taking the pressure off and treating him as if you actually like him for who he is and not how much sperm he can deposit. Male sexual egos can be very fragile, and there is nothing less appealing than being treated as a sperm bank, especially if your sex life pre-TTC was infrequent or with his preferences not taken into account. Please rethink your approach, start being a bit nicer to your husband, and take the pressure off for both of you.

My advice to all women TTC DO NOT go on about fertile windows, ovulation, tracking or demand sex there and then because you've had a peak. You can still do it without talking them. They don't need to know and more often than not they will be put off eventually. They're not sperm donors you need to keep the intimacy. Better to keep them in the dark than risk them with holding altogether because they feel used and pressured. To me you shoot yourself in the foot if you start doing all that and telling DH/ DP JMO.. hope you get a BFP soon x

I think most of us have been here at some point and made the mistake of filling in our other half on the days we need to do it. It's hard not to when it's in your head and you know it's the only days it can happen but it really does no good to share with him. My husband and me had a little bit of this in the early months where he suddenly couldn't perform some times when we never had problems before and it frustrated him and put a bit of strain on our relationship. As soon as we took a more casual approach it got much easier. I realised we can aim to just have sex every second day from when my period ended for a week or so, which would stop him (and sometimes myself!) from thinking of sex as the fertile window with so much pressure. We still ended up doing the deed a few days in a row at times when we both were in the mood and because it became more about fun again and not just a job.

It helps to try and keep some excitement by changing things up and adding things that gets him in the mood rather than often making it a quickie just to get the date covered, you know?

If it helps, I had 2 chemical pregnancies and looked back and saw that both months I had those BFPs, we only had sex every other day and not every day of the fertile window.

I do think it's good to give the sperm a day or so to build up and release so every second or third day as soon as your period has ended should be fine.

@Amanda87 This is an old post but seen on another thread that you’re now expecting! Congratulations! How did you overcome this issue with your DH? Mine feels the pressure at times, I’ve steered away from telling him anything about my fertile window or OPKs. Any advice or tips would be excellent! X