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Sex and our relationship

stevesull
stevesull Community member Posts: 2 Listener
Hi I'm Steve and it's my first time on here. I suffer from fibromyalgia for years but I never give up and now go to the gym 5 times a week and got very fit. I'm with my partner for 25 years and I'm not sure I love her anymore. I do as a person but this is wearing thin. Our bedroom life have gone out the window over the last 5 years. I've always made her feel good about herself and try to encourage a good romantic relationship and also buy her some sex toys for her to try and get back to winning ways. None of this have worked unfortunately and I becoming drawn away from her. It gets me down every time. I have said this to her on several occassions and all she says is she does try ?. This is putting a strain on my manhood and didn't realise it would effect me this way, but it has. I brought her away for the new years eve ball in Torquay and yes on that night we had sex. However, she had a few drinks and I felt she just was not interested. I am a 54yr old man who's very fit with needs. She is 56 lost alot of weight through weight management and goes to the gym and says she's never been fitter. This don't make sense to me. Can you please advise as I'm at wits end and obviously dont want this relationship to end. Thankyou for your time. Steve

Comments

  • PSHEexpert
    PSHEexpert Community member Posts: 170 Pioneering
    Hi Steve, what a difficult situation for both of you.  Your fifties can be a time where lots of changes happen, physically and (sometimes as a result) emotionally/mentally.  Without knowing all the intricacies of your relationship (and who, outside of it, can ever really know those), I can only really speculate and make suggestions/observations, but could your wife maybe be experiencing the effects of menopause?  It can affect all sorts of aspects of your wellbeing, including emotionally and in relation to sexual wellbeing.  You mention she's also lost lots of weight - although she's says she's never been fitter, does she like how her body looks now?  Is she comfortable with it? It can have a really big effect on how you see yourself and that can affect things too.  During a long relationship like the one you have built together, lots of changes can happen, sometimes without really realising it until they're having difficult effects.  Have you and your wife considered going anywhere to talk about things together?  
    - Gill 
  • stevesull
    stevesull Community member Posts: 2 Listener
    I totally agree with your analysis.  She feels great about her body now through weight loss. Fitting into cloths that she never got into before makes her feel good.  She did have her womb and ovaries removed 6 months ago due to carrying a genetic gene of ovarian cancer.  I ha e of course taken this into consideration. However this goes back about 3/4 years now and on many if accessions I have openly spoken to her about this. She says she try but never does. Without been disrespectful to you or her. I often see her with her hand inside her loose bottom at her genetials a lot.  I'm not sure this is the normal circumstances with women, but been inquisitive I also noticed a lot of white substance on her cloths in the bathroom. I don't understand it as I am a very good husband and care for her well without pressurising her. Confused.com
  • PSHEexpert
    PSHEexpert Community member Posts: 170 Pioneering
    I think this is something that potentially requires much more support than I can offer you here, as this is a very intimate subject.  Would your wife consider talking to a professional about it together, do you think?

    - Gill 
  • Hamsterchic
    Hamsterchic Community member Posts: 6 Connected

    That sort of discharge is not normal. Please encourage her to seek professional advise.

    I'm a bit older and my sex drive has waned , this I put down to low oestrogen. I think to not having sex makes one not want it or at least create the situation where you do. Its a vicious circle thing. Looks like you try though but the menopause is a devil for disrupting a good sex life, women can seemingly do with out it but for a man its not good for his morale. I hope things pick up for you.

  • Rossi46fan
    Rossi46fan Community member Posts: 10 Connected
    My sex drive pretty much took a hit, whether due to the 26 daily tablets, the Osteoarthritis or the severe and chronic back pain, or because i'm 60.  I just don't know.

    Had counselling and was told get off the Lyrica for both increased sex drive and to assist weight loss.

    But I cant! Tried, though have reduced from 2 x 300 daily to 2 x 225.

    The extra weight I'm carrying since the fall also lowers my self esteem.

    There were 8 of us on the counselling course and we all had same problems with intimacy 7 of us with the weight.

    Its not a complete wash out, but its not what it was.

    Relate have not returned our phone calls.

  • Hamsterchic
    Hamsterchic Community member Posts: 6 Connected

    Weight has been a n issue for my partner and I . Also as lovely a guy as he is he is idle in many respects but his work is that of IT barely understood by mere mortals like us LOL. He wants me to enjoy sex with him but all too often I'm too mentally out of reach and I can't seem to just click a button like he does with a mouse or keyboard or anything to do with the computer and have it produce the result he wants. He's mostly patient but has outbursts which I now accept much better than I have done for years. I personally hate conflict  and will do almost anything to avoid it, I have never found it to be productive and with a tendency to wards epilepsy which I'm now off drugs for having taken them for 40+ years I was advised to avoid stress and tensions. How I got through life so far you might ask . Really I don't know other than to say because I've had to work myself out to a great extent, because epilepsy takes on so many forms and has reprocusions  on the sufferer and those close to them which take so much understanding and just living through. I've had to accept I'm if you like 'wired' differently.. In a way its a disability but don't you think we all have bits that we or others want to change but just cause someone else wants that change it doesn't mean we can adopt or adapt ourselves without having a difference of brain , seeing thing in a adjacent way and convincing ourselves that adoption or adapttion might be to our benefit.

    Your ego has been knocked , you are gradually able to see some change and as you say its not all terrible , Change may be slow coming but you can alter all these problems you just have to work at it and do so in your own way. People can preach at you but your mindset has to be made to see that the outcome is worth the 'risk' of shifting the way you think . We all get into ruts we find too difficult to see our way out of them having become 'comfortable' in the well trammelled road. It worked for you for years you say to yourself why should I change to fit in, well life doesn't stand still. After 40+ years of being on Anticonvulsants I'm now freee of that regeim can you imagine how much courage it took to agree to stant messing with a dose that had for so many years enabled me to work and be seen as 'normal' but normal in who's eyes. Having a disability which is unseen is harder than having an amputated leg or whatever people more immediately want to 'help' an obvious victim of life but an unseen, unexplainable or rare case is more difficult to grapple with and most just shrug it off and say 'poor soul' as much as to help the victim as to explain away the fact that they won't be getting their head around  the situation. When its said " we are all too buys" yes we are but that's just a sop to tell ourselves and others the limit we are going to "be assed" well we all having different levels of being assed about something in life .

    If you've managed to follow my train of though so far you are a star* Many would not bother to have got so far, but hopefully in explaining myself to a degree you can perhaps see a grain of truth and as you comment you are struggling but have had some result , I really do wish you well and hop that your continuing struggle will bear fruit. The key as I see it is to want the 'medal or chest to pin it on but you have them in your grasp just keep trucking on. All or many of us are pushing forward with out seeing much hope but it is there, though it might be mighty slow in its progress its like the daily grind some days its more of a struggle and other days we sail through but as much as we can hope for each day to be the same and or better we know that setbacks will befall us and our nearest and dearest.

    Death will come for some all too quickly we are like grains of sand on a beach the waves will come and the waves will go . Crashing sounding or just tidal washing . Luckily for us like particle of sand we will be worn down but the edgy rock we had a our start point has the potential to become a shinny pebble or just another grain of sand on a beach full of other rocks and grains of sand , hopefully without too much plastic pollutants. LOL. Keep well my friend  I will keep my fingers crossed for you and your endeavours. Hear endeth the sermon. My roots are all northern and I've been indoctrinated with such phrases for some they are helpful for other  a weird way of looking at life. Who says we all have to follow the same prescripted formula we all well know that's tosh.

Brightness