I was out of the country on business for about five weeks and was asked by my client to stay on. I told him that I wasn't prepared to do so, but then he generously offered to bring my wife over.
The first night that my wife was here we were both looking forward to making up for lost time in bed, but for some reason I suffered erectile dysfunction that night. This has not happened before, and we have had over the past couple of years an increasingly good sex life - and general realtionship. We are both in our fifties. My wife's immediate reaction to the ED episode was to accuse me of making use of prostitutes while we were apart. This is absolutely without foundation, but in the light of the long absence and the particulary good sex we were having before I went away the inability to perform is indeed very strange and has resulted in the accusations that the failure was due to guilt or a lack of interest due to my being totally sexually satiated. This is not the first such accusation, but the other accusations of infidelity have been equally without foundation.I am not asking you to comment on the realtionship side of things, but I would be very grateful for an explanation for the sudden - and veryinopportune - episode of ED. If there is any answer whereby I can convince my wife that the ED had no ulterior source, I would be very grateful.
Dr. Eve Replies:
Forgive my inability to honor your request and not comment on” the relationship side of things”. Forgive my unwillingness to see you more than just as a penis attached to a man. Instead I address you holistically- as a man, as a man in an intimate relationship, living in a world which contains stresses and pleasures. All these factors impact on your erections.
Erection problems, as part of your sexual health , are complex and multi factoral. As men age their erections change – they become less spontaneous and reliable. If men are unhealthy and carry any risk factors their erections will be negatively impacted. Risk factors include smoking, excessive alcohol use, overweight, depression and cardio vascular disease. Certain medications impact negatively on erections.
I suggest to you, as I do to every man over 45 years of age, to get a full sexual health and medical check up just to ensure that his erection problem is not based on a yet undiagnosed disease.
Now to get to the heart of a man’s erection : his relationship. A safe, trusting , committed relationship goes a long way to maintaining great erections for men. It sounds as if you generally have jealousy and distrust issues in your relationship – it can be exhausting to be defending oneself . Eventually your body, including your penis, looses interest and gives up the fight. Its not arousing, nor sexy to be convincing a partner of your fidelity. It kind of takes away some of the ease of sexual play.
I understand that you were both in a relationship and sexual positive place when your erection failed. Which is why you are confused. Perhaps your erection failed due to high expectations and excitement, too much alcohol that night, a pressure to recapture the renewed positive sexual experiences you and your wife were enjoying. Whatever..
What is important is how you take it from here-both of you can make this a problem, sit in the jealousy, distrust it has provoked which will ensure you develop an erectile dysfunction. Or else get a medical check up and once you have a clean bill of health, spend time with your wife discussing relationship concerns you might have.
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