Originally Posted by
querty
A refreshing thread for this site.....
Gypsy_rose, you are spot on. It's as if you interviewed my wife. At 59 she looks fantastic, gets compliments all the time, gets hit on in the grocery store and in coffee shops. I can see when she i. When I see her struggling with the image in the mirror or she comments about looking old, I support her with truly sincere comments about how attractive and sexy I find her. But more helpful (and equally sincere), I make these comments when she's not thinking about it. I walk in the room, she looks hot, I tell her, and often make a pass at her (and sometimes I am successful!).
I'm 56 and all this has started for me recently. "Why is my dad's face in the mirror". I can't drag a couch up the stairs and not be winded like I once could, and a feeling of being weak creeps in. I see myself in pictures and think - when the hell did that happen!? It takes longer for me to be 'ready' when we are intimate, and longer to be ready again (if I manage not to pass right out!). A feeling of inadequacy creeps in.
Down below are comments about pain getting in they way of sex, and whether this should or should not be big deal. I suspect it wasn't meant as the broad statement I took it as, but.... Painful sex, especially for women, can rob a person of all desire, and can affect all manner of a person's body, mind, and soul. This is true I suspect of any chronic pain condidtion, but painfull sex has it's own set of impacts. The pain affects more than the relatively short period of actual sex. The frequent anticipation and foreboding of impending a significantly painful event affects body mind and soul. A person naturally starts to develop avoidance behaviors, consciously or not, which thier partner may misinterpret. It affects your mood if you know it's coming or is going to be asked for. There is guilt for denying your partner, there is remorse for no longer being able to satisfy your partner, feeling like a burden, and even a failure. There is resentment on the part of your partner, for which you feel responsible.
I make these statements from the personal experiences of my wife and I. Though I new sex was more painful for her, and we were trying differnt things, I was not aware of the severity of it or of the broad impact it was having on her (she was trying to shield me from it) till one day she broke down in tears at my frustration during an intimate moment. I felt like a selfish ass for it, and for not having had recognized the severity of it on my own.
Fortunately for her, because of her good health, there was a solution that has been wondrous (bio-identical hormone treatment). She could sleep again, sex was no longer painful, her libido returned (gangbusters), she was abble to get off anti-depression meds and the side effects thereof. We've been going strong ever since.
A long way for me to go to say, painful sex and/or loss of libido can affect every aspect of a person's life.
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