Sexual Performance Anxiety

Hi everyone,

My husband has been P free for a year and half now (since DDay) but lately he has developed sexual performance anxiety and struggles to initiate any form of intimacy and affection. He doesn’t have ED. Once he starts showing intimacy he is fine but he struggles in the pre-intimacy stages, if I’m making any sense. He doesn’t know what’s holding him back. He says he still loves me and desires me. We communicate a lot and have been seeing an EFT couples therapist for a year now. It just feels like a massive regression and has thrown me into a massive depression. It’s been over a month since we last had any form of intimacy. I found out last night that he hasn’t masturbated since DDay. I’m in shock but he says he struggles to overcome the feeling of shame and feels it’s unfair to pleasure himself while our relationship is falling apart from his lack of intimacy. I’m all for M and suggested he should do it obviously without P and definitely not at work where he used to do it in the hopes that maybe a bit of self-Love and reconnecting with his body will help ease his anxiety with me. I just want to gain insight from other men who have dealt with sexual performance anxiety issues and what has helped/didn’t help, causes, etc so that I can better understand my husband. thanks!

 

Thank you so much Kropo! That was really helpful.

Spoiler: Trigger Warning

He tentatively suggested to do M together as he doesn’t want to associate M with something to only be done in isolation. I suppose because M in isolation reminds him too much of his P-days. Thanks for your suggestion about doing some perfunctory sessions. I think that will help and honestly would give me pleasure to be doing something together.

I think you may be right with him being too goal oriented and seeing it more as a performance rather than a way to connect. He says he puts a lot of pressure on himself but has admitted that seeing me down, frustrated, etc doesn’t help although he understands my emotions and doesn’t want me to bottle them up just to make it easier for him. I also track when we have sex on my period tracker, not to keep a track on him, but just in case we get pregnant. However, that seems to be fueling his anxiety too. I’ve always been the initiator and have a higher libido than him (we are in our early 30s) so I think his anxiety also comes from him not feeling adequate enough to meet my needs.

I’ll bring up your points to him tonight and see what he thinks.

I hope you are doing well on your recovery and again thanks for taking the time to answer my post.

 

Thanks Poland! The article and PDF are fantastic.