His and Her Health

My wife and I married young (18/17) we've been married 33 years. We have 3 children and 5 grandchildren.

My wife cannot have an orgasm with me. She never has. She is fine on her own and it comes quite easily to her. We've discussed it a couple of times and then she just feels bad like she's letting me down. It seems like now if there is any focus at all it's just not good. It's the performance anxiety thing x 10. I have not pressed the issue and when we do make love it's wonderful...it's just all about me...uugh.
There has been times where I haven't initiated sex and we went a couple of month's w/o. It seems if I didn't need it we wouldn't do it.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

What do you mean specifically when you say she cannot have an orgasm with you. Do you mean that she can't have one through intercourse or does that include oral or manual stimulation? Can she have one on her own with you there with her or only when she's alone?

kristop, Here is a link to an article by Dr. Jennifer Berman that may help.
http://www.bermansexualhealth.com/voxant/5-tips-for-achieving-orgasm-through-intercourse.html

eva-_m, thanks for your reply. she can't have one through intercourse, oral or manual. She can't have one if I'm there only when she's alone.

K

Moderator, I will read that article. Thanks so much.

Maybe you can work up to it by inches. Perhaps she could masturbate with you just outside the door, then in the room but looking away. Eventually, with your arms around her. Then with you helping, etc.

But I have to say, 33 years is a LOT of history to overcome.

I've thought the same thing, kinda depressurize the situation. there have been some times on vacation where she's done that where I'm down by the pool but the minute she feels like she's letting me down or something then no go.

33 years is a long time and it must affect our sex life. I really swing from "I feel bad for her and don't ever want her to feel bad about it" to frustration and anger that we don't make love very often and her most intimate times don't involve me.

Also, she has tried with me in the past and it just didn't work at all. I think she's at a point where it's no use.

I think she really does go out of her way for me but at best she's always kinda just doing the duty.

Which I really don't like.

Thanks eva for your help. I think incremantalism is the way, just maybe real slow and without the expectation of outcome.

If it's any consolation for you, I've been married almost as long as you, and my wife has never had an orgasm, with or without me. In fact, I've never seen a female orgasm in real life. Only in video clips, and those could have been fake for all I know.

thanks for your post, do you go through bouts of self doubt?

Yes, sometimes I felt it was because I was not doing something exactly right, in spite of having read books on all the details. How could every other guy out there be giving his woman an orgasm most times they have sex, when I couldn't even manage that a single time in my whole life? I must be missing the boat somewhere, big time. And my wife didn't really want to talk about it, or try anything that would physically pleasure her directly, aside from just intercourse. So she was no teacher either.

kr100, we're both pretty similar in marrying relatively young, and having been 3 decades and still on the same partner. It's only in recent years that I've fully appreciated that my marriage never was quite normal in terms of the physical and erotic interaction. She was flash-in-the-pan early in the marriage, but still seemed inhibited about being touched for the purposes of getting aroused. And then it went to where she didn't want to be touched at all. Late night comedy jokes about women losing interest in sex seemed to make sense of it.

kr100, I think we share a common problem in that it's been the status quo for such a long time that we've come to accept it as the way things are to some degree. In each of or cases, our wives clearly know what we'd like, but they don't want to deal with the issue or make any serious effort. And they feel ashamed and guilty about their inadequacy, which makes dealing with it almost impossible.

It's like trying to bring it up is the most unromantic and the least sexy thing I can do. So any attempt to fix the problem is automatically the worst thing I can do to try to fix it. But if I do nothing, it's "out of sight and out of mind" and again nothing happens. Which is basically why the problem has gone on so long.

And like you, I have many family and other commitments which are working very well, aside from the sexual issue. So it's been a dilemma for a long time.

But, kr100, I think your prospects are better than mine. At least your wife can have orgasms, and you're having sex with your wife. I've had neither for years.

Pateint, man we really do share the common threads. I'm am right where you are. You're right if you ever bring up the problem that becomes the problem and you just end up making them feel bad or worse about it. No one wants to feel inadequate. I'm sure our wives already do.

Also, I seriously doubt that she is being truthful about not having them, I think if she discloses that she does she has more responsible.Butmaybe not I know there are women who can't.

What about sex therapy? I haven't brought it up with my wife yet but I really don't know what else to do. If we've accepted this for this long are WE changing the rules of engagement?

You and I really need to know from women what's going on and what they would recommend for us.

At some level I just may not even know what the hell I'm doing although she says it's great.

Dear Patient,

I'm currently reading Karen Horney' book "Our Inner Conflicts" It's all about solutions we use to try and resolve core inner conflicts ie "childhood!" My preferred "soloution" is what she describes as moving towards people. My wife however uses "detachment" Early on this was extreme in both our cases after 32 years of marriage it's definitely better but not resolved.

In the case of the missing orgasm...with me would fit perfectly with a detachment position. All I can do really is work on my "moving toward people" deal and encourage her towards abandoning detachment (scary) just like mine is and see where that goes. It seems the issue is never the issue and that's true here.

Good luck to you my friend and may we all be free.

Kr

<small>[ 09-26-2009, 11:11 PM: Message edited by: Moderator ]</small>

kr100, I would recommend sex therapy. If you can at all convince your wife to go, the chances are good.

We definitely headed that way! thanks.