DH Scared of sex (long)

[HowToChangeThis]

I'd welcome any advice on how to change this.

DH was a virgin when we met, late 20s, Asperger's tendencies but doesn't have a sense of smell (undiagnosed at that point) and hadn't realised deodorant isn't optional. Hadn't ever really had a relationship post school.

I knew him for a while before we went out, we love each other although it's not always easy to get him to communicate. He is an absolutely devoted husband and father.

I'd had one previous partner but we established a good, if not, amazing sex life. When I was 39 weeks pg with dd we made love and I bled everywhere. We didn't realise it at the time but I had an extra lobe to my placenta which dd had severed and it was bleeding badly. Making love DH released the blood poolinonion my womb. We went to hospital who kept describing it as a "small post coital bleed" and obviously thought we were exaggerating.

Luckily I went in to labour whilst there and delivered dd quickly, we were very, very lucky. The midwife was stunned when she saw the state of the placenta. They sent me home 4 hours later, "lost" my notes and couldn't investigate our complaint.

Anyway, DH was nervous about resuming a sex life and we did it once when dd was 11 months, before that he couldn't keep it up. I got pregnant and am now 6 months. We haven't done it since and DH says he doesnt think he can again. He's terrified about me being pregnant and the birth, he's terrified I'll get pregnant again, he's put off by everything that has happened. We've made love once in 18 months.

He did go to our GP who told him lots of men don't find their wives sexy when they are pregnant or breastfeeding and to get all that "behind us" before we worry about anything. Understandably, DH now doesn't want to get more advice but I'm not sure I can face 50 more years of sexless marriage. Help!

Bumping for you. Sounds like he could do with counselling to get past his fear?

Thanks chips yes, maybe but he struggles with talking to people about how he feels and I think it took a lot of courage to go the GP and he was really put off by the response. It seems there is support for women after traumatic births but not the men who see them too.

How about turning this on its head. Ban all sex, but allow hugs cuddling and kissing. Take all the pressure off him. It seems unlikely you will have sex in the next 3 months anyway, but once the baby is born and you are healed, take things v v slowly.

Relate do counselling for this as much as any other marital problem, he might change hs mind

Does he know why he doesn't have a sense of smell? It can be linked to a hormone problem

No one's sure, he lost his parents when he was barely out his teens. The ENT specialist stuck a camera up his nose but couldnt see an obvious cause. We know he had cauterisation for nosebleeds as a child and think it might have happened then but can't be sure.

He always knew his sense of smell was poor but it was only when I opened his fridge, not long after knowing him, and then nearly threw up up because of the smell of rancid meat that we realised he couldn't smell at all. I didn't realise there could be a hormone connection, I'll look in to it, thank you.

You couldn't make this up, could you?

The Aspergers, no parents to tell him he smelled, catastrophic event after sex, finally achieves sex and boom, pregnancy occurs. Life is very puzzlingly to him. No advice except counseling, and it would save the counselor a lot of time if she read your opening message first.

This is one page that might be of intrest

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kallmann_syndrome

Thanks I think, Hansie. Not sure if your trying to wind me up tbh, but I'll take your post at face value. Seems the consensus is to get new baby here and and things settled down and then see if he'll have counselling.

I want to be married to him, I love him to bits, but I just don't want things to be ths way forever.

Thanks hopeforever I don't think it's Kallmann's he got kicked out the church choir quite young because his voice broke early. Reading through it, none of the other symptoms feature for him but thank you for posting that.

I guess it isn't just low testosterone because he's obviously very fertile and there's an understandable trigger for him calling a halt to our sex life.

do you want more children, or is two your number. If so then maybe a vasectomy/sterilisation may get rid of the whole pregnancy birth aspect/ drastic I know, but his fear is at least based on a real experience, poor bloke.

Hi, I think counselling may be the way to go. I had ishoos after traumatic events following childbirth, and I have a friend who had a PNH who can basically not face sex just in case she gets pg again. IMO the way to start would be with a sympathetic and thoughtful doctor who might refer you, he needs checking for something like PTSD not jump straight into sex therapy, because if he is traumatised by the placenta/bleed thing it may only be coming back to him now this pg is getting towards the end. Until any trauma is either ruled out or treated/improves then I would think sex therapy/sex advice is a bit pointless.

Poor all of you, it sounds very hard. I hope this next pg and birth is lovely and scare-free!

2 is plenty, we weren't decided on another one because I had GD too last time so it wasn't an easy pregnancy or birth. I wasn't on contraception because I was feeding and my periods hadn't come back and I figured I'd risk it until we started regularly having sex again. we only found out about the pregnancy when I was 10 weeks pg and my one year postnatal blood sugar tests came back high so they did a full blood screen and it turned out I was pregnant. It was very odd to go for a dating scan to see a 12 week foetus.

Oh, please, I assure you I am not trying to wind you up! So sorry if it came across that way!

I just think life has been amazingly hard for him. Aspergers is hard enough. Then losing parents at a young age. does he have siblings? He probably wondered why people were put off by him, not using deodorant. I had a roommate who either did not use it or it did not work, never knew which. But it was a powerful smell.

I think the sex problems can be worked out. I am going to look up the placenta thing, just for my own information. I never heard of that before. I had placenta previa 40 years ago. Test to determine location of placenta was incorrect as they looked at Polaroid pictures upside down, I kid you not! Had ECS upon hemorrhaging. Baby at 34 weeks, hyaline membrane disease of lungs, very sick preemie baby, in NICU two weeks.

Best of luck to you and your DH.

Thanks Hansie, sorry tone of "voice" isn't always easy on the net!

I had a succenturiate lobe and dd managed to break the blood vessels attaching it to the main placenta. So technically it was an APH but because I wasn't dilated the blood pooled in my womb until DH, umm, rummaged it out! Despite the extra scans I has because of the GD it wasn't picked up.

He has one sister, 9 years older who was already married when their parents died.

I think that day was all a bit much. Aspies like to know what will happen next and I was booked in for induction at 40 weeks and told they'd keep me in to monitor blood sugar etc. Instead we rushed in at 39 weeks, waited an hour til they started monitoring, when they cam back to check the readout an hour later I was contracting so they decided not to send me home and went to find a bed on antenatal. When the consultant and midwife came back after lunch I was 7cm (we'd rung the bell and DH had asked someone to see us but they didn't believe I was labouring). An hour after that dd was born, she was fine but could have died from blood loss if my labour hadn't been so quick.

They cleaned me up and sent me home because my mum (retired midwife) was at our house by then and they just wanted shot of me. I think because the standard of care was too low for a GD mum with an APH. Poor DH felt helpless throughout and suddenly had a knackered wife and tiny baby which he really wasn't expecting.

I think that unrealistic to have sex during the rest of the pregnancy and not worth pushing this. Would he enjoy hand job & kissing? At least this would maintain some intimacy without any risks.

Once the baby is born sort out a really safe form of contraception (mirena, or maybe he wants vasectomy?) so odds of getting pregnant v v small.

If you can't make progress then under these circumstances then probably need counselling.

I think that unrealistic to have sex during the rest of the pregnancy and not worth pushing this. Would he enjoy hand job & kissing? At least this would maintain some intimacy without any risks.

Once the baby is born sort out a really safe form of contraception (mirena, or maybe he wants vasectomy?) so odds of getting pregnant v v small.

If you can't make progress then under these circumstances then probably need counselling.

With your birth story, it is amazing that you and baby came out of that okay, no thanks to the care you got! May your upcoming birth be boring as can be. I hope your mum can be with you because the staff at that hospital did an appalling job.

With your birth story, it is amazing that you and baby came out of that okay, no thanks to the care you got! May your upcoming birth be boring as can be. I hope your mum can be with you because the staff at that hospital did an appalling job.

Oops!

counselling. You may have to persist and perhaps go with him to the gp.

as an aside my DS has AS and i wish someone else would tell him that deoderant is not optional....i sound like a stuck record and one which he ignores as a nagging mother.

Ragingbull, Aspies love routines so DH knows to put his deodorant on after his underpants. That means that even if he doesn't shower in the morning he'll still apply some.

Very, very occasionally he forgets, I can tell the minute he walks through the door and I'm not subtle "you stink, go and have a shower and put some deodorant on, your poor colleagues". He knows that other people can tell, even if he can't. He keeps some in his desk at work too and I've told him if in doubt, use some more.

Thank you all for your support. I guess I just need to be patient, kind, persistent and maybe a bit more imaginative. It's lovely to hear you all say that we'll get there in the end. I was quite upset when he said he couldn't do it ever again, but maybe it just feels like that when he's looking at a big baby bump. We need to get this birth behind us first, fingers crossed for quick but danger free one this time.

Great advice about routine, DS has all the hormones of a teenage boy and has a tendency to forget his deodorant. Will get him to set up a routine.

How to change this, you sound so lovely, the sort of person I dream my DS has the chance to meet when he's older :)

well trust me to have the one Aspie son who has no routine what so ever.....he is very much AS/dyspraxic but has no routines at all. not a one. just goes to show we are all different, even among aspies.

he is disorganised to an extreme.

on top of all the advice above suggesting counselling and abstaining (temporarily, if possible) till the baby arrives - just wanted to throw into the equation 'protection' - if he's really worried about you conceiving again why not see if you're able to combine the pill and condoms to give him that extra security?
to be honest, if anything, I thought he'd have been more worried about the bleeding incident pre-DC1!