My boyfriend is in his early 30’s and I am in my mid 20’s, we have been together for 3 years. Our sex life has always been a bit rocky from the start, I have a sexual condition called Vaginismus – for those on here who don’t know what that is, it is essentially an involuntary tightening of my pelvic floor muscles during penetration. It has made sex difficult for me due to the pain and burning/ripping feeling, I have very rarely had ‘good’ sex, for me it is a line between manageable and unbearable.
I worked very hard over the 3 years to ‘cure’ my condition through dilating, all sorts of research and training my mind to stop believing that sex = pain. Throughout this time he has been very supportive of me, he has never pressured me into sex or forced me to speed things up, which I’m grateful for as I have had some ex boyfriends who didn’t understand the condition and would try to force sex on me.
About 5 ish months into our relationship we began having sex, it wasn’t regular as we’d normally only see each other on weekends but I began putting more emphasis on wanting more sex now that I was experiencing less pain. The summer of 2023 was the most sexually active we had ever been, and I began to understand what other women feel..then life got in the way. I landed a new job that was stressful which caused me to stop dilating, he started to rapidly gain weight (around 20kg) and next thing I knew we hadn’t had sex for months upon months. During that time, we were still intimate with oral, just never penetration.
I left my job in 2024 and got a much better role that allowed for a work/life balance which I was desperately seeking, my happiness and yearning for life came back & so did my libido. His libido didn’t follow suit though, when we tried having sex for the first time after so long, he kept losing his erection. I put it down to nerves, until it happened again and again and again. We both live with our parents so sex can be tricky so I suggested we’d get a hotel and have a romantic weekend away, but he still couldn’t keep his erection even when he was in a relaxing environment.
Since then we have gone on three holidays abroad, on all three occasions I have tried to have sex with him on the first night and he could not stay hard..the most recent being a trip away to Germany for the Christmas markets – something that we had spoken about many times and were excited for the time away together, just us. A few months ago I asked him to get his testosterone checked, he did and it came back normal.
Other than the weight gain, I don’t know what else could be causing this. He is able to maintain an erection fir every other scenario – if were cuddling naked in bed, kissing in the car, if i’m wearing sexy lingerie, even in the mornings when i roll over onto his chest.
At this point I don’t know what to do, I am fearful I have somehow rubbed off my sexual issues onto him and it’s making me go backwards in my progress as it’s difficult to re-train the mind that sex is a healthy & loving act when I can see my partner clearly going soft the moment I ask for us to have sex.
Would anyone be able to give advice?