After a few months of suffering ED, my girlfriend has reached the point where she doesn’t want to get intimate with me. For a while now I’ve avoided getting myself into any sexual situations as I didn’t want to let her down. She now knows my reason for this and despite being very understanding she now feels like she can’t stand the risk of rejection anymore. The situation has brought me to this community. Any advice on how I can re-establish the relationship? Thanks.
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That’s a really tough place to be in from both sides. It sounds like both of you ultimately want the same thing, which is to be intimate with each other, but both of you are hurting in different ways – she’s hurting from the fear of rejection, and you’re hurting from the fear of letting her down.
Have you both considered being intimate in ways that are non-penetrative? At least initially, this can take a lot of pressure of needing to get and stay hard. And if you’re the one who initiates, she won’t experience that fear of rejection.
Aside from that, try to open up the conversation and ask each other what you both need when something like this comes up, and what sort of reassurance you both need from each other as well as yourselves.
That’s only a starting point but sometimes that’s the toughest part.
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Thanks for response. Appreciated. You’re right in what you’re saying. The first step has to be open in how each other are feeling and communicate those feelings. We do enjoy our times where we’re not being penetrative but obviously we both want more. I just need to get over the mental hurdle and start to initiate things and as you say it doesn’t have to be penetrative. Me not being open enough has brought us to this situation. If I could offer any advice to anyone in the same situation is not to bury your head in the sand and face up to the situation.
Yeah, in my experience (and I know I’m probably not alone in this), the best sex my girlfriend and I have is often after and longer and heavier conversation that takes weight off of both of our shoulders. A book I read called it ‘Vitamin A’ for acceptance. Acceptance of each other can take a lot of pressure off of things, and the end result is incredibly fulfilling.
Another thing that helps me is mindfulness. Whenever I sense my mind has been really busy, I’ll aim to either exercise or meditate. I’m not as consistent as I’d like to be with those, but they can certainly help.
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I think openness is vital for the (any) relationship to succeed. Something that I haven’t been great at but something that I will work on achieving.
I’ll have a look at the book. Sounds interesting.
The mindfulness thing sounds good but something that I’ve not delved into yet. I do believe that my issues are in my head so anything that brings some clarity can only do me good.
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Buy yourself a copy of The New Male Sexuality and follow the instructions in chapter 22. Your girlfriend will have to be willing to help, but if she is, I think you will get there.
Basically, the book contains a series of exercises that will help you get back in the swing of things. There’s a lot of overlap with Mojo, but I think the books system is more prescriptive and easier to follow.
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Thank you I’ll look into that. Thanks for the recommendation. Happy to try anything to get things back on track.