Impact on sex life

[annebelle]

Hello there,

My name is Annebelle. I’ve been diagnosed with vaginismus and I’ve started following therapy three months ago.

The impact my vaginismus has on my own personal intimate life, seems to grow day by day. While me and my partner were still seeking/playing around with alternative solutions to have a bit of intimacy in bed in the beginning of our relationship, I’ve now noticed we both started doing less efforts when it comes to sex. Last weekend, my partner admitted he “preferred doing it on his own” cause that was much easier for him and less confronting, and I have to admit there have been occasions on which I gave myself a quick orgasm instead of bothering him with my needs.

I’ve talked about this with my therapist and she said she often sees this happening in couples. I went through some postings here and they seem to acknowledge this is something common. The solution my therapist offers (which seems to be the same as the solution many of you posted here) is to agree not to masturbate anymore in private, but to do it out in the open, next to your partner, whenever you feel the need. This offers him/her the occasion to join in or take over (or do nothing in case you’re not in the mood).

I’d like to hear your advice, and from those who did this, if it really helps getting your sex life back on track.

[recessivegenequeen]

Hi Annabelle – you’re totally right that this is a common situation. The fact is, it takes a lot of time and effort to go through vaginismus treatment! Whether you’re dilating, doing pelvic floor therapy, or something else, it feels like WORK – which is why sometimes it can feel like even more effort to then be intimate with your partner. Like you’ve said, you often feel like you don’t want to bother with engaging the other person if a quick orgasm is all you’re after, and that’s okay! A big part of it depends on what you hvae going on in your life and how much time and energy you have.

Stopping masturbating can work (and is more targeted at situations where the male partner struggles to maintain arousal during intimacy), but another thing that can work is scheduling intimate time with your partner. This often gets a bad rap as it can seem very clinical or overly strict, but a lot of busy adults with complicated lives find themselves liberated if they know when sex will and won’t be happening and aren’t stressed about whether they’re having it often enough. You can also agree to schedule it as often as feels right – for some people, this will be three times a week, for others, once every two weeks, but wherever you land, it can take off some of the pressure while you’re already putting so much effort into treating your vaginismus.

[frederique1999]

I’ve been using this “technique” for a while now, and all I can say is that it had a HUGE (positive!) impact on our sex life and I can only recommend it. We both don’t masturbate in private anymore and learned (yes, learned!) to do it out in the open, next to each other. That requires trust, you have to open up on your feelings, communicate. Plus I find it sexy when my partner does it, and I often join in as you’ve written. Or I don’t when I’m not in the mood. It was a life changer for us!

[recessivegenequeen]

Frederique1999, I like that you emphasized that you LEARNED to do this – there’s a lot of ways in which it might not feel natural to masturbate in front of your partner that require unlearning to make your way to a more satisfying sex life. We have a lot of unhelpful preconceptions about how sex “should” look based on the media we consume (whether that be romantic movies or porn or whatever else) and most of them do NOT portray what actually works. Going back to basics and applying some structure/systems to your intimate life can do a lot for partnerships, but that requires work that we aren’t always expecting to have to do. So glad to hear it’s worked for you frederique1999!

[Callyyy]

Super happy to read others have discovered this as well, since it has been a life saver for my sex life. I noticed over time we were having less and less intimacy in bed, and it felt like my partner was avoiding to touch me. After a long talk he revealed he secretly masturbated to get rid of his sexual tension because he didn’t want to put stress on me. Sweet but at the same time it killed our sex life. A friend of mine came up with the advice to ask my partner to stop masturbating behind my back and actually do it in front of me, which gave me the option as you guys already wrote to either help him out, join in, or do whatever I feel I want to. But at least I feel involved now and it has done wonders to our relationship! It’s not easy though, cause it requires lots of trust, communication and time!

[recessivegenequeen]

So glad to hear that’s worked for you as well, Callyyy! I wish this stuff was more widely discussed so we didn’t all have to independently discover this solution!