My husband has erectile dysfunction and he doesn't want it treated

[Pawsbutton]

My husband and I have only had sex about six times in the last few years.

Since our child was born, sex has dwindled to three times a year.

A couple of years ago, he had an operation to repair a hernia.

He says that, since his operation, he rarely gets erections and that he wouldn't want sex anyway as he thinks it would hurt.

He has seen the GP but said there is nothing the GP can do to help.

He says he probably won't have sex with me again, but might do at some point.

The issue isn't just the lack of sex, it's the lack of any physical affection. No kisses or hugs, unless I ask for them. Even then, they are brief and cursory.

He is a great father. Our teenage son couldn't be separated from him.

I am so sexually frustrated that I cannot sleep. Masturbation doesn't fulfil the deep need in me to have regular and satisfying sex with the man I love.

I can't face a lifetime of this - it's awful.

Can anyone advise or help?

He came in tonight, didn't bother saying "hello"...

Went through to sort ds's tea (he's father of the fucking year) and when I asked him to look at a project I finished today, he was clearly not interested and didn't even give it or me a second glance.

He has no friends and his entire life revolves around ds. It is great that he is such a caring dad but he is an emotionally absent husband.

There is no physical affection.

He recently said he was worried I didn't eat well - he said "I love you and I'm worried about you".

That is fine, but I do find him controlling about what I eat.

I am slightly overweight but do lots of daily exercise. I eat what I like to eat, but don't tend to overeat.

I could go on.

I want to run and run but not upset my gorgeous son - it's going to be difficult.

It's not divorce that harms the child but how you go about it. If you can be amicable, co parent well and don't slag each other off it makes a huge difference.

You don't have to live in a sexless marriage with no affection.

I'm in a similar situation. Been sleeping separately for 14 years out of a 15 year marriage due to his snoring which he refuses to fix.

Always had a problem with premature ejaculation, selfish sex and now after lasting 15-20 seconds of sex he can't go again.

I'm completely broken emotionally. I feel trapped and desperately unwanted.

I overeat for comfort.

Everyone saying to leave him make it sound so simple. Not easy when your whole existence is wrapped around this.

If you find the answer please let me know.

I'm now divorced. Ironically exh didn't get help for his erectile dysfunction until after we separated. He cheated on me which was a shock and made me question if his lack of interest was due to me. I lost a huge amount of weight.

I'm not minimising separation and divorce but life is so bloody short. Don't let fear hold you back, everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear. If they won't get help and won't listen. It's time to issue an ultimatum.

It is so sad to read this thread. My husband was diagnosed with ED around 10 years ago and the doctor gave him a prescription for tablets to help that he kept in his bedside drawer. He didn't want to get them and didn't want to talk about it. It became the elephant in the room and if I had known then that this would go on for years and that was the last time we ever had sex - I would have left then. I was 43 when that happened and I am now leaving him. I couldn't really have left before now but my DD is grown up and leaving home and I can financially support myself. Don't please do what I did and waste all that time waiting for him to make some kind of effort. Your husband should be responsible for your physical and emotional wellbeing when it comes to your marriage. You will find as time goes by that you get further and further distanced from each other. All emotional feeling goes and I found that we would avoid even bumping into each other as we moved around the house. Slept at the very edges of the bed, no cuddles or affection at all. I grew to hate him and like Zoflora can't put 'love' in any of the cards I buy him. I can't even say 'bless you' when he sneezes. My self-confidence got completely eroded and if anyone showed any interest in me at all, I was completely astonished. I'm leaving shortly to start a new life for myself but I haven't been intimate with anyone for so long, I'm really scared about starting another relationship with someone but also very sad that I might never have the opportunity to be loved and feel close to another man. Please please do something about it now - your life will become intolerable and you will be so resentful and conflicted.

Thanks all - I'd like to say I'm glad I'm not alone, but I am sad for all of you who have similar stories.

Last night, I had the most god awful nightmares about leaving him for another man and him begging me to come back. Really upset me.

Oddly enough, my mum once confided in me (and I really don't mind that she did) that my dad has practically no sex drive and that they went for years and years without sex.

She said that it is a miracle that she managed to conceive three children 😔

It definitely bothered her. I love my dad, but I've always thought there was something odd about him. He was very nasty about a photo of me and dh (when engaged) where we were hugging - he said it was "gropey" which I found a bit unnecessary.

Maybe you could foster simple cuddles and warmth. Sometimes a man who is impotent fears initiating any physical warmth as it might lead to further "demands" to "perform." If he can gradually feel comfortable with that, then it is at least a step forward.

Frenchlady - I know exactly how you feel

Thanks Blossom - I think, to be honest, he knows that I will never expect sex so his lack of cuddles or any affection is because he feels cold towards me

He's very affectionate to his dad, sisters and our son.

I sometimes ask for a hug but he never spontaneously touches me in any way...

It definitely bothered her. I love my dad, but I've always thought there was something odd about him.

Having ed is not odd. Nor is having a low sex drive. Labelling it as such adds to stigma.

It's entirely his right to be celibate, as it is yours to be married. But his choice means right now you can't be properly married to him - his choice, not yours. The trouble is that he's broken the deal but the onus is on you to decide whether you can still work with it. Irritating.

I think it's a bloody dirty trick to withdraw sex in marriage, incidentally, and that applies to both genders. If you loathe someone that much, it's going to show in other areas too - fix it or get out, is my view.

Oh Paws that's horrible. The fact that he's affectionate with others but not you is just awful. It's not that he's incapable of it.

Don't stay, don't waste your life like my mum did. It breaks you.

Just wanted to add about staying for DS' sake, it doesn't always work like that. Finding out you've kept yourself unhappy for him will be an awful burden on his shoulders, and he will see you get more and more depressed as the years go on. That could affect him more deeply than the two of you living apart.

Frenchlady - oh how I feel your pain. Will all those wives out there please listen to us, those who have been denied ANY form of sex, loving, affection, caresses of any sort. It is a physical pain and longing. Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of meeting (Golden Wedding next year). My husband and I went out for dinner. What a horrible evening it was on what should have been a special occasion. The "anniversary" was not mentioned by either of us beforehand or during the day. My husband - obviously thinking something should mark the day told me we're going out in the evening. No celebratory drink beforehand. Arrived at the restaurant, ate dinner, came home. Half a dozen sentences were spoken all evening. No mention of the past fifty years - nothing. It made my sadness worse, it was a horrible evening of sadness and unspoken life.

The first twenty five years were so good, the second twenty five have been heartbreaking. Inhave got to the point where I don't think I really like my husband at all. I have become a horrible nasty person which is the complete opposite of my living nature.

Every single (and I mean every single one) of the things he does irritates the hell out of me. The way he eats, breathes, dithers about, his accent, the way he rattles a newspaper- everything.

He was taken ill last year, a bit better now but it is a life affecting situation - heart attack. I have ZERO patience or interest with HIS needs now and it makes me utterably sad to think that perhaps one day I might have to become his career - I simply won't do it. I know getting married Is supposed to be "for better or worse" but he never cared about "loving and cherishing" me. I simply do not care much for him. I just think of him like my dad. Had I looked after him I would have made sure my dad was happy, well fed with his laundry done etc - domestic things. Now I have to put up with no closeness or mutual sexual affection.

I dream of my husband dying and being free. Not to have any other man but just to be free of the perpetual sadness of rejection. As I said in another post my husband just unilaterally withdrew any form of physical love from me 25 years ago due to his impotence without asking or explaining, I just had no choice. I could cry each day at the sadness I feel of a lost life of happiness.

My daughter (my adult children know nothing about this though they obviously know we have separate bedrooms)'asks why we don't have long holidays together as we are retired. I could think of nothing worse than being incarcerated with my husband away from home. Here I have friends, hobbies and interests to keep me busy and these help, a little, to make my life bearable.

My fear is that I will die before my husband and be cheated out of a few years by myself. Please, those of you who are rejected sexually think about how you will live in a cold, sad, bitterly regretful older age. I know there are many couples who are happily celibate and I wish with all my heart I could feel that way. I have a very loving and physical nature and for your needs to be so callously disregarded is a deep pain and huge sadness.

Zoflora that is one of the saddest posts I have ever read. Why don't you divorce and find some happiness. I want to give you a big hug xxxx

Jeaux90. I don't have money other than my state pension and a tiny occupational one - not enough to live on alone. My husband's pension is better. Hmm. makes me out to be mercenary, I am not just practical. My husband is not a well man and I could not abandon him, how would I explain it to family? (I am truly sorry for having hacked this op's thread, really I am but I just needed to warn others)

Erectile dysfunction is something you can check for. If he gets erections while he is asleep or wakes up with one (morning wood) he does not have ED. If he does NOT get sleep erections then he should go to the doctor ASAP because there could be potentially fatal medical conditions causing it.

Piglet - I should have clarified that I thought it odd that he didn't seek help even though he knew my mother didn't like the situation.

Zoflora - that is heartbreaking

Pawsbutton, people seek help to have sex when they WANT to have sex but cant. When they dont want to have sex they dont want to seek help. Only a minority of LL people will seek help because they can empathise deeply enough with their partners need to feel desired and sexually fulfilled.

Zoflora i think you'd be entitled to part of his pension too, for a while at least and you'd be entitled to 50% of any assets. Maybe you could have a free half hour with a lawyer? You've got nothing to lose.

I'm in the process of divorcing from a sexless marriage of 10 years. We did conceive but basically other than that he hasn't been interested in me since getting married. Had lots of therapy too. We're just not sexually compatible: he doesn't care about sex, I do (a lot).

OP I definitely recommend getting some counselling for yourself. This has messed with you in ways you haven't realised yet and it's a problem you can't easily discuss with family/friends because the impact is quite profound and they generally won't get it. Not like if you'd come home and found him in bed with another woman - that's a one off event people can understand. This is a daily drip over years that is hard to really understand if you haven't been through it.

And if he's a good father that's great. You have a job as their mother too which is about more than just being beside your DH. You're allowed to live your life and be happy. Your kids will know that you stayed for them if you wait until the youngest leaves school, which will be particularly damaging for the youngest.

Alongside counselling, I also recommend getting massages if you can afford it. Just having someone touch your body (obviously not sexually) in a caring way helped me hang on to the idea that I'm not so repulsive or awful that I can't be touched.

Zoflora your story breaks my heart. How I wish I had the means to help you get free.💐

OP please don't let your life pass you by like this. You deserve so much more. 💐

I wish you strength and happiness in your decision to leave your dead marriage.

Zoflora’s you have written my story. I too have been married 50yrs
married at 17yrs old with the last 25 a sexless, affectionless desert.
I've stood by too and watched him hug family members and it broke my heart that he couldn’t even do that to me. After a particular rough day I put my arms round his waist and asked for a hug in the kitchen (this was after 19yrs of sexless/affectionless marriage) but he couldn’t bring himself to lift his arms up or even slightly bend in to my hug. I asked him if he could just hug me as a friend - there was no reply, he just stood with his arms limp at his side.
My health has collapsed, I’m disabled with chronic illness and I wonder if this is a result of the stress of the last 25 years. When he first rejected me I never dreamt it would be for all these years, I thought it was another moody PA session that he would come round from but he never has. He would never discuss it, his go to reply was to deny, deny then silence.
Just before last Christmas I found he’d downloaded porn, he denied he knew it was porn, but it was the wake up call for me. The lack of respect, also the way he’d stood away from me as if he didn’t know me when a nasty neighbour had had a real go at me in the street over a misunderstanding a few months before.
The way he saw me struggle and never helped me with household chores. The mess he made and never cleared up. I thought how much worse can it be on my own.
I filed for divorce 2 weeks before our 50th anniversary last January.
I stayed in the house and he left to live in a flat. The divorce came through last March. I don’t see myself ever having another relationship at my age but I have peace. I have a nice clean house. And I have a whiney, incompetent ex coming round to my house every week with something he wants me to do or sort out... he’s lost weight, he shuffles, he’s scruffy and unkempt and it was all so unnecessary.
All he had to do was be kind to me, the person who has been in his corner for most of his life and I would have cared for him till the end.
Now? Fuck him, he brought it on himself.
Take heart from these stories OP and get away while you still can.

Zoflora and Username I'm so sorry to hear your stories - Zoflora I hope you can find a way out. I can and I'm very lucky. I have spent years having arguments with him in my head with it going round and round that I should leave him. He is so selfish - likes having a few beers every night and was such pub man that he put me and our DD second everytime. I am so angry with myself for putting up with it all for so long - when physical affection goes it really is the end of a marriage. I find myself watching television - even the adverts- and seeing older couples sitting together on the sofa or just standing with their arms around each other and I know that hasn't been us for years and will never be us. He actually flinches if I have to lean over him to get anything. He goes completely still until I move away. It is utterly soul-destroying. I know that I look good for my age but when you get into bed night after night with your husband and there is Siberia between you and you wish (or used to) with all your heart that you could just have a cuddle or be near each other. I am angry with him and the anger turns inwards and makes me depressed and I'm sure affects my health. It is human nature to want to hold and be held and when my dog died - I took it so badly as I missed the affection that I got from him in spades - what a sad life,

We don't celebrate anniversaries either. When I asked him he said that I should have told him I wanted to. So, no 20th or 25th celebrations, He just couldn't be bothered. When I told him my friend and his wife were going away for their 25th - he just said 'poor bastard'. Says it all really :(

Paws you are too young to put up with this - don't get put aside over the years like some of us have. The effect on your self-esteem will be bad enough but the resentment and anger can actually do harm to your health.

I'm sorry for all of us on this thread xxx

Thank you, all of you.

I am so sorry that so many of you have similar experiences xx

Thank you all for your kind words. Frenchlady and Username isn't it so sad that we as loyal caring wives have been reduced to this wasteful sadness. It was all so unnecessary - all it would have taken was a little effort on our husband's part. Even if through illness a man becomes impotent there are other ways he can satisfy his wife - mine just never tried. I have kept myself very fit and active and am always particular about my dress and appearance, it is not as though I have "let myself go" - far from it. I find myself disliking my husband for the slow drip of indifference he has shown me. He is not unkind in himself and we get along on a brother and sister basis, but I just wanted more. At my age I realise I will never have a sexual relationship again, and this makes me so sad. I know I have so much to offer a man, both sexually, emotionally and as a caring loving partner. I never thought I would end up like this. When I see older couples hand in hand or still engaged in lively conversation it just makes me want to cry. I won't miss him when he dies.

It's just heartbreaking reading these posts. Much love