Reply To: Choosing not to treat vaginismus

[recessivegenequeen]

Hi donnaa – I think a lot of women with vaginismus will tell you that it is a REALLY hard thing to open up about, even with a partner. I was the same way when I was still dealing with vaginismus. I understand that it probably feels especially daunting when your partner is in town so sporadically and you want to make the most of the time when you get to see him.

You deserve for sex to not feel painful. Women as a gender are raised to be deferential and giving as a gender, and this often extends to how we feel we need to act in the bedroom. We want our partners to have a good time so we will often disregard or even try to hide any pain and discomfort we’re feeling. But this strategy often isn’t sustainable in the long term because if you’re not enjoying sex with your partner (or if it’s actively hurting you), you’ll likely develop an aversion to having intercourse that can affect the intimacy of your partnership overall.

Part of what’s scary about sharing you have vaginismus is that it can make you feel very powerless. If this is something you feel like you’re approaching being ready to talk about with your partner, one strategy that might help you feel more in control is to create a plan for treatment (or even start trying to seek it, for example by ordering a dilator kit) and when you tell your partner about your vaginismus, let him know that it’s something you’re working on. This puts more of the power back into your hands by pursuing a treatment plan, and it demonstrates to your partner that this isn’t a problem that has to define your relationship forever. You can even show him success stories from this forum to help him better understand what to expect.

Only you can know whether treatment is something that you want to pursue and when you might be ready to do that, but there are a lot of vaginismus treatment options and I’d highly recommend exploring it so you don’t have to be in pain indefinitely!