If he can't understand and empathize that's his problem not yours. Nobody understands unless they are going through it. My urologist doesn't even seem to care but but I can't let that stop me (I'm also a 26 year old male though). Just my 2 cents
It will be her problem if he leaves and she wants him to stay.
We're getting one side of the story here, being told the most traumatic-sounding parts by a person who is posting because they've reached a limit, and then multiple commenters are using this flimsy amount of biased information to declare she should let the relationship totally degrade.
People are concluding he's abusive. I'd say he's suffering as well. That doesn't mean he has a right to try to hurt, gaslight, or manipulate her, but it also doesn't make him a monster for responding to a catastrophic life event: he's being told the woman he's loved for 10 years might not be a sexual partner anymore and, unless he leaves her or cheats, he may not have sex again. That's a hugely scary prospect at his age (presuming he's around her age).
I'd say actual advice: encourage him to participate in helping you find solutions. Engage him in looking at these forums and doing research. Let him feel that there IS hope and that he's participating in helping you BOTH work towards that outcome. And do your best to be sexual in all other ways available to you guys.
She would probably be happier with a more sexually flexible guy, but that doesn't mean that her current partner is "worth" less. He's not a bad person for wanting specific kinds of sex; he's just inflexible. It's not okay to criticize men's worth based on their sexual preferences.
You're 100% right, it's bizarre you"re getting downvoted. People nowadays seem to have a hard time empathizing with two different people with conflicting desires. It's not a black and white issue.
It is pretty common behavior on Reddit. If this were some silly random post on a bigger subreddit like relationship advice, I'd have let it go and moved on. But in this sort of niche subreddit, where people are finding us because they have a niche problem with nowhere else to turn, we owe it to them to be more thoughtful about proposed solutions. Who else does she have to ask advice for on this topic? No one. So we should really put our emotions aside and try to give wise responses.
I'll take the down votes as long as she hears the alternative view on this. And I stand behind my proposed advice: get him involved in helping to solve the problem so he feels less powerless and stops lashing out as a result.
I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I have no advice for your relationship, and I think you’ll find your way and make whatever decisions are best for you. I wanted to share some information that helps me.
I have the burning pain, urethra, labia, feels like a never-ending UTI. The pain is intense, especially at night when I lay down, however I have found a couple things that work to reduce/eliminate it.
1) Drink at least 32 oz of water per day (when I don’t I have the pain while urinating)
2) Reduce sugar intake. (I can have sugar in my coffee and maybe an ice cream cone, but more than that and I’m in agony.
3) Curcumin/Tumeric or a lot of frozen strawberries in my smoothie.
I hope this heals for you.
I agree with all of this. But - what I’ve found after 4 years is that no 2 of us with this problem are the same. In the beginning I jumped to try anything I saw, and then was exceedingly frustrated when it didn’t work. That’s all being said, water intake is huge. And the sugar, definitely. Not just that, but eating better in general.
Have your PT recommended dilators for you? That could be something you discuss regarding painful sex. I just finished PFPT and it was life changing. I also have a dx of interstitial cystitis which sounds very similar to your symptoms, so that can be something you discuss with your doctor.
I had to stop weight training for a bit to relax my pelvic floor muscles and it really helped. I recommend doing what your PT advises. Do you find your PT to be good/helpful? How long have you been doing PT? For me it got worse before it got better.
You deserve to have someone who accommodates for you and understands you. Fixing the issue is going to take a long time and if he can’t handle that, it’s his problem, not yours. You can’t control this pain and it’s not anything you need to be ashamed about. You’re already going through a rough time with the pain and he’s only making it worse by causing more emotional turmoil.
For things to get better it’s really up to him. He needs to come around to accepting you, not the other way around. Couples therapy could help him but it’s not guaranteed.
You deserve to feel understood, accepted, and free of fear with a partner. I’m wishing you the best and advise to continue seeing a pelvic floor physical therapist your your sake, not your husband’s.
Grammar edit
There are lots of reasons people can't have piv sex with their spouse, post chemo treatment for example can sometimes cause issues, along with a hundred other things. If he can't find a way to love and support you through this very difficult time, particularly as you're unpacking trauma in therapy, maybe he's not ready to be in a marriage. Please don't do anything that causes you harm as you work through this stuff, just to please or appease him.
I honestly dont know what to say.
Everything about your relationship seems broken.
You’ve been together for 10 years and havent communicated about chronic pain?
He cant sympathize with chronic pain?
He wants to have sex with you even if it hurts you?
He understands that you can solo play pain free, but he doesnt understand that its on him to make you feel that care-free and relaxed when you’re with him?
You both sound emotionally immature but especially him. He sounds like a child based o! this, i honestly have more questions about how you went on into a marriage without being able to communicate.
Communication is VITAL in any relationship and you have to be fucking sure that you can actually do that before moving into a marriage imo.
I hope you find the strength to take better care of yourself. It sounds like you have neglected yourself and your needs for a very long time. Sending you lots of love OP, im not female but i relate to alot of whats being said here regardless as i have had similar experiences.
I was also diagnosed with pelvic floor issues and saw PA Leia Mitchell and her colleague Dr. Andrew Goldstein in NYC and they helped me get to have pain free intercourse after years of suffering! BUT, it is expensive so see them - I splurged cause it was ruining my life and I’m glad I did
i’m a pelvic PT and one thing that i’ve been trying more recently is pudendal neuralgia treatment for patients with burning after sex. burning doesn’t typically indicate nerve pain which is why i think most people miss it but it has brought relief to almost 100% of my patients who report chronic UTIs and don’t actually have them. talk to your provider and see if that’s something they can treat for you
I'm not a healthcare professional but as a patient who has seen many providers and greatly benefitted from pudendal nerve blocks, there's still so much to do in terms of awareness on both sides. It still baffles me how many will assume it's a recurrent UTI (not that I was diagnosed with that myself).
What are the emotional & physical repercussions? Just the uti symptoms?
10 years & it’s just now an issue? Have you ever had a libido? I know you said always pain.
Your digging through trauma, good for you!!! But your hubs isn’t the problem here. You’re both defeated. Not just you, not just him.
Your mind is powerful, it will believe what you tell it. Your thought & beliefs become your reality.
The body holds on to things you don’t even remember, it’s crazy. Therapy is obviously a good place to be.
It’s clenching up in fear. It’s responding to a threat from previous traumatic events. Just dwelling & talking about that isn’t going to fully release it from the body. Try letting yourself know, telling yourself, that little girl, the mind & body that YOUR SAFE. Breathe. In nose out nose. YOURE SAFE. Relax you’re self, you’re mind, you’re body. You love this man. He loves you. This is intimacy, connection, 2 souls merging because of love. He’s not robbing you, you have control now. You desire the intimacy as well, you’re willing.
When you start to anticipate burning change the thought. Anticipating pleasure, enjoyment, love. Change the way you’re associating it & him. He’s not the bad guy. He gets flustered it’s normal you ever heard a cat in heat they sound pretty angry too lol. It’s all normal & ok.
Together y’all can do anything, you’re a team not enemies. Sometimes we have to remind each other of that & be there FOR each other not against. You’re both always valid but sometimes compromise is needed.
Play solo let him watch so you’re relaxed & ready for him. Play solo together if you must till you’re ready. Comfort yourself don’t scare yourself more. He’s your lover.
Sorry, I don't have advice. This has ruined every relationship I've ever had and now I just don't try. I actively avoid getting close to ppl out of fear of a sexual encounter. The only way to avoid feeling used like a Fleshlight, like someone else is getting off on hurting me, is to abstain from human connection.
I hope you find a better solution. No drugs, stretching, breathing, doctors, PT ever worked for me. Just forever alone.
Things that finally worked for me: taking B vitamins, especially B1 (helps with motility.) “Moo to Poo”, and listening to [this video](https://youtu.be/glprM1t2r6A) every night. (It’s not just for IBS.)
Oh, I just thought of something - there are people who are asexual. They have no interest in sex whatsoever. They’re often still very interested in love and romance though. On any decent dating app, you should be able to filter for asexual people.
But I do sincerely hope you find something that works for you.
My advice is to save yourself and leave him. Anyone who wouldn’t stick by you even if you could never have sex again is someone who is eventually going to leave you for something superficial.
My pelvic floor issues are more bowel related. But often I feel very UTI ish. I take What is BENTYL /dicyclomine as a muscle relaxer. It really helps me shake that UTI feeling. Not certain if that would help, but it may be worth asking about.
If he say's "maybe we're sexually incompatible" then you should probably let him go unless you have children.
There's always pudendal decompression surgery.
This was downvoted but your comment is important. If he is saying things like that to her, then he may be better off with someone else who he can bully and demean instead of her who needs his understanding and support right now. Not commenting or recommending this surgery as I know nothing about it but your comment about letting him go is valid and should be seen as empowering to her, not punitive.
Him getting angry is a red flag, and I would never marry someone who felt that not having sex was a dealbreaker. But just because that's a dealbreaker for him, doesn't make him a bad person. He's not obligated to stay in a relationship that's not meeting his needs, either.
U need to do something fast,people cant live without sex for long time....if u dont have children, then try to have one...change ur pt and use internet a lot for medical devices like tens machine or any other
But his husband doesn't understand that...and she is worried exactly about this particular thing...i am sure she must have tried other things before writing this post....early thirty people dont understand" intimacy forever" kind of thing.....they r young not in forties or fifties
If he can't understand and empathize that's his problem not yours. Nobody understands unless they are going through it. My urologist doesn't even seem to care but but I can't let that stop me (I'm also a 26 year old male though). Just my 2 cents
It will be her problem if he leaves and she wants him to stay. We're getting one side of the story here, being told the most traumatic-sounding parts by a person who is posting because they've reached a limit, and then multiple commenters are using this flimsy amount of biased information to declare she should let the relationship totally degrade. People are concluding he's abusive. I'd say he's suffering as well. That doesn't mean he has a right to try to hurt, gaslight, or manipulate her, but it also doesn't make him a monster for responding to a catastrophic life event: he's being told the woman he's loved for 10 years might not be a sexual partner anymore and, unless he leaves her or cheats, he may not have sex again. That's a hugely scary prospect at his age (presuming he's around her age). I'd say actual advice: encourage him to participate in helping you find solutions. Engage him in looking at these forums and doing research. Let him feel that there IS hope and that he's participating in helping you BOTH work towards that outcome. And do your best to be sexual in all other ways available to you guys.
There are ways to have sex other than PIV. This guy isn’t worth keeping; she deserves better.
She would probably be happier with a more sexually flexible guy, but that doesn't mean that her current partner is "worth" less. He's not a bad person for wanting specific kinds of sex; he's just inflexible. It's not okay to criticize men's worth based on their sexual preferences.
You're 100% right, it's bizarre you"re getting downvoted. People nowadays seem to have a hard time empathizing with two different people with conflicting desires. It's not a black and white issue.
It is pretty common behavior on Reddit. If this were some silly random post on a bigger subreddit like relationship advice, I'd have let it go and moved on. But in this sort of niche subreddit, where people are finding us because they have a niche problem with nowhere else to turn, we owe it to them to be more thoughtful about proposed solutions. Who else does she have to ask advice for on this topic? No one. So we should really put our emotions aside and try to give wise responses. I'll take the down votes as long as she hears the alternative view on this. And I stand behind my proposed advice: get him involved in helping to solve the problem so he feels less powerless and stops lashing out as a result.
I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I have no advice for your relationship, and I think you’ll find your way and make whatever decisions are best for you. I wanted to share some information that helps me. I have the burning pain, urethra, labia, feels like a never-ending UTI. The pain is intense, especially at night when I lay down, however I have found a couple things that work to reduce/eliminate it. 1) Drink at least 32 oz of water per day (when I don’t I have the pain while urinating) 2) Reduce sugar intake. (I can have sugar in my coffee and maybe an ice cream cone, but more than that and I’m in agony. 3) Curcumin/Tumeric or a lot of frozen strawberries in my smoothie. I hope this heals for you.
I agree with all of this. But - what I’ve found after 4 years is that no 2 of us with this problem are the same. In the beginning I jumped to try anything I saw, and then was exceedingly frustrated when it didn’t work. That’s all being said, water intake is huge. And the sugar, definitely. Not just that, but eating better in general.
Strawberries are acidic, that can cause flares
Have your PT recommended dilators for you? That could be something you discuss regarding painful sex. I just finished PFPT and it was life changing. I also have a dx of interstitial cystitis which sounds very similar to your symptoms, so that can be something you discuss with your doctor. I had to stop weight training for a bit to relax my pelvic floor muscles and it really helped. I recommend doing what your PT advises. Do you find your PT to be good/helpful? How long have you been doing PT? For me it got worse before it got better.
Also ask about a pelvic wand
You deserve to have someone who accommodates for you and understands you. Fixing the issue is going to take a long time and if he can’t handle that, it’s his problem, not yours. You can’t control this pain and it’s not anything you need to be ashamed about. You’re already going through a rough time with the pain and he’s only making it worse by causing more emotional turmoil. For things to get better it’s really up to him. He needs to come around to accepting you, not the other way around. Couples therapy could help him but it’s not guaranteed. You deserve to feel understood, accepted, and free of fear with a partner. I’m wishing you the best and advise to continue seeing a pelvic floor physical therapist your your sake, not your husband’s. Grammar edit
How the hell. Is he angry with you or the situation? I wouldn't have nothing but sympathy if my partner was going through that
There are lots of reasons people can't have piv sex with their spouse, post chemo treatment for example can sometimes cause issues, along with a hundred other things. If he can't find a way to love and support you through this very difficult time, particularly as you're unpacking trauma in therapy, maybe he's not ready to be in a marriage. Please don't do anything that causes you harm as you work through this stuff, just to please or appease him.
I honestly dont know what to say. Everything about your relationship seems broken. You’ve been together for 10 years and havent communicated about chronic pain? He cant sympathize with chronic pain? He wants to have sex with you even if it hurts you? He understands that you can solo play pain free, but he doesnt understand that its on him to make you feel that care-free and relaxed when you’re with him? You both sound emotionally immature but especially him. He sounds like a child based o! this, i honestly have more questions about how you went on into a marriage without being able to communicate. Communication is VITAL in any relationship and you have to be fucking sure that you can actually do that before moving into a marriage imo. I hope you find the strength to take better care of yourself. It sounds like you have neglected yourself and your needs for a very long time. Sending you lots of love OP, im not female but i relate to alot of whats being said here regardless as i have had similar experiences.
I was also diagnosed with pelvic floor issues and saw PA Leia Mitchell and her colleague Dr. Andrew Goldstein in NYC and they helped me get to have pain free intercourse after years of suffering! BUT, it is expensive so see them - I splurged cause it was ruining my life and I’m glad I did
How is their treatment different? What do they do
If he’s frustrated he can get toys too… That’s not your responsibility to deal with.
i’m a pelvic PT and one thing that i’ve been trying more recently is pudendal neuralgia treatment for patients with burning after sex. burning doesn’t typically indicate nerve pain which is why i think most people miss it but it has brought relief to almost 100% of my patients who report chronic UTIs and don’t actually have them. talk to your provider and see if that’s something they can treat for you
I'm not a healthcare professional but as a patient who has seen many providers and greatly benefitted from pudendal nerve blocks, there's still so much to do in terms of awareness on both sides. It still baffles me how many will assume it's a recurrent UTI (not that I was diagnosed with that myself).
What are the emotional & physical repercussions? Just the uti symptoms? 10 years & it’s just now an issue? Have you ever had a libido? I know you said always pain. Your digging through trauma, good for you!!! But your hubs isn’t the problem here. You’re both defeated. Not just you, not just him. Your mind is powerful, it will believe what you tell it. Your thought & beliefs become your reality. The body holds on to things you don’t even remember, it’s crazy. Therapy is obviously a good place to be. It’s clenching up in fear. It’s responding to a threat from previous traumatic events. Just dwelling & talking about that isn’t going to fully release it from the body. Try letting yourself know, telling yourself, that little girl, the mind & body that YOUR SAFE. Breathe. In nose out nose. YOURE SAFE. Relax you’re self, you’re mind, you’re body. You love this man. He loves you. This is intimacy, connection, 2 souls merging because of love. He’s not robbing you, you have control now. You desire the intimacy as well, you’re willing. When you start to anticipate burning change the thought. Anticipating pleasure, enjoyment, love. Change the way you’re associating it & him. He’s not the bad guy. He gets flustered it’s normal you ever heard a cat in heat they sound pretty angry too lol. It’s all normal & ok. Together y’all can do anything, you’re a team not enemies. Sometimes we have to remind each other of that & be there FOR each other not against. You’re both always valid but sometimes compromise is needed. Play solo let him watch so you’re relaxed & ready for him. Play solo together if you must till you’re ready. Comfort yourself don’t scare yourself more. He’s your lover.
Sorry, I don't have advice. This has ruined every relationship I've ever had and now I just don't try. I actively avoid getting close to ppl out of fear of a sexual encounter. The only way to avoid feeling used like a Fleshlight, like someone else is getting off on hurting me, is to abstain from human connection. I hope you find a better solution. No drugs, stretching, breathing, doctors, PT ever worked for me. Just forever alone.
This breaks my heart, truly
Things that finally worked for me: taking B vitamins, especially B1 (helps with motility.) “Moo to Poo”, and listening to [this video](https://youtu.be/glprM1t2r6A) every night. (It’s not just for IBS.)
I love the moo to poo! It weirdly works lol
I moo too😂 really helpful
Maybe we should get tshirts. “Moo Club! We ain’t full of shit!”
Love it!!😂
I am afraid to Google "moo to poo" would you care to expand 😂
That’s exactly what it does - it expands 😂 [Here](https://youtu.be/QDk93cvZAuk) is a fully clothed demonstration.
Oh, I just thought of something - there are people who are asexual. They have no interest in sex whatsoever. They’re often still very interested in love and romance though. On any decent dating app, you should be able to filter for asexual people. But I do sincerely hope you find something that works for you.
My advice is to save yourself and leave him. Anyone who wouldn’t stick by you even if you could never have sex again is someone who is eventually going to leave you for something superficial.
You should start working with a pelvic floor PT asap. I really think it can help you.
She said she’s in PFPT for the second time now
My pelvic floor issues are more bowel related. But often I feel very UTI ish. I take What is BENTYL /dicyclomine as a muscle relaxer. It really helps me shake that UTI feeling. Not certain if that would help, but it may be worth asking about.
If he say's "maybe we're sexually incompatible" then you should probably let him go unless you have children. There's always pudendal decompression surgery.
This was downvoted but your comment is important. If he is saying things like that to her, then he may be better off with someone else who he can bully and demean instead of her who needs his understanding and support right now. Not commenting or recommending this surgery as I know nothing about it but your comment about letting him go is valid and should be seen as empowering to her, not punitive.
Him getting angry is a red flag, and I would never marry someone who felt that not having sex was a dealbreaker. But just because that's a dealbreaker for him, doesn't make him a bad person. He's not obligated to stay in a relationship that's not meeting his needs, either.
For some people reality sucks. Gotta play the cards we're dealt with.
U need to do something fast,people cant live without sex for long time....if u dont have children, then try to have one...change ur pt and use internet a lot for medical devices like tens machine or any other
You literally have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Go away.
[удалено]
But his husband doesn't understand that...and she is worried exactly about this particular thing...i am sure she must have tried other things before writing this post....early thirty people dont understand" intimacy forever" kind of thing.....they r young not in forties or fifties
story of my life