Advise Please

[Jonah00]

It all started on our honeymoon. After the wedding ceremony, my wife and I headed to our hotel to celebrate our marriage. Since it was a long day, I did not expect a normal intercourse experience, but just a foretaste of what would come. To say the least, we attempted penetration that same night; however because of my wife’s discomfort we resorted to other ways of satisfying ourselves. As the honeymoon went on, my wife’s discomfort during attempts for penetration continued for the entirety of the honeymoon. I knew that this kind of thing was normal and so I placed no pressure on my wife to penetrate. She was having a difficult time with it already so I did not make things more emotionally challenging for her. At that time I thought that this was just a phase and if we continued to try this would be over soon. After two months into the marriage and consistent efforts to make progress and we still had not consummated our marriage. At this point, my wife was very frustrated and I was rather discouraged. My wife shared this issue with some friends of hers and after some research, we went to go see a gynecologist. During the doctor’s visit, the doctor asked my wife some questions and performed an external examination. My wife was unable to achieve satisfactory progress during the examination. When my wife went to another doctor that her friend recommended to her she achieved satisfactory progress. That doctor recommended that my wife continue to do stretching and use the dilators while we make efforts to penetrate.

After a few weeks of that routine and virtually no progress, I mentally gave up. While my wife still wanted to make efforts it was difficult for me to watch her put herself through the rigor of the stretching and hours of the dialators every week; therefore, I told my wife that penetration would happen when the time was right and resigned to seek sexual satisfaction in other ways. A year and a half went by as we got used to no penetration and really not talking about it much then my wife decided that she needed a pap smear because she had never gotten one before. When it was apparent that she was unable to dialate for the procedure, she was referred back to the gynecologist for pelvic examinations and therapy. At that point, we had been married for 2 years and we resumed attempts to penetrate with no success at all and resorted back to others ways of satisfaction.

To make a long story short, my wife and I went through a very difficult marital situation for the past two years and now we are making attempts to reconcile and nearing our 4th anniversary. I have now realized that I should not have given up earlier as I did and if we are going to overcome this, it is important that I am as supportive as possible. My wife and I have been seeing a pelvic therapist and we are trying to make attempts towards achieving penetrating. We are taking it one day at a time and I am trying to be as supportive as possible.

This is our story and I am open to tips and ways to help us through this situation

[recessivegenequeen]

Hi Jonah, welcome to the forum! I’m sorry to hear about the sexual problems in your marriage and I understand how frustrating this must be for you both.

It’s hard at times not to give up when vaginismus is in the picture – as someone who dealt with it for almost 10 years before getting treatment, I can say there were long periods I felt resigned and like it would be easier to just remove the possibility of penetration from my mind. But like you, I wish I hadn’t given up so quickly many of the times I did. It sounds to me like your wife was making some amount of progress with the dilators, which is great! It’s also VERY normal for progress to be slow with dilating, even when it’s done properly. Progress can really be slowed down by not dilating every day as well – we have a lot of advice in the “dilating” section of the forums for how to do it well.

I think you’ve identified the most useful thing you can do, which is just to be supportive of your wife. And that’s something that can be done very gracefully – not by pressuring her or telling her how to do it, but reminding her of how strong she is and how much you believe in her. Having someone on this journey with her will give her so much reassurance, so being there however you can is a huge gift to her. I hope this helps!

[Sks823]

Jonah00,

Welcome to the forum, and I’m so sorry for what you and your wife have gone through and are going through. Your story is very familiar to many of us on here, including me.

I think it was sweet of you to not put so much pressure on her because you knew the pain she was going through. I think you’re right that it’s time now to continue to be encouraging and take it one day a time, now that she’s seeing a pelvic therapist and taking steps once again to be able to achieve intercourse.

I personally went at a very slow and steady pace with the dilators, and that worked for me. When going to Maze Women’s Health for dilation therapy, I tried to dilate daily. I dilated until I was comfortable with the size, then I moved up to a bigger size. I also used a lot of lube (coconut oil worked well with the dilators I used). I celebrated small victories (being able to use tampons, for example) and eventually got through all dilator sizes.

The most important step is NOT GIVING UP. There were definitely times I thought I couldn’t possibly move up in dilator size at all, but I persevered, and she can too! It might not be easy but with time and determination she can do it! Vaginismus is SO TREATABLE, it CAN BE FIXED! 🙂 Have her look through success stories on this forum if it helps!

Thanks for sharing your story and good luck!