I received a (not so unusual) call today from a woman trying to figure out if she should come in as a patient. During our 10 minute phone call she basically told me that:
- She was interested in sex but her husband seemed totally disinterested. He maybe wanted to have sex once a month — usually if she reminded him that they hadn’t had sex in a while.
- He often had a hard time keeping his erections.
- It took him 45 minutes of hard work to ejaculate.
“Hmmm,” I responded, “it sounds like he should see a male sexual dysfunction specialist.” “Oh,” she replied, ”but he refuses to see a doctor. And (now here’s the punch line) I thought maybe I’m not erotic enough or interesting enough and that’s why he’s having problems.”
Oddly enough it is often hard for a woman to accept that she is not the problem in a sexual relationship. It’s hard, I’ve found, because women seem to naturally take the blame for so many things that aren’t their fault.
It might also be hard to accept that you’re not the problem because that means that you can’t be the solution. If the problem is not yours, it’s also not yours to fix, and that’s a hard reality for some women to face.
So for the woman on the phone, she needs to talk to her husband and see if he can shed more light on the situation. He claims he loves her, is turned on by her and just has a hard time. That leaves many more questions to be answered, but they are all questions which need his participation to answer: Is his testosterone low? Does he have blood flow issues? Is he having an affair? Is he gay? Is he over-ridden with guilt?
Obviously we can’t answer those questions, and whether he chooses to participate in finding answers or not will be his decision.
I can tell the women one thing though: it isn’t your fault.