This comment by MEK in response to the post “My Husband Won’t Even Try to Give Me an Orgasm” is truly depressing. It’s a layered onion of bummer that makes us want to cry. This 21-year marriage has it all: Physical pain? Check. Miscommunication (or total lack of communication)? Check. Selfishness? Check. Resentment? Check. Bitterness? Check! Read it and weep. Then see below for our suggestions on how to avoid such sexual pitfalls.
Married 21 years. There were a couple of years when vaginal intercourse was excruciatingly painful, even as much as unprepared anal. Even with a whole bottle of lube. Never mind that my husband never really puts any time or effort into foreplay to help me become aroused. He just makes a vague, half-hearted show of it. Really, it’s just his way of nonverbally asking for sex.
Anyway, during times when I’m having vaginal pain, he’ll still continue until he orgasms. To be fair I don’t tell him to stop, I just wince and try to scoot away (try to suppress that), but he knows he’s hurting me. I would think that it would be a turnoff, hurting someone you love, yet he continues till he orgasms. I just end up really sore and sticky, while he goes to sleep happily. I avoid sex during those times as long as possible until he throws a small tantrum.
But when sex isn’t painful, he still puts no effort into foreplay, other than to just go straight to shoving his hand between my legs, clumsily and “pushing the button”, which I’ve told him doesn’t do anything for me (at first lovingly, e.g. “It really feels best when you do this,….”). Or, he just gives me a few quick rubs down my back, no kisses, no caresses, he just dives down for oral where he seems to just go through whatever desperate motions he thinks will work for a couple of minutes.
Then it’s on to his turn, climb on, finish, and snoring. Or, sometimes after he finishes, tries to seem like he cares and will magnanimously say “why don’t I just lie right here with you while you touch yourself”. As if by lying and snoring in my ear beside me, he’s still involved in our intimate act, like a caring, sensitive lover. With a flaccid penis.
Usually though, if he’s done, he thinks I’m done, and he loves to ask me the next morning (if the sex was at night) with full, wink wink, innuendo, “I don’t know about you, but I slept great last night!” or “Sooooo, how did YOU sleep last night?” even though he knows I didn’t orgasm. I know he’s not so ignorant as to think that just because we had sex, I must have slept with the same depth of satisfaction he did when I didn’t climax. How very insulted and patronized I’ve felt all these years. Or used, like a blow up doll.
I’m in menopause, and now sex is painful often. I’ve drawn the line. I’ve had it. I told him that the only time we have intercourse (or he gets any kind of sex from me) is if I have had an orgasm first, and if I don’t have an orgasm, we go no farther. If I have an orgasm, AND I’m not too sleepy to continue and have penetrative sex, I’ll let him know. Otherwise, I’ve told him that after I orgasm and don’t want to have intercourse, if it makes him feel special, I can lay beside him and go to sleep while he touches himself.
Ooof. Brutal.
Oddly, we don’t get the sense that they have a horrible relationship in any other area of their life. But when one aspect of a relationship — like sex — suffers so badly, it inevitably seeps into all other areas, coating everything in a veneer of resentment and bitterness.
Here are the 6 main areas where we think this couple went wrong. Learn from their mistakes:
1. If something sexual hurts (and not in a good way), stop. You don’t have to physically — or, we should note, emotionally — suffer for the sake of your partner’s pleasure. There are myriad other ways to help your partner reach orgasm other than intercourse (or whatever activity you don’t physically or personally enjoy): oral sex, manual sex, masturbation, sex toys, etc.
2. If you know what you’re doing is physically or emotionally hurting your partner (and not in a kinky way they are actually enjoying), stop. Good sex can only be had when all parties are comfortable and enthusiastically willing. There are myriad other ways to reach your orgasm than by engaging in activities which cause your partner pain, discomfort, or embarrassment.
3. If something isn’t working for you or you would like to do something else, speak up. Not in a negative, critical way, but in a clear, positive way. “This is actually causing me pain, let’s try something else.” Even if it doesn’t hurt, but you’re still having a bad time, stand up for your pleasure and demand orgasmic equality. Don’t assume your partner will get the hint from your silence or your lack of enthusiasm. You have to clearly articulate what is going on with you, either physically or mentally, so they have the best chance of understanding the true reality of the situation. Silence is not an option. Nor is giving up if they just don’t seem to get it. Insist on continuing the conversation about any romantic or sexual issue in your LTR until you are heard and understood and can come to some agreement or compromise that will make both you and your partner, if not blissfully happy and thoroughly satisfied, then at the very least content and satiated.
4. Make your partner’s pleasure and orgasm a priority. If you’re the only one climaxing, there’s a serious problem. Ask your partner what they would like to do and what feels good to them, whether after 2 dates or 2 decades of marriage. People and bodies are different; and people and bodies change over time. Don’t assume that just because you like something, your partner does too.
5. Dedicate yourself to a lifetime of decent sex education. Understand how anatomy works. Learn about different techniques. Understand how pain and age can negatively affect sex.
While we like to say that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, and we were tempted to cheer when MEK finally turned the tables on her husband by giving him a taste of his own medicine, we’re saddened by the fact that it got to that point in the first place. There’s nothing cheer-worthy about a lifetime of bad marital sex. Nor can the bitterness reflected in her tone be all that healthy for their relationship. Understandable, yes; but healing, no. Take the pro-active steps above to avoid going down the wrong path until you’re lost, or creating bad habits that are near impossible to break, or building up so much resentment that you can’t even look your partner in the eye.
No marriage is perfect. But by working on issues together, you can make a marriage pretty darn great.
