Need a hand hold, how to talk about sex!

[MuffledDrum]

I can’t believe I’m a grown woman asking this but please don’t judge me too much. I need some help.

Been married 8+ years, had a baby 18m ago. To cut a very long story short (I did just type it out but the message got stupid long!) so to summarise our sex life is poor (3 times in 18m!), we NEVER talk about sex, and he suffers from ED.

i am so frustrated I can’t bare to sleep next to him anymore. It just drives me mad. I initiate, subtly, but it’s obvious what I’m doing and he just turns away. It’s breaking my heart,

I dont want to leave him, I won’t leave him, so I need to put my big girl pants on and talk to him about it but I’m such a child I’m scared to,

please help. How do I ask him for more sex without hurting his feelings with the ED. And overcome my embarrassment (I KNOW how stupid I sound being embarrassed by having to ask for help on this, please be nice). What do I say? Has anyone been in a similar situation, how did you tackle it?

Was your sex life ever good?

What specifically do you want and have the two of you ever had it together? It’s obviously easier to get something back that you’ve had than make something completely new. How long has the ED been an issue? Has he or would he get help?

What’s the rest of the relationship like? Are you physical and intimate in a non sex way, hugging, kissing, holding hands? Did you have a scary delivery and was he at the business end?

You could always turn it back on you and say "now that dc is 18 months and I'm less tired I'm feeling quite horny again, how about we try and get some more early nights 😉😉" and see where it goes from there. It would open the conversation in a more neutral way and he wouldn't be on the defensive

There's no judgment.
How has your sex life been previously? Have you ever spoke about it? Your likes/dislikes etc?

If I have a 'problem' or query when there has been stressful events in our life and we haven't had sex as much as we normally do! He or I normally say... right...It's been a while.. I miss it! Do you fancy it?

I couldn't imagine not discussing about my relationship with my OH, it's been 20 years and believe the key is open communication.

Ahh, I just posted something similar about how devastated I feel about lack of sex in my marriage. I know exactly how it feels to have your initiations rejected every time so I sympathise completely. However in my case we have talked and talked about it and nothing changes unfortunately. You want to do it without hurting his feelings which is great - but you need to also make sure that you are looking out for YOUR needs. Finding a nice moment where you have shared closeness in another way and bringing it up then is probably your best bet. You can keep it casual, ‘hey, I’d really like it if we could try to get our intimacy back’. Hopefully he is willing to open up and discuss how he feels too. Good luck to you both, I hope you can work it out!

Oh bless you, I really feel for you, and there is nothing for anyone to judge you on, or be anything other than kind. Sex is a tricky topic!

I’m afraid I don’t know how to tackle chats about ED - me and my DH are very blunt communicators and know exactly how the other feels about sex etc. We don’t sugar coat things.

If you’re struggling, maybe see if he would consider going to a relationship counsellor or sex therapist.

Good luck OP

Thank you everyone for replying so quickly.

I’d say the first year of our relationship was good sex, but really dropped to once every few months after that. And became very unadventurous.

We are reasonably affectionate outside the bedroom. We hold hands if we’re out, kiss and hug through the day.

Both of us are naturally head in the sand kind of people when it comes to any sort of problem, or feelings generally. We aren’t very open. We are both very laid back so it’s not normally a problem (we never argue, rarely disagree, relationship really is smooth sailing most of the time)

with the ED, he first told me about it when we were trying for a baby, basically because I had a bit of a melt down then that we weren’t having sex I dealt with it badly, let the frustration build up before getting very upset which is definitely not what I want to happen again. He took pills but reacted badly. He can get it up sometimes, but trying for a baby was pretty brutal on both of us - certainly hasn’t helped the situation

@Crimea sorry you’re going through something similar, good luck to you too

Hi op I can relate to this as my dh has a lower libido than me and also takes viagra for ED. I think you have to realise that it will be a very emotive topic for him and he's probably feeling embarrassed and inadequate which is why he doesn't want to talk about it.
I have compromised with my dh and we dtd a couple of times a month. It's very vanilla, same thing every time but it's something. And we have intimacy in other ways. I feel loved and desired by him but I don't get as much sex as I'd like and it's rarely adventurous or spontaneous. That's a compromise I've had to make to be with him.
You do need to talk about your feelings and try and come to a compromise that suits you both. If you don't then resentment will build. It's really common to have mismatched sex drives and for most people it's not a deal breaker but good communication is so important. Speak to him in a light, non accusing way and try and work things out together. Good luck it's not easy x

Any man who has suffered with ED at any stage in their life (I have) will know it makes feel so inadequate and such a failure it’s hard to explain, so we (men): do the ostrich impression and hope the issue just goes away , that’s the bad news and that might why he is pulling away from you, to avoid the embarrassment of not being able to get an erection.

what is his general health like, weight, smoking, drinking etc.

the good news is that medication is cheap, widely available and no prescription is needed ( if you are in the UK ),
there are regular adverts on telly for ED medication as well.
the other thing would be to try and use “we” rather than “you”, as in we could get some medication, rather than you should ( even though its for him ).

as a PP says you do need to talk about it as well, it’s probably the elephant in the room right, don’t start with something like, “we need to have more sex”,
thy something more open like “ I’ve noticed we have not had much intimacy recently is everything okay with you ?”, he will probably say yes or fine or get angry or upset or defensive to stop himself feeling like a failure,.
you might need to suggest trying viagra as he won’t.

good luck 👍🏼

And there are lots of different pills on the market now, might be a bit of trial and error

Is the ED psychological (pills won’t help that)?

I’d go down the route of asking him generally if he’s happy because if something’s niggling him and he’s (to quote you) burying his head in the sand then that’s more likely the cause of the ED. It might have absolutely nothing to do with your relationship but the impact of whatever it is is bothering him to such a degree its stressing him out and causing a sort of performance anxiety.

Just a thought.

Actually if it is psychological then Viagra or equivalent might well help.

That’s interesting and I’m happy to be proved wrong here but I was under the impression that Viagra, etc. worked by dilating constricted blood vessels (usually caused by aging or underlying medical condition).

With the OP mentioning that her DP reacted badly to the pills it made me think he doesn’t have any physical circulatory problems so the pills sort of super-dilated the blood vessels and made him feel weird (maybe).

Viagra won’t really help if he has no desire to have sex,, most men have some kind of side effect as viagra was developed as a treatment for angina .
if a man has chronic ED he needs to visit a GP to be checked for heart disease

www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/wellbeing/erectile-dysfunction

the OP said she had a meltdown over sex while trying to conceive , so I can only imagine that the guy has both issues, he probably has performance anxiety (doesn’t want to have sex) and ED (can’t perform ) at the same time, so is probably avoiding sex completely.

they probably need a sexual reset and some shared massages and shared showers with no sex rule to get the shared intimacy kick started with no sexual pressure.

Thank you everyone for your advice and messages.

@HowlongWillThisTakeNow your message really hit home so thank you for this perspective. I am going to talk about it with him tonight and try to understand where he is and will take on all the advice you’ve given me

thanks

Has DH talked to his GP as ED can o think be a sign of untreated high blood pressure

First off, like you know you need to, talk to him. Tell him you realise it’s a issue he has and that’s ok and you still love him and don’t want to break up over it.

Then suggest that you want him to be intimate with you without any expectation his dick needs to be involved. There’s lots of ways he can get you off without it and his ED shouldn’t stop him doing this. Then hopefully he might relax a bit more and you never know but make sure he knows you don’t expect any cock action.

If he doesn’t make the effort to do this in the weeks after you tell him, well, then you’ve got a problem…

@MuffledDrum
no worries, I hope it helps you,
by the sounds of it he has 2 issues, ED is the obvious one, but he may suffer from performance anxiety around sex after your TTC experiences.
Performance Anxiety is self-filling, the more a man worries about his sexual performance the worse it is, so the more he worries etc, to the point he might withdrawal completely from and sexual encounters.

eveything needs to go both ways, he needs to touch you and you need to touch him, with no intercourse involved.
good luck

ED can be an early warning sign of heart disease. The penile blood vessels are narrower and block sooner. Also viagra can cause bad headaches, so it doesn't suit all men.